
Vendor:
Founded:
Headquarters:
Intuit Inc.
1983
Mountain View, CA
Customers:
Deployment Model:
Free Trial:
50 million+
Cloud, On-Premise
Yes
QuickBooks At A Glance
Product Overview
QuickBooks is a robust accounting solution that enables businesses to lessen the effort and time they put into routine accounting tasks. Integrated tools help with drafting invoices, reconciling bank records, monitoring financial reports and tracking expenses. In addition, it allows users to import data from third-party apps, such as American Express, Square and PayPal, making it convenient to record and categorize all incoming and outgoing transactions.
QuickBooks offers both an online and on-premise version of its software.
QuickBooks Online lists four plans for self-employed consultants and companies: Self-Employed, Simple Start, Plus and Advanced. Each plan allows users to accept payments, send invoices, run reports and track income, expenses and miles.
In contrast, the on-premise version – QuickBooks Desktop – lists two plans: Premier and Enterprise. These desktop plans offer similar features to the cloud-based version of QuickBooks, plus add-on features like 24/7 support, upgrades and data backups (with each add-on requiring a separate fee payment).
Features
Here are several key features of the QuickBooks Online & QuickBooks Desktop solutions:
- Income & Expense Tracking: Transactions are sorted into tax categories. Users edit or approve them, and QuickBooks learns from users’ actions over time. In addition, the tool allows users to create custom rules for how they want to categorize expenses.
- Bill Management: This feature allows users to easily record and track bills they’ve cleared by direct deposit or check, set up recurring bills and automate purchase orders by creating customized rules. Moreover, users get the option to sync the software with Apple Pay and other third-party apps for easy invoicing and payments.
- Comprehensive Reporting: QuickBooks lets users see how their businesses are doing through their profit-and-loss ledger, balance sheet and dashboard. In addition, users can create custom reports based on current trends to give potential investors the financial info they need to inject money into their businesses.
- Invoicing & Payments: This feature enables users to automatically match payments to invoices, send payment reminders and track invoice status. Additionally, QuickBooks users get the option to create custom invoices with their logo that they can send from any device.
Target Market
QuickBooks is intended for small to medium-sized companies and large enterprises in a variety of industries. Here’s a list of prominent customers:
- Dental Solutions
- University of Phoenix
- Express Services, Inc.
- Academy of Self Defense
- Skyline Clean
- Dang Foods
- Mountain View General Store
- ACI Alloys, Inc.
- Beyond Beaute Day Spa
- Greenbelt Land Trust
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Implementation/Integration
QuickBooks provides both cloud-based and on-premise solutions. Users can access QuickBooks Online via PC, Mac, smartphone and tablet. The Desktop version is available for both PC and Mac.
Customer Service & Support
QuickBooks users get access to a wide range of tutorials and resources that will equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge to get the most out of the software. QuickBooks also offers free webinars and training classes with a QuickBooks expert that include a money-back guarantee.
Users can get in touch with QuickBooks representatives via online chat, email or phone. Lastly, QuickBooks has an active community where QuickBooks veterans and other users provide answers to questions.
Pricing
QuickBooks Online offers four pricing tiers with monthly subscriptions.
QuickBooks Online
- Simple Start: $30 per month ($15 per month for first three months)
Allows users to track income and expense, track sales and sales tax, send invoices, accept payments, estimate quarterly taxes, manage 1099 contracts and run reports.
- Essentials: $55 per month ($27.50 per month for first three months)
Has all the features of the Simple Start plan, plus bill payments and time tracking. It also accommodates up to three users.
- Plus: $85 per month ($42.50 per month for first three months)
Has all the features of the Essentials plan, plus project tracking and inventory tracking capabilities. It also accommodates up to five users.
- Advanced: $200 per month ($100 per month for three months)
Has all the features of the Plus plan, plus business intelligence, batch invoices, customized access by role, a dedicated account team, on-demand online training, automated workflows, exclusive Premium Apps and the ability to restore company data. It also accommodates up to 25 users.
Users also get an option to add Payroll Core for $22.50 per month (for first three months) and an additional $5 per employee, per month, Payroll Premium for $37.50 per month (for first three months) and an additional $8 per employee, per month or Payroll Elite for $62.50 per month (for first three months) and an additional $10 per employee, per month.
There’s a Self-Employed plan that costs $15 per month ($7.50 per month for the first three months) for freelancers or other self-employed individuals. It includes tracking income and expenses, tracking automatic mileage, invoicing and accepting payments, capturing receipts, running basic reports and automatic quarterly tax estimate calculations.
For those who want to test the software’s capabilities before making a purchase, QuickBooks offers a free 30-day trial. Also, the vendor offers a guided setup service with a QuickBooks-certified bookkeeper for $50 per session.
For desktop users, there are two products with an annual subscription license. QuickBooks Premier Plus starts at $799 per year and accommodates up to five users. It includes many features, such as invoicing, expense management, tax deductions, reports, the ability to pay 1099 contractors, sales tax, time tracking and inventory management.
QuickBooks Enterprise’s annual subscription license starts at $1,410 and accommodates up to 40 users. It adds on advanced inventory management features, payroll, an optional cloud hosting service, workflow automation and a dedicated account team.

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QuickBooks users have complained about the lack of functionality and flexibility in inserting transactions from bank feeds. Some users stated they had to visit a transaction twice to get all the data and coding in the correct order.
Also, there’s no way to sync QuickBooks Online with QuickBooks Desktop or the other way around. This makes it difficult for growing businesses who’ve been using QuickBooks Online to adapt to QuickBooks Desktop quickly.
Screenshots
About
QuickBooks is the creation of Intuit, a company founded by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in 1983. Intuit’s first software, Quicken, didn’t have the capability to serve as a double-entry accounting package. The initial version of QuickBooks was introduced in DOS form and was based on the codebase of Quicken. Today, the company’s portfolio of products includes TurboTax, Mint and more.
Intuit serves 50 million customers in the U.S., Europe, North America, Brazil, India and Australia, with a revenue of $7.7 billion in 2020. It has over 10,000 employees in offices all across the world. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
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