QuickBooks Online is an accounting software developed by Intuit. QuickBooks generally provides services to small businesses and medium-sized businesses that keep everything organized in one place. It is a cloud-based application that accepts business payments, pay and manage bills, and payroll functions. It comes with a centralized dashboard that enables users to gain insights into business trends and organizational performance.
QuickBooks Online was launched in 2004 and since then it comes with several great features that keep on adding with the up-gradation of the software. This software offers some very robust features like strong accounting, online payroll, attractive invoices, many integrations, and other unique features as well. Some of the QBO features are mentioned below:
QuickBooks Online Features
Income and Expenses:
- It can track income and expenses from your Bank, Credit card, Paypal, Square, and more.
- QuickBooks Online can automatically sort transactions into tax categories.
- It creates snaps of your receipts and automatically matches them to existing expenses.
Invoicing and Payments:
- Send and import invoices at once with batch invoicing feature.
- Create partial invoices, track invoice status, and send payment reminders.
- Accepts various online modes of payments like a credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers.
Tax Deductions:
Helps you to maximize tax deductions by sorting business expenses into the right tax categories to get more than you earn. It also shares your books with your accountant and exports essential documents.
Reporting:
Helps you to create customized reports to get important insights and avoid surprises by keeping track of cash flow and reporting.
Track Miles:
Track mileage automatically by detecting the phone’s location or you can also add a trip manually. Categories personal and business trips with a swipe feature and break down miles and potential deductions.
Add a Live Bookkeeper:
Get matched with a certified online bookkeeper who understands your business and has experience in your industry. They’ll manage and maintain your books with guaranteed accuracy. You can connect virtually with your Bookkeeper.
Manage Bills and Pay Workers:
It simplifies the payable process with automation and accuracy by creating recurring payments and pay multiple vendors at the same time. Tracking bill status and payment records are also easy.
There is an option of auto-payroll which, after an initial setup, runs automatically and calculates the federal and state payroll and pay automatically.
Inventory:
This feature helps you to track products and the cost of goods. It will also notify you when there is less stock in the inventory. We can easily create purchase orders and manage vendors.
Track Sales and Sales Tax:
With this feature, mobile card readers help to accept credit cards anywhere. Also, automatic tax calculation on your invoices.
Track Time:
Tracking time is one of the best features in this software which lets you track your billable hours by client or employee. And also automatically add them to invoices. It provides protected hours to the employees to access in their time only.
Track Project Profitability:
QuickBooks Online can help you know the exact amount of your project. This will help you to track project details like labor costs, expenses, and income.
QuickBook Online is easy to use and because it is a cloud-based software. QBO works anywhere as long as you have an internet connection
Pros and Cons of QuickBook Online
Pros:
- Since it is cloud-based software it can work anywhere.
- QBO is easier to use than QBD.
- Comes with very strong features.
- It also has a built-in lending feature.
- 500+ integrations.
- Monthly pricing
Cons:
- The customer support is quite disappointing.
- QBO is more expensive than other products of SMB.
- The features of QBO are less as compared to that of QBD.
- There are no sales orders.
Other Useful Resources:
How to Get QuickBooks Online Company ID
QuickBook Online Versions
QuickBook Online offers five different versions with different features and prices according to it. These different versions are:
QuickBooks Online Simple Start
This version is best for small service businesses who want to track their income and expenses, assets, and liabilities. In this version, only one user can access the software dashboard.
Price – The price for this version is $12.50 per month.
QuickBooks Online Essentials
This version is best for small service businesses who want to assign billable hours to customers and track bills due. In this version, up to three users can access the software dashboard.
Price – The price for this version is $20 per month.
QuickBooks Online Plus
This version is best for retailers, wholesalers, contractors, and other small businesses who require inventory tracking, job costing, and budgeting. In this version, up to five users can access the software dashboard.
Price – The price for this version is $35 per month.
QuickBooks Online Advance
QuickBooks Online Advanced version is best for small and midsize businesses who want more detailed reporting with custom user permissions. This comes with a dedicated support manager. In this version, up to 25 users can access the software dashboard.
Price – The price for this version is $75 per month.
QuickBooks Online Self Employed
This version is best for small service business owners who report business income on Schedule C of their personal tax return and have no employees.
Price – The price for this version is $7.50 per month.
Advantages of QuickBooks Online:
The QBO has a clean and streamlined interface that helps you to focus on key performance activities. The community factor is also a good feature that makes QBO different. Because when you log in to the QBO dashboard it has a widget of a discussion forum where you can read the answers to questions asked by others. You will get the advantage of offsite data backup. The payment is also low and recurring monthly instead of a software license fee upfront.
Customer Service and Support:
There are multiple support resources that QuickBooks offer. If you want any help or you have any query you can contact the company via phone or live chat. A community forum is also a place where you can ask questions from the knowledgebase of the company.
Also, there are tutorial classes and webinars, and also training classes in which you can enroll easily. The new features about the software and upgrade software details are shared on the company’s blog every month.
QuickBooks also provides in-person assistance to local certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors. So the ProAdvisor can help you with using the software for your business.
Conclusion:
At last, I will conclude that QuickBook Online is completely robust accounting software, used by business owners from small to medium-sized businesses. This software has many advantages. But, most importantly the online feature made the users fall in love with the software as you can use the software anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.
This software is also good for businesses with a distributed workforce. It can be used by up to 3 users simultaneously and up to 25 users with additional fees so that you can give protected hours to the employees.