If you want to track income and expense by location or track unpaid bills you’ll need QuickBooks Essentials instead. They offer a 30-day free trial without requiring a credit card.

The company has worked on updating its help centers to be more user-friendly, but wait times are still long, and there’s no email support at all. QuickBooks Desktop We recommend crunching the numbers to decide whether the online version or the desktop version of QuickBooks is right for your specific business.

For those who wish to forego the subscription, you can buy the standalone product for $649. Intuit recently made the switch to subscription pricing for its desktop applications, which are now branded as Plus plans. For example, for 2021, QuickBooks Pro Plus pricing starts at $199 for the first year, which will rise to $299 for the second year under the subscription plan. Both QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier offer beneficial features and competitive pricing plans. The Blueprint goes over the advantages of each to help you decide which is right for your business.

Product support can be accessed directly from within the application, where you can ask a question or connect to support personnel. QuickBooks Desktop features are better developed than comparable features found on QuickBooks Online.

They log in with their own ID and won’t count as one of your licensed users. QuickBooks Online wins easily when it comes to program installation because it’s cloud-based with no program to install.

These professionals will be able to give you their expert opinion and help you navigate the process of getting set up on either platform. Ultimately, only you can determine which, if either of these two QuickBooks products is right for your business. Generally, though, much of your decision will come down to two factors—cost and features. QuickBooks Self-Employed will only cost $15 a month as a default price. However, for a limited time only, you can get a discounted price. Ultimately, you’ll see many reviewers report that they’ve switched from Desktop to Online in order to access their financial data on-the-go and from multiple devices. With this in mind, however, you’ll also see a number of reviewers report that they’ve switched back to Desktop because of some of the features missing from Online.

QuickBooks Premier Plus + Payroll costs $949.99/year, although Intuit frequently offers significant discounts on this product. A QuickBooks Pro license costs $649.99on Intuit’s website. While you can purchase a QuickBooks Premier license elsewhere, Intuit is often running promotions where what are retained earnings this cost is discounted. When considering purchasing QuickBooks, there are several additional fees to be aware of. Intuit isn’t always very forthcoming with these fees and their prices, which is why we wanted to share them. A QuickBooks Pro license costs $399.99 on Intuit’s website.

Browse Specifics

To make the transfer select “Apply Credits” from the “Create Invoice” window. We’ve spent 25 years perfecting instructional design, crafting it to fit how students learn best. Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. As for switching between versions, it is pretty easy to go from Desktop to Online as I explain here. It is much more difficult to go from Online to Desktop, because QuickBooks does not provide an automated procedure to do so.

Please contact Customer Support if you’d like to disable it. With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app. Also, once the receipt is uploaded to the desktop file, it does NOT say which of my employees that the receipt came from. Nor does it show who’s email address that the receipt came from. QuickBooks Pro offers an intuitive user interface, with the main screen divided into three areas for easier navigation.

Related Software

There are several places you can go to buy a QuickBooks Desktop license. You can purchase a license through Intuit using the QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, or QuickBooks Enterprise websites. You will almost always find that QuickBooks is running a discount or promotion online. If QuickBooks Enterprise’s pricing didn’t scare you off, take the software for a spin with a free trial or read our complete QuickBooks Enterprise review for more information. These features are available in every QuickBooks Enterprise subscription.

You can access help and support from any screen in QuickBooks Desktop, easily connecting to a variety of help and support options. You can click on the yellow tab to the right of the navigation centers to see new features. QuickBooks Enterprise also offers mobile inventory barcode scanning capability as well as an enhanced pick, pack, and ship option that is perfect for retailers.

Are you sure that you are using QuickBooks 2011 Pro Plus and not just QuickBooks 2011 Pro? If you are using Pro Plus, it’s an annual subscription that includes an annual upgrade to the newest software. If you are using the subscription, you can talk to QuickBooks directly about upgrading. I’m not 100% if you’d be able to continue importing your accountant’s data from Premier to Pro.

i am lanre babatunde, a consultant for a beverage company. we use one of your products (Quickbook 2011 pro plus, but we want to upgrade from Quickbook 2011 to Quickbook 2018 pro plus.

After three years, you will need to upgrade in order for certain features including bank feeds to work properly. Xero is a cloud accounting software that users can access from any device that connected to the internet. And when you compare Xero vs. QuickBooks Online, you’ll see that most of the core accounting features are comparable. Wave also offer add-on services, some of which are free and some of which are pay-as-you-go. For instance, you’ll be able to send invoices and digitize receipts for free with Wave. On the other hand, you’ll have to pay transaction fees to add online payments and monthly payments to add payroll. If you’d like to give Quickbooks Online a try instead of Desktop, I’d recommend QuickBooks Simple Start for $25 per month with no contract, which includes unlimited customer support.

QuickBooks Desktop uses navigation centers that make it easy to find the features you need. QuickBooks Online’s dashboard feature provides a great overall summary of your business. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop applications offer a good selection of features, though QuickBooks Desktop features tend to be more comprehensive. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop both offer excellent accounting capability, but in reality are very different applications. Check out our comparison to see which one is right for you. Construction Management CoConstruct CoConstruct is easy-to-use yet feature-packed software for home builders and remodelers.

CMS A content management system software allows you to publish content, create a user-friendly web experience, and manage your audience lifecycle. Construction Management This guide will help you find some of the best construction software platforms out there, and provide everything you need to know about which solutions are best suited for your business. Desktop Pro includes more than 100 detailed reports and creates a copy of your business’ books on your desktop for easy access. If you like QB Desktop Pro, I’d recommend sticking with it if you don’t need mobile accounting. The biggest difference you’ll see when you go to purchase the latest edition is the option to purchase the “Plus” plan, which is an annual subscription.

What Quickbooks Pro Offers

Quickbooks has countless features, many I am still discovering after using it 12 fiscal years. I am not an accountant but I have done my own bookkeeping for years and found it very easy to learn. I particularly like the bulk input for transactions, which is a huge time saver. The layout editor for forms allows me to customize my invoices, estimates, and receipts. I also appreciate the customizable fields for customers in the address book, unlike some other programs.

(QuickBooks Accountant can only read files from the 3 most recent years without updating the file to a newer version.) If they have a lot of clients this can get pretty confusing for them. I recommend seeking advice from your accountant on whether you need to upgrade to the latest edition. You will continue to be able to generate an accountant’s copy and save it to a flash drive to deliver to your accountant. You won’t be able to use the QB service that allows you to electronically share the accountant’s copy file. While there is some overlap in the features available in both applications, QuickBooks Desktop offers more depth of features, along with a completely different user interface. Unless you purchase the Enterprise plan, live telephone support is limited to chat.

We wrote this post when QuickBooks Mac had been discontinued. Now that the software is back, we’ll definitely be updating this post soon! For now, you can learn more about QuickBooks Mac in our full QuickBooks Mac review.

Even after two years , I am still learning things with it. The bank export to QuickBoosk import feature most banks offer has saved me many hours of time doing monthly accounting, that alone makes it work it. As someone who used Quickbooks Online prior to using this version, Desktop Pro is definitely more advanced. It’s user-friendly; however, it’s a more established software so it’s better for companies that’s been open longer and has an accounting team. For startup businesses that’s learning about accounting, I would recommend Quickbooks Online instead.

With a QuickBooks Enterprise subscription, you automatically get Intuit Field Service management access for one user. Intuit does not disclose the cost of additional users so contact Intuit’s Field Service Management team directly for a quote. One of the biggest differences between QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier is that Quickbooks Premier offers six industry-specific versions of the software in addition to the standard version. These industry editions add customized features and reports to better fit your business needs. QuickBooks Premier’s pricing structure is the exact same as QuickBooks Pro’s. There are two options when it comes to purchasing QuickBooks Desktop Premier. You can either purchase a QuickBooks Premier license , or you can purchase an annual QuickBooks Premier subscription .

For Enterprise, the QuickBooks hosting price is around $50/mo per user. For an exact quote, contact QuickBooks Enterprise’s support team directly. A QuickBooks Desktop Pro license is good for three years, after which Intuit drops support for the product. You can still use the software after the three years are up, but the Intuit team won’t be able to help you if you have any questions or run into any issues. This license supports a single user and is locally-installed.

It’s worth noting that QuickBooks Desktop is only available on Windows operating systems. Mac users will need to look at QuickBooks for Mac for a locally-installed Mac-based QuickBooks option. QuickBooks Online is designed specifically for small businesses; however, the new QuickBooks Online Advanced plan makes the software scalable for larger businesses as well.

• Automatic data backups are included with the QuickBooks Premier Plus plan.
• You have three options when it comes to buying QuickBooks Desktop Pro .
• I’ll see you again in 3 years when Intuit sunsets my current version.
• That means if you downloaded the software onto your computer, you won’t be able to see any of his work, at least not without a workaround, Luckily there are a few options.
• Like QuickBooks Pro, an Annual Care plan for QuickBooks Premier tech support costs $299.95/year.
• With QuickBooks Desktop, users receive some of the most developed accounting tools on the market.

Here’s our post on QuickBooks Online VS what are retained earnings for a more detailed comparison. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop give the option for connecting with your bank account, but neither require it. You can still use QuickBooks Self-Employed and choose to manually import your bank statements instead of connecting directly to your bank account . Another option is to buy a QuickBooks Desktop license from a QuickBooks reseller, like Staples or OfficeMax. Retailers like Best Buy, Costco, and even Walmart often sell QuickBooks, and Amazon sells the software as well.

The tax payment functionality is very buggy and I had to start my own wiki to navigate the various menus as they are not at all intuitive. Ideally they would allow vendor bills to be entered but to delay inventory items in the system should a vendor require payment up-front before goods are shipped. The pressure to switch to the online version is ridiculous. They even removed the automatic foreign currency rate adjustments/updates in an attempt to force us to move to a new version. Lastly, be prepared to deal with a random data corruption issue every couple years. This is scary as heck when Quickbooks won’t open or reconciliation numbers are damaged and no longer add up. Support is useless helping with this but I have found tricks on my own to repair it.

Author: Kevin Roose