While human error will always play some role in security breaches, you can be confident in your accounting platform when it comes to keeping your information safe. Intuit reports that 94% of accounting professionals feel QuickBooks Online saves them time and thus saves their clients’ money. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are capable programs with strong accounting features. In contrast, QuickBooks Desktop offers hardly any payment gateways, making it difficult for the modern merchant to accept online invoice payments easily. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Pro offer a good number of helpful integrations and add-on products.

QuickBooks Online VS Desktop: Features

You don’t have to worry about losing everything in a fire or an unforeseen event. A new and improved migration process gives you even more ways to move online. Move from any version of QuickBooks Desktop, and only migrate the data that matters most to you. It’s important to note that FreshBooks is the most competitively priced software solution we found. While QuickBooks Online is only 50 cents more than Xero, note that that is the introductory cost for the first three months. QuickBooks Online goes to $30 per month after that and is easily our most expensive option.

The assisted migration offer is eligible to Desktop customers that are migrating their data and setting up QuickBooks Online. Personalized setup is limited to a 1-hour session with a customer success product expert. Intuit reserves the right to limit the number of sessions and the length and scope of each session. Assisted migration results may vary based on business complexity and file size. Terms and conditions, features, support, pricing, and service options are subject to change without notice. Terms and conditions, features, support, pricing, and service options subject to change without notice.

Compare QuickBooks Online to Desktop

At the time of our last review, pricing started at $349.99/year for a single user. All QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Desktop Premiere, Mac, and Desktop Enhanced Payroll products, excluding QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, will no longer be available to new users after September 30, 2024. Existing QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, Mac, or Enhanced Payroll users will not be impacted.

QuickBooks Contractor Payments

1. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial with QuickBooks Online.
2. No matter which version of QuickBooks Desktop you’re using, you can switch to QuickBooks Online quickly and seamlessly.
3. Add payroll to QuickBooks Online starting at $45 per month, or to Desktop starting at $50, plus $2 per employee, per month.
4. QuickBooks Online is cloud based, which means you can access your QuickBooks account anywhere you have the internet and an internet-enabled device.
5. Everything from the installation screen to the lagging UI gave me flashbacks to the 1998 dial-up tone on my family’s Pentium III computer.

Granted, you don’t have to be an accountant to learn QuickBooks Desktop either, but if you are new to accounting, you will need a lot of time to learn the program. Even though QB Desktop has more comprehensive features in general, there are some key features that only QuickBooks Online has, such as bookkeeping support. QuickBooks Online supports up to 25 users, which does fall short of the 40 users supported under QuickBooks Desktop. As you consider whether QuickBooks Desktop vs. QuickBooks Online is better for your accounting needs, keep in mind that QuickBooks Online is the more recent, up-to-date, and constantly evolving product. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop share the same basic functionality of organizing your accounting processes and automating much of the manual data entry work.

The company has updated its help centers to be more user-friendly, but there’s still no email support. Both options, however, are working to reduce long hold times on the phone by now offering a callback feature. If your business needs sales orders, QuickBooks Desktop is your only option.

While the two iterations are different in some aspects, they’re essentially the same product, and the differences between them aren’t as glaring as illinois tax calculator 2022-2023 they are with other accounting software solutions. The two iterations of QuickBooks’ accounting software shine in different areas. Whereas one is completely online and cloud-based, the other operates locally on your computer. One is sleek and modern, and the other seems to have been designed for a cubicle.

I’ve deduced that it comes down to a stubborn user base—one that refuses to let go of QuickBooks Desktop in favor of its cloud-based successor. Granted, most people agree QuickBooks Online is the better option, but the old-timer is still somehow in the running. QuickBooks might encourage its users to switch from QuickBooks Desktop to Online, but it hasn’t issued any statements about discontinuing Desktop entirely.