Quickbooks Online

I started using desktop Quickbooks back in 2000 right after I first started the company. As a single-person company at first, I got used to being in the books almost every day. As we grew we added an in-house Bookkeeper. A few years ago I relocated the company to a different area and we kept our Bookkeeper who stayed in the original area. I really missed having direct access to the numbers so last year I switch to Quickbooks Online and I love it. In addition to having direct access to the numbers I need, it has a lot of other functionality and reporting that I really like. It's also great for clients to easily pay the invoices online. It's making a night and day difference. Support has been great as well.

It's definitely very expensive to be paying a pretty high fee every month - especially compared to the desktop version where we bought it and were good for years to come. It's definitely worth it but I'd be more of an evangelist if the pricing was a little easier on the pocket book.

It is very simple to use overall. I like that i can check and work from any computer or cell phone as well. I love direct access to the numbers, easily available reports. It is great for auto billing direct from the software itself. The best part is integration with the bank account. I do not have to manually review expenses and add it.

The QBO is slow to load pages and that can be irritating at times. I initially thought that it was my internet connection but no that is not the case. While you are allowed to do a journal entry with a supplier name you cannot enter a negative invoice. There can be a greater variety in invoice format selection. A tad bit expensive.

I like the fact that I can track financial records from past years and do comparisons.

The software has glitches. If you need help, there is very little hope of ever getting your issues resolved. You will be told to email the technical people and they will respond or fix the issue. I have never had any resolution to this day and I have used Quickbooks since the 1990's. If I could switch to another program without losing all my history, I would do it in a heartbeat. I have learned to deal with the problems but am very frustrated. I have threatening letters from the IRS to intercept my returns because the full service Payroll entered a tax rate incorrectly and I have been waiting for them to resolve the issue for over a month now.

The best part of Quickbooks Online is its integration with our business bank account. Prior to QB Online we used QB desktop. We would have to manually review expenses and bank accounts to make sure everything was entered into Quickbooks correctly and would constantly come across discrepancies due to data entry errors. Now that we use Quickbooks online, we have it integrated with our business account and simply identify what category each expense belongs to. It's also easy to set a "rule" for certain expenses (for example recurring monthly charges) to automatically categorize these every month. This has saved us many hours of data entry every month which is very valuable for a small business.

It takes a little time to get used to some of the changes from Quickbooks Desktop to Quickbooks online. For instance, I have a hard time figuring out where to make manual journal entries and have to use Google to figure it out. Also, the price can be significantly higher than the desktop version depending on how you use it. Currently a desktop version for my needs without a subscription can be bought for $399. In the past I have been able to use a desktop version for several years. For example, when I switched from Desktop to QB online in early 2021, I was still succesfully using a 2018 vesrion of QB Desktop. Currently I am paying $300 every year for the online version.

I like that I can access my information while I am out on the road. It's also a bonus that it integrates with my ticking software so that I can just export the information from that and it syncs right into Quickbooks online. I also depend on the ability to input and scan expense receipts so that I don't have to do it when I get home.

The price is a little hard to swallow when coming from the desktop version of Quickbooks for so many years. Also there are some features that is in the Desktop version that hasn't been implemented yet.