QuickBooks® can be a valuable tool to help your business keep track of daily operations. Our Quickbooks team prefers the flexibility and functionality of QuickBooks Online, however all versions of QuickBooks can offer benefits for your company. Here are some pros and cons to help you decide if QuickBooks is right for you.
QuickBooks Pros:
- Ease of use- Quickbooks is easy to learn and use, even for people without an accounting background
- Reporting- customizable reports are very effective for users, i.e. Managers, BOD, owners, accountants
- Cloud- With QuickBooks Online, it’s easy for you to use QuickBooks from anywhere you have an internet connection since everything is saved on the cloud. It is also useful for accountants when needing to prepare financial statements or tax returns
- Downloadable content- You can download transactions straight from the bank into the QuickBooks software
- Makes Payroll easy, i.e. lets you submit payroll deposits, tax forms, employee forms. Calculates deductions and books the payroll item into the correct accounts.
- Search-Easily search for transactions or invoices, by amount, date, vendor or customer
- Cost- QuickBooks is affordable for every type of company
Cons:
- Some software may be better able to manage companies in different industries, for example, Job costing in QuickBooks can be complicated and done better in other accounting software.
- Lack of customer support from Quickbooks
- Lack of year to year integration- cannot go from newer year to older year, which requires all users to have the same version
- File size-The file sizes tend to be quite large and may need external or server drives to house backups
- The Conversion from Desktop version to online has not yet been perfected
No matter which Quickbooks version you choose, it is important to set aside plenty of time to set up your QuickBooks correctly. QuickBooks will walk you through the steps. One error people often make is that they are too eager to begin inputting financial data, and the initial set up for the company is not complete.
Our Quickbooks experts at Williams, Steinert, Mask are available to help you learn and manage your new or existing Quickbooks accounts. If we can be of service, please let us know.