We use QuickBooks Online for our day-to-day accounting of sales, expenses, fixed assets and cash. The system is a great out of the box ready tool that any organization can use, however, the functionality and simplicity of it makes it more geared towards businesses that are startup in nature or organizations with very little to no technical complex accounting.
Pros
Cash Management
Basic Financial Statement Reporting
Billing
Cons
More robust options to mass update vendors, customers, journals, etc.
Customer support
Billing functionality
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Online is best suited for startups, partnerships, small businesses with a small number of employees, etc. QuickBooks Online is not suitable for organizations with complex accounting, rapid change and multi-entity structured businesses.
As a small business owner, QuickBooks Online has been extremely helpful with issuing, tracking, and receiving payment for invoices; keeping up with compliance with payroll and taxes, as well as providing insightful business reports that track year-over-year progress. When tax season rolls around, this has been very helpful when working with my accountant, as all the information is readily available and eliminates any guesswork/memory jogging of expenses and receipts throughout the year.
Pros
Payroll.
Taxes
Tracking of expenses.
Tracking of invoices.
Cons
Forms that insurance may require.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are an SMB owner, it really makes sense to have an online resource that covers all of the essentials for keeping your business running smoothly. From payroll to taxes, receipts, invoices, and reports, it's all in there. Have found this to be an indispensable tool that helps me focus more time on running my business.
VU
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Sales (Telecommunications company, 1-10 employees)
As the managing attorney of a small law firm, I've implemented QuickBooks Online to streamline financial operations.
We use QuickBooks Online daily for client billing and expense tracking. The platform handles invoicing and expense categorization and provides real-time financial visibility. QuickBooks Online has simplified client billing: the customizable invoicing system tracks billable hours and retainers efficiently, reducing billing administration time by an estimated 40%. For small law firms balancing billable hours with practice management, QuickBooks Online provides the financial clarity and efficiency needed to focus more on client representation and less on administrative tasks.
Pros
Custom Invoice Templates – Allows us to create professional, branded invoices with detailed time entries and expense itemization.
Integrated Payment Processing – Clients can pay invoices online with credit cards or ACH transfers, which has reduced our average collection time and virtually eliminated paper check processing.
Cons
Generating reports could be easier or explained better.
Likelihood to Recommend
Multi-Attorney Billing Coordination – When three attorneys collaborated on a case, QuickBooks Online tracked their individual billable hours and expenses seamlessly. The system automatically generated a comprehensive invoice showing each attorney's contribution while maintaining the firm's uniform billing format.
VU
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Professional Services (Writing & Editing company, 1-10 employees)
Our company does all of our accounts receivable and accounts payable through QuickBooks Online. It keeps everything in once place and is easy to search, organize, and generate necessary reports for our business.
Pros
Store vendors in a database. All pertinent information, notes, etc.
Create and send invoices to customers that can include attachments and personalized emails
Keeps track of when bills and invoices are due.
Generates any type of financial report you may need.
Cons
Sometimes when it matches up dollar amounts with transactions it gets it wrong, which can be a big issue.
Likelihood to Recommend
Now that you can make vendor payments directly from QuickBooks Online it has eliminated the need for a 3rd party payment system or hardcopy checks.
We are a SAAS business that uses QuickBooks Online for our accounting. It allows us flexibility with how we charge our customers and also streamlines how those products flow into our charter of accounts for reporting. We've also used the invoicing tool to collect credit card payments for our smaller customers, and it also allows us to auto invoice them based on custom payment plans.
Pros
Invoicing & Scheduling Payment plans
Expense reporting
Payroll for salaried employees
Financial Reporting although it is generic and not SAAS based
Cons
SAAS based revenue reporting
Different payment collection options such as ACH for CAD - US transfer
Subscription based pricing and ability to auto charge customers on renewal.
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Online is a good tool for small businesses that are just starting out and in the process of scaling their business. This allows them to easily pull basic financial reports, process payroll, and log expenses in one easy place. Where it falls short is in the customization aspect and the ability for companies like ours (Software subscriptions), to bill their customers in a subscription model.
We utilize QBO for day to day bookkeeping, invoicing, etc.
Pros
Cloud Based
Cons
Terrible Support
Features quit working without warning
Likelihood to Recommend
QBO appears to be a great product on the surface, but don't expect any help when their software glitches out. The support chat is extremely frustrating - agents don't have a clue what they are talking about and can't even comprehend a simple explanation of the issue. They often then disconnect the chat and you are left with no recourse other than to start from square 1 again. QUICKBOOKS SUPPORT IS TERRIBLE!
Our company uses QuickBooks Online for all of our billing and financial reporting. We currently have 5 active users, 4 of which are for project managers on our team, and then one account for our accountant to monitor activity for tax/accounting purposes. Primarily though, QuickBooks is used for sending out invoices for work completed.
Pros
Online access
Financial analytics
Tracking tools for sent invoices
Cons
More customization for forms.
More intuitive navigation of settings panels.
Ability for advanced users to modify coding within invoice calculation structure.
Customization for branding.
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks has long been a standard when it's come to small business accounting. Their tools work, the user interface is fairly intuitive to navigate, and it has suited the needs of our small business (11-20 employees) for the past 10 years. However, as we continue to grow and come into a greater need to control our branding, we find that QuickBooks Online often limits us in customization and branding. Plus, it just has some odds quirks in the coding of how the invoices are setup up that often requires us to "fight against the system" in order to accomplish what we want in our invoice structure.
We use QuickBooks Online at the accounting department. Overall, QuickBooks Online is a great accounting solution for the company of our size (around 150-200 employees). QuickBooks Online focuses on addressing various accounting issues of small and medium size businesses such as simplifying the process of bank reconciliation, running numerous reports used by small/medium businesses daily just in one click, and other useful features.
Pros
QuickBooks Online has a great and easy user-friendly interface.
QuickBooks Online is integrated with many other software packages through a convenient auto-sync such as accounts payable and expense reimbursement applications.
QuickBooks Online has great customer support through Intuit forums.
Cons
QuickBooks Online unfortunately doesn't have some important features such as journal entry approval workflows which are necessary at most companies for internal control purposes.
QuickBooks Online reporting feature is not very robust. QuickBooks Online has mostly basic reporting capabilities and limited functionality to customize reports.
QuickBooks Online still hasn't added some important accounting modules or capabilities that would make accountants' life easier such as automatic prepaid expense amortization and fixed asset depreciation features.
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Online is definitely a great accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses who need a basic system to keep their books. For example, QuickBooks Online is a great fit for service organizations, contractors and freelancers who need to send invoices to their customers, record basic expenses and run a couple of standard reports to assess their profitability and financial position. We use QuickBooks Online at our software startup and it's a great fit at the moment. I would not recommend QuickBooks Online to manufacturing or some businesses that have production or inventory as they might across some limitations of QuickBooks Online.
I currently work as a consultant doing accounting for small businesses and startup companies. I work as freelancer on UpWork. I help business owners transition from either their previous accounting software, QuickBooks Desktop, or Excel-based program to QuickBooks Online. As business owners grow their business, they no longer have time to do the accounting themselves so they reach out to me to do the accounting for them on a weekly or monthly basis so they can have accurate financials to see the health of their business.
Pros
Incredibly user-friendly user-interface
Intuit has created very helpful knowledge center and support to answer Accounting-related questions or how to use the software
Their report function allows to switch between cash basis and accrual basis accounting with the click of a button
They have a great network of QuickBooks Certified Professionals if business owners need to contract a professional to do the accounting
QuickBooks Online provides various features that you can add-on as your business grows and has the ability to scale as the accounting needs evolve
There are many Apps that integrate into QuickBooks, such as Shopify, Paypal, Stripe, etc.
Cons
QuickBooks allows you to design how you would your invoices to look, but the design features are somewhat limited.
I wish QuickBooks Online would allow the ability to export the trial balance to excel in a table format so I could create Pivot tables in excel. It currently is in a report format so I have to delete rows to make sure that it's in a table format
QuickBooks doesn't do a very good job of tracking inventory
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Online is because of its scalability. From a single-person business to a mid-sized company, QuickBooks Online is able to provide the necessary accounting features that your business will need as your business grows. The features are add-ons so when your you start your business, the cost to entry is very low. The software walks you through the implementation process. When your organization grows to a large-sized company, you may want to consider NetSuite or another ERP system as there are features lacking that a large organization requires.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Professional Services (Computer Software company, 1-10 employees)
We use for QuickBooks Online to run our entire Software-as-a-Service business. We use it for aspects of bookkeeping and accounting.
Pros
Remotely available to everyone who needs it without any installation required.
Integrates with 3rd party applications (we are using it in conjunction with Zoho CRM)
Allows for easy delivery of invoices and quotations via email.
Cons
Filtering lists can be be awkward
Customization of forms can be complicated
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Online is easy to use and well suited for smaller businesses. It doesn't require a lot of training, and accounting firms and bookkeepers understand how to use it. Out of the box, managing inventory can be hard.
VU
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Corporate (Computer Software company, 1-10 employees)
