What is QuickBooks? A Complete Small Business Guide

However you work, no matter what your business does, QuickBooks has a plan for you.

Meanwhile, QuickBooks Desktop is an on-premise software that needs to be installed on the computer where you’ll use it and is available as an annual subscription. For more about the differences between the two programs, read our comparison of QuickBooks Online vs QuickBooks Desktop. You have easy access to all the common financial statements like balance sheet, profit and loss (P&L) statement, cash flow statements and taxes filed. You can take a printout of these statements for your accountant and send it across to them at the time of filing or invite them to view these statements without needing a login ID or password. While setting up QuickBooks, you operation and maintenance expenses definition can connect your bank as well as credit card accounts to the software. Once done, QuickBooks tracks your bills and expenses automatically.

1. Intuit also offers a cloud service called QuickBooks Online.
2. Multi-user access – Add employees or accountants to simplify collaboration.
3. Her postgraduate degree in computer management fuels her comprehensive analysis and exploration of tech topics.

QuickBooks Contractor Payments

Get unlimited expert help as you prepare your business taxes. Or let a tax expert powered by TurboTax do your taxes for you, start to finish. QuickBooks is by far the most popular small business bookkeeping program in the US, whereas Excel is a spreadsheet program that advanced users may use to create their own custom bookkeeping program. While we don’t recommend using Excel as your base bookkeeping program, we do have a guide on how to use Excel for accounting. Our comparison of QuickBooks Online vs Excel will help you better understand the differences between the two programs.

Depending on your product and plan, you can use QuickBooks to create and send invoices, manage and track unpaid bills, handle inventory, keep track of project profitability, view financial reports, and more. Not only is QuickBooks the dominant small business accounting software on the market today, but it also offers supplementary products to augment your overall QuickBooks experience. In addition to its accounting products—QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop—these are the other solutions that can help you manage the other aspects of your business. QuickBooks, on the other hand, is a software dedicated only to accounting. It has features required specifically for accounting like income and expense tracking, payroll management, invoicing and inventory management.

What Does QuickBooks Do in Terms of Bookkeeping?

The payroll add-on calculates payroll automatically as often as you want. Three plans give your business the scalability to grow over time and add features as necessary. The Core plan offers everything a small to midsized business would need to get started, while Premium and Elite plans enable options such as same-day direct deposit and expert assistance with setup. Eric is an accounting and bookkeeping expert for Fit Small Business.

Bill and Expense Management

You can easily scan and upload receipts in real-time using the QuickBooks mobile app, so you don’t need to run helter-skelter to collect them at the time of taxes. If you want, you can also invite them to view the reports themselves and download whatever they need. With QuickBooks, it is very simple to track time as well as billable expenses incurred by employees or subcontractors. They can either enter it themselves using the QuickBooks mobile app or submit it manually and a bookkeeper on your end can enter the details in the app. With the right edition, QuickBooks delivers tremendous ROI helping small businesses manage their finances seamlessly. Just be sure to take time evaluating the features against your needs so you choose the optimal fit.

Add-on programs

Robust inventory and project management for product-based businesses. By far, the largest headache in preparing a tax return is compiling your income and expenses. If you use QuickBooks during the year, all you need to do at tax time is print your financial statements.