Pros & Cons of QuickBooks Online
The importance of keeping up-to-date and clean books cannot be overstated. Businesses need to look at more than their bank account as a benchmark for results of operations. Modern technology has created shortcuts to accomplish this goal at a relatively low cost.
Nearly everyone has heard of QuickBooks, the accounting software from the company Intuit. It provides an all-in-one enterprise solution for small businesses. Invoicing, entering bills, online banking, processing credit card payments, preparing financial statements, and much more. For $15 a month, small business owners get a lot of bang for their buck.
The following are pros of QuickBooks Online:
- Access anywhere, anytime you like
- Online Banking, processing credit card payments
- Works great with third party apps
- No software to install or upgrade
The following are cons of QuickBooks Online:
- Intuit payroll is very difficult to use
- Tracking inventory is difficult
- No project management features
- Must have internet to access
If you are a small business, QuickBooks Online is the prefect tool for you. Despite the cons, there are plugins or ways to get around them. For example, if your business requires an inventory management system, QuickBooks offers a plugin such as FishBowl for tracking inventory. On the payroll front, I recommend to my clients that they use a payroll provider such as ADP or Paychex in order to facility their payroll.
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act relaxed the requirements of cash basis taxpayers and inventory management in 2018. Businesses that have annual gross receipts of under $25 million are now able to use the cash method of accounting and are not required to track inventory. Thus, QuickBooks Online is going to be seeing more and more users. If you are a small business owner and on the fence whether or not to use QuickBooks Online in your business, this CPA fully recommends to use QuickBooks Online.