QuickBooks Online Plans Comparison 2024

If you’re scaling from five to 25 users and need advanced features like fixed asset accounting, then go with Advanced. QuickBooks Plus is the first tier that includes inventory tracking and project profitability features. It also allows for five users and offers greater customization features for invoices and reports. The right QuickBooks Online plan depends on the size of your business and the features you need. For example, QuickBooks Solopreneur is best for freelancers or solopreneurs, while Simple Start is ideal for small businesses wanting to track assets and liabilities. Essentials is preferable if you need to track unpaid bills, while Plus is great if you require inventory and project management.

Managing Sales and Income

Advanced also removes the limitations on the number of classes, locations, and charts of accounts, making it ideal for businesses with a growing staff. It even has a batch invoicing and expense management feature, which is ideal for those who manage a large volume of invoices and expenses daily. Retailers and wholesalers retail sales and use tax should choose Plus so that they can track the quantity on hand and the cost of inventory.

It covers up to 25 users and provides dedicated customer support and advanced reporting features. Depending on your subscription, QuickBooks Online provides advanced features, like project and inventory management, class and location tracking, and journal entries. This lesson will teach you how to use these advanced features to automate complex accounting workflows and gain deeper insights into your business’s financial performance. This covers how to create sales forms and track sales and income in QuickBooks Online. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to keep track of your credit sales by creating and emailing invoices to your customers as well as recording cash sales where no invoice is needed.

QuickBooks Plus vs QuickBooks Advanced

It is an advanced feature that lets you import and export data between QuickBooks and Microsoft Excel. You can easily generate custom reports in a single spreadsheet, create complex calculations, and use Excel’s built-in tools to work on your data. Once the data is finalized in Excel, you can easily post it back to QuickBooks Online Advanced. Batch expensing allows you to record and categorize multiple expenses at once instead of entering them individually. This is especially useful if you have many expenses to record, such as business travel expenses, office supplies, and equipment purchases.

1. Danielle Bauter is a writer for the Accounting division of Fit Small Business.
2. By the time you complete this section, you will be ready to start using QuickBooks to manage all of your income and expenses.
3. QuickBooks Simple Start has a decent ability to record and track payments to independent contractors, making it easier to stay compliant with tax regulations.
4. The software must also have a mobile app to enable users to perform accounting tasks even when away from their laptops or desktops.
5. Essentials is preferable if you need to track unpaid bills, while Plus is great if you require inventory and project management.
6. The tier provides greater flexibility in customizing reports than the other QuickBooks Online plans.

The QuickBooks Online plan that’s best for you largely depends on the number of users who will be using the program, the size of your business and your particular needs. If contribution margin ratio you are a small business or a startup, consider QuickBooks Simple Start. Businesses that provide services, rather than goods, should consider the QuickBooks Plus plan. Businesses with inventory will likely get the most benefit from QuickBooks Plus.

How We Evaluated QuickBooks Online Plans

Most small businesses will find Plus the perfect fit, but there are many reasons you may want to upgrade to Advanced, especially now that several new features have been added. It now offers fixed asset accounting, estimated vs actual cost reporting, and multi-company report consolidation. These can be useful for companies with more complex business structures and accounting workflows. With QuickBooks Essentials, you can track billable time by job and assign it to a specific customer—something you can’t achieve with Simple Start. Once you’ve recorded your billable time, you can add it to your invoice and then send it to your client. This feature is ideal for service-based businesses that charge work by the hour, such as lawyers and independent contractors.

QuickBooks is the platform most used by professional accountants so if you plan to work with an accountant, they will likely be very familiar with the platform, its features and capabilities. Our free QuickBooks tutorial series starts with setting up QuickBooks Online for your business. When it’s time to file 1099s, Simple Start can help you generate and print the necessary forms, but you’ll need to mail them to the IRS and contractors yourself as e-filing is unavailable in Simple Start. QuickBooks Solopreneur works very well for one-person businesses, especially those with if common stock is issued for an amount greater than par value a limited client base and minimal expenses and income streams.