To customize your invoice, you can upload your company logo, select from different templates, change the invoice colors, edit invoice fields, and add personalized messages for customers. All of the features discussed and images presented below are primarily based on the cloud-based version, QuickBooks Online, which is our overall best small business accounting software. Other versions, such as QuickBooks Desktop, can handle most of these tasks but they may have other features unavailable in QuickBooks Online. Our research team has crunched the numbers, testing eight software brands across eight research subcategories to confirm that QuickBooks offers the best service with a top overall score of 4.7/5 points. QuickBooks has the best payroll software as well, although we offer a quick quiz that can pair you with all the top payroll options for your industry.

1. QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based product that doesn’t require software installation, allowing you to access your data from any computer with an internet connection by using your secure login.
2. Otherwise, you can manually undo transactions one by one by following these steps.
3. The QuickBooks Online desktop app is a standalone application that you can install on your Mac or Windows app.

Intuit’s QuickBooks has been arguably the gold standard in accounting software since it first came out, following Intuit’s successful Quicken. Paperwork can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be if you use the right tools. QuickBooks Online is one of the most feature-rich, but easy-to-use accounting solutions on the market, and can help to make the process infinitely smoother. Once you’ve selected the relevant transactions, QuickBooks will download them automatically. Then, after your transactions have been downloaded, you’ll just need to approve how they’ve been categorized. This is the first thing you’ll see when you log into your QuickBooks account online, and it’s from the dashboard that you can navigate to everything you’ll ever need as a QuickBooks user.

The desktop app runs on your desktop computer or laptop while the mobile app is accessible on mobile devices. For more information, read our article on what the QuickBooks Online desktop app is. When you enter employee time as discussed above, the hours not only flow to your invoices but also to the payroll module. This way, you can be confident that every hour you pay your employee is also considered for billing to a customer.

This allocation is a requirement for calculating taxable income and very cumbersome to do by hand. QuickBooks can also remind you to order inventory automatically when quantities are low. To help you stay on top of your receivables, QuickBooks will record the income and track how much each customer owes you automatically. You can view the number of your outstanding invoices—known as your accounts receivable (A/R)—and how many days they’re overdue by running an A/R aging report. We’d also highly recommend FreshBooks, a solution that has almost as many features and comes at a slightly lower price. It’s a particularly attractive pick for ecommerce businesses, since it has inventory management tools across all plans.

Managing Sales and Income

Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online Accountant is free for professional bookkeepers. For accounting software with free options check out our top-recommended free accounting software. You could also choose to hire a QuickBooks ProAdvisor through QuickBooks Live, an add-on to QuickBooks Online. You can also track your business mileage and view financial reports from your smartphone.

Connect Your Apps

Additionally, plans include automated bill creation and automatic categorization, but the higher versions include additional features, like unlimited 1099 filing and custom bill approval workflows. You can sign up for Premium and Elite with a 50% discount for three months. With QuickBooks Online you can access your accounts anywhere, at any time.

Yes, these training tutorials are updated regularly based on the latest feature updates or changes made by Intuit, the company behind QuickBooks. The net payment terms you set in this menu will become the default, but you can always change the terms for individual Invoices https://intuit-payroll.org/ directly on the form. Take a look at How to Adjust Invoice Payments Terms in QuickBooks Online. In addition to some native QuickBooks Online integrations—such as QuickBooks Payroll, QuickBooks Time, and QuickBooks Payments—QuickBooks Online connects with popular apps.

Spend some time looking at the different menus in the dashboard, getting to understand where you can find everything. A Live Bookkeeper cannot begin cleaning up your past books until they receive the required supporting documentation, which your bookkeeper will request from you after your first meeting. Once your bookkeeper receives all the necessary documentation, they’ll typically complete your cleanup within 30 days.

You can also add bills in QuickBooks when you receive them so that QuickBooks can help you track upcoming payments. Our guide on how to enter bills into QuickBooks Online covers this process in detail. Meanwhile, you can ensure that you pay your bills on time by creating an A/P report. This report will provide you with the details of your current and past-due bills. The ability to pay bills and track unpaid bills is available in QuickBooks Online Essentials and higher plans. QuickBooks allows you to enter new bills and expenses and keep track of them automatically by connecting your bank and credit card accounts to the platform.

Create report

Intuit has applied several decades of experience to a product that seems to have thought of everything you could want to organize and control your finances. If a reconciliation has too many discrepancies, reversing that reconciliation might be the best move. If you just need to start fresh from a previous reconciliation, you can get your accountant to reverse the current one.

It’s always backed up, automatically, and available to you from any instance of QuickBooks Online. Read articles and quick start guides to help your business grow and thrive. After you’re all set up, the Sales Tax Liability Report will help you see how much you owe. Follow me as I walk you through how to get started in your QuickBooks account. QuickBooks Desktop comes in four versions and offers a specialized edition for Mac users, QuickBooks Desktop for Mac Plus. QuickBooks comes in both a cloud-based online platform and a traditional desktop program.

What’s new in QuickBooks Online?

It would be a shame to pass up an opportunity to improve and enhance operations, especially when it comes to something as complex and tricky as finances. Come tax season, which is here now, you’ll be happy for the extra support. The first time you set up your account and click the Tax Tab, you’ll be guided through a setup module asking about where you sell your products. Before going any further, make sure you have your accounting method set (cash or accrual).

If you’d like to try other great accounting software, we have you covered as well, with deals on FreshBooks, Xero, and others. QuickBooks Online stands as the best accounting software that our researchers have tested, due to a great feature catalog, reporting tools, a top-quality support team, and a customizable interface. You can browse the different categories in the app store, or if you know what you’re looking for, simply search for the app’s name. Once you’ve added this information, head to ‘Accounting’ from the setup overview screen, then choose ‘Company and Account’. First, you can write and print checks directly from QuickBooks to pay for expenses that require immediate payment.

Particularly beneficial for businesses working with bookkeepers or accountants, QuickBooks offers an intuitive interface and broad feature set. Although it caters to businesses of all sizes, its relatively expensive in terms of liquidity inventory is subscription model and limited customer support options might be drawbacks for some users. When customers no longer have an active, paid subscription, they will not be eligible to receive benefits.

A new feature in QuickBooks Online Advanced, the fixed asset accounting tool allows you to add, manage, and track fixed assets, like buildings, vehicles, machinery, and equipment. Instead of computing depreciation expenses manually, QuickBooks Online does it for you automatically based on the depreciation method you choose, such as straight line and double declining. Advanced also creates schedules outlining the depreciation expenses over time. Your COA in QuickBooks provides a complete listing of all the accounts you need to track your financial data. These accounts are useful for tracking income, expenses, assets, liabilities, and equity accounts that might be required on your tax return. As a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Mark has extensive knowledge of QuickBooks products, allowing him to create valuable content that educates businesses on maximizing the benefits of the software.