QuickBooks Online Review 2024: Pros, Cons, Alternatives (2024)

Full Review

Known as the industry standard for small-business accounting software, Intuit’s QuickBooks Online is a solid choice for a variety of businesses, especially those that plan to regularly work with bookkeepers or accountants. Its range of features can support very small operations as well as growing companies that need granular reporting tools to assess different areas of their business.

Although QuickBooks Online is user-friendly, there can be a learning curve, particularly if you’re unfamiliar with the basic principles of accounting. Additionally, QuickBooks can be expensive for many small businesses, even more so if you add on time tracking or payroll. Several competitors offer simpler, more affordable alternatives to QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks Online at a glance

How does QuickBooks Online work?

After you sign up for QuickBooks Online, you’ll be able to log in to your account and access the main dashboard view. If you’re moving to QuickBooks from another accounting software, you can import your existing files to your new account.

The main dashboard will give an overview of your QuickBooks account, showing your profit and loss overview, invoices, expenses and sales.

Using the Banking tab on the left side of the dashboard, you can connect your bank and credit card accounts so that QuickBooks automatically imports transactions and categorizes them for you. Later, when reconciling your books, you’ll be able to review these transactions in the For Review tab within the Banking menu.

Next, you can customize invoices, set up automatic sales tax tracking (if necessary) and learn how to enter mobile receipts and bills. You can edit all of your business’s account settings using the gear icon in the upper right corner.

If you want to invite your bookkeeper or accountant to your QuickBooks Online account, you can do so using the My Accountant tab or the Manage Users page in Settings — you can also search for an accountant if you don’t already have one.

This video helps explain how to set up and navigate QuickBooks Online.

Pricing and features

Promotional discounts may apply. All plans include access to QuickBooks Online’s mobile app, customer support and third-party app integrations. Add-on services — including QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time — will incur separate costs.

Where QuickBooks Online stands out

Robust feature set

QuickBooks Online ranks high for its selection of features, which includes reporting, invoicing, inventory management and mobile app functionality. Here are a couple of features, in particular, that stand out:

Record-keeping and reporting: It’s easy to keep thorough, detailed records with QuickBooks Online. When you’re adding an expense, for example, you have the option of adding reference numbers, permit numbers, attachments and memos. You can also split the expense into multiple categories or items.

You aren't required to fill out every field in an expense or income entry, but the more detailed your records are, the more useful certain reports can be. For example, with QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced, you can track inventory and do job costing — that is, you can figure out how much you spent to complete a certain project.

Even without those higher-level plans, you can create custom tags and run reports to show where you make and spend the most money. These features can help you organize your finances and provide insights such as cost-cutting opportunities or sales trends that you can use to improve and grow your business.

Inventory management: With QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced, you can track inventory and cost of goods, and set up reorder points. You can also create purchase orders, manage vendors and sync your inventory with third-party platforms like Amazon and Shopify.

A wealth of software integrations

QuickBooks Online gives you access to a marketplace of over 750 apps, including third-party software tools like A2X for seamlessly syncing your financial data between QuickBooks Online and a range of e-commerce platforms, and Fishbowl for advanced inventory and manufacturing management. Other apps can help you prepare for taxes, get business funding, run payroll, manage customer accounts and generate various financial reports and insights.

QuickBooks also offers a few valuable add-ons. One of those is QuickBooks Live for bookkeeping. The solution is ideal for business owners who’d like to step away from day-to-day bookkeeping tasks and outsource them elsewhere to save time. QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets), another add-on, lets you track employee time directly inside QuickBooks and approve timesheets.

Some apps (including QuickBooks Time and QuickBooks Live) have associated fees, whereas others are free.

Easy-to-find resources

Whether you decide to manage your bookkeeping on your own or work with a professional, you’ll have no trouble accessing online resources for QuickBooks Online. The company offers video tutorials, webinars and training classes, as well as community forums, support topics and other resources on its website. You have the option of contacting QuickBooks customer support directly for any help you may need too.

You can also use QuickBooks’ ProAdvisor network to find certified accountants and bookkeepers. Given QuickBooks Online’s number of users, accountants outside of the network should be familiar with the software.

Where QuickBooks Online falls short

Pricing

QuickBooks Online Simple Start costs $30 per month, includes only one account user (plus access for two accountants) and does not offer billable hours tracking, bill pay or inventory management. For multiple users, bill pay and the ability to add billable hours to invoices, you’ll need to upgrade to the Essentials plan, which costs $60 per month. For inventory management, you’ll need to opt for the Plus plan at $90 per month.

Competitors offer plans with lower monthly fees and similar features. For example, Xero ranges from $15 to $78 per month and includes unlimited users and basic inventory management in all plans. Similarly, FreshBooks ranges from $19 to $60 per month, with time tracking in all plans.

Additionally, as many online user comments and reviews note, QuickBooks tends to increase its prices more frequently than some of its competitors, and by making features such as time tracking an add-on rather than a built-in feature, it’s easy for a monthly QuickBooks Online subscription to really start adding up. Add to that complex plan pricing structures, a push to move current and future customers to the Online product, and a culture of upselling, and the pricing becomes more opaque than several of the competitors that NerdWallet also recommends.

Account user limits

QuickBooks Online allows up to a maximum of 25 users, and that’s only with the most expensive plan. Other accounting software products, however, allow for higher user limits. And Xero allows for unlimited users at all plan levels.

Learning curve

Though QuickBooks Online has a handful of convenient features that can speed up your workflow and even automate some of it, the software can be complex. You'll get the most out of it if you have some knowledge of basic accounting concepts. Whereas you might be able to use some software alternatives without explanation, it may take some time to get the hang of QuickBooks.

Watching tutorials, reading support pages or consulting experts for advice are all great options to learn how to use QuickBooks Online for your business.

Alternatives to QuickBooks Online

NerdWallet awards for QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online earned the top spot in NerdWallet roundups for these categories:

NerdWallet writer Randa Kriss contributed to this review.