QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting systems for businesses. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com Bernard Roesch discusses when QuickBooks is the best solution and what limitations QuickBooks has that may be better suited for other accounting systems.
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What QuickBooks Does Well
QuickBooks has become the industry leading accounting system for businesses for a number of reasons.
- First, QuickBooks is full-featured and provides all the accounting functionality that most businesses need. For example, if you need to produce invoices, track bills, write checks, or produce complex financial reports, QuickBooks allows you to do this.
- QuickBooks is also simple to navigate as part of your accounting routine. Using the QuickBooks interface, you can create invoices, collect payments for those invoices, log and pay bills, and produce reports with a few clicks.
- Finally, one of the most powerful benefits of QuickBooks is the network of professionals and consultants that can help you with QuickBooks.
There are a large number of bookkeepers that understand QuickBooks and can take over your bookkeeping routine easily. There are also Proadvisors and consultants that can help you implement certain functionality of QuickBooks that you may want for your business. QuickBooks has become the industry leading business accounting system for these reasons.
The Limitations Of QuickBooks
While QuickBooks is a popular accounting system, there are a few situations where it has limitations.
Consolidating multiple businesses into one business entity – If you have multiple businesses that need to be consolidated into one business entity for accounting, QuickBooks can sometimes not be ideal for this.
- While you can run the different businesses in different QuickBooks files, you will be left with manual work to consolidate certain part of those files across the different business entities, such as vendors, etc.
Specific accounting needs – Another situation where QuickBooks might not be ideal is if you have really specific accounting needs based on the industry that you are in.
- In certain industries there are specialized accounting tools that you can use which are popular for those types of businesses in that industry.
However, it’s important to understand that a network of professionals that can help you with your accounting system is extremely important and we often see users of industry specific accounting systems migrate to QuickBooks due to the lack of support available for these industry specific systems.
Comparing QuickBooks And FreshBooks
FreshBooks is another popular business tool that competes with QuickBooks in certain situations. Before choosing FreshBooks, it’s important to understand the differences between FreshBooks and a more established system like QuickBooks.
- First, QuickBooks is a fully functional business accounting system that provides everything you need to run your business and a feature set that will allow your business to grow over time.
- While QuickBooks may offer more than you currently need in your business, you don’t need to worry about outgrowing QuickBooks’ functionality in most cases.
- A system like FreshBooks is definitely simple and streamlined, but focuses mainly on invoicing, expense tracking and basic reporting.
If you’re concerned about the complexities of QuickBooks and are considering using a system like FreshBooks due to its simplicity, consider using a more basic version of QuickBooks to start. For example, QuickBooks Online Simple Start is a great way to get an accounting foundation in your business while enabling you to easily grow into the more advanced versions of QuickBooks.
We Can Help You
If you’re unsure which version of QuickBooks is right for you or if QuickBooks is right for your business, contact Bernard today. He would be happy to help you make the right accounting decision for your business.
You can also visit MissionBusinessPodcast.com for more insights that Bernard has been sharing with us in the previous episodes.
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