QuickBooks

QuickBooks Online is a cloud based version of their popular accounting software that should greatly speed up the process of tracking expenses, invoices, payments and everything financially related to running your business. I find the user interface to be very straight forward to understand and so far integrating my bank account, or use any of the main features like creating customers or invoices and setting up taxes. I've found this software to work quickly with very little lag time. You can track your payments and history, invoice details and it's easy to edit permission of users for the account. The reporting seems quite robust with a lot of options. I like that you can add suppliers and employees too while enabling payroll services they offer. You can also view profit and loss reports and take care of payments right inside your account by enabling this option which does have a cost. Not upfront but per transaction. The data is backed up regularly and updates are included with your plan so that's good. Using their mobile you can login and use your account from any device with a wifi connection. I like being able to create estimates and setup up recurring billing eventually. I've not used the desktop version in the past to compare but so far the online version seems quite good. There a many integrations possible with Quickbooks Online too which can increase the functionality greatly.

I've read a lot of negative reviews about QuickBooks Online. I was shocked at what percentage of people were rating this software so low. I hear it can be very buggy and have unexplainable behavior. Though most of the drastically negative reviews seemed to be in comparison to the desktop version which by all accounts is superior. It's true I don't have an accounting background and easy to understand the online version would be tailored to small businesses owners such as myself who don't need to maintain more than what is the most basically required. Perhaps that's why I find it to be useful and easy to use. The scathing reviews I've read also seem to come from CPA's with many years in the accounting industry and I can understand QuickBooks Online doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles but personally that's what I like about it. If my account was much fuller than it is currently is perhaps I'll notice more hassles and redundancies than I currently do.

I've not used the tool extensively but in my limited experience and without having compared it to the desktop version it's very user friendly and I've had no issues that others have had yet. If you're in need of heavy customization to suit your company needs I acknowledge QuickBooks Online is not going to be for you unless you utilize the available integrations. Though I could recommend Quickbooks Online in a list of choices to consider for low maintenance small businesses. But if you're in need of full blown customization and configuration to suit a large company perhaps consider the desktop version, or another accounting already integrated enterprise software.