Bill.com is a popular choice for businesses looking to manage their accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivable (A/R). When considering Bill.com vs QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online is a full-cycle accounting solution for those who need more than A/P and A/R management.
When to Use Bill.com
Bill.com is a great solution for small businesses that have large volumes of accounts payable and accounts receivable. With automation options and integration capabilities, Bill.com can save small businesses a lot of time when paying bills and sending out invoices.
When to Use QuickBooks
We rank QuickBooks (QB) as the best accounting software solution for small businesses. It is feature-rich and competitively priced. In addition, it is the most commonly used accounting software solution on the market today. Using a software solution that has been around for a while and is commonly used, makes your life as a small business owner easier in several ways. The software will have most of its bugs worked out already, it will most likely be compatible with any app or add-on you need, and most accountants and tax preparers are familiar with QB.
FreshBooks: Best QuickBooks Alternative
If you’re looking for a comparable alternative to QuickBooks, FreshBooks may be the solution for your small business. FreshBooks is an excellent alternative to QuickBooks and does many of the same functions. Like QuickBooks, FreshBooks has a tiered pricing structure that fits most small business budgets, is easy to setup and use, allows management of accounts receivable, supports bank and credit card account feeds, offers a solution for processing payroll, and provides options for accepting online payments.
Adversely, FreshBooks lacks accounts payable management, has limited client invoicing in three of their subscription tiers, and only includes one user at each subscription level. FreshBooks is also short on financial reports, producing only the profit and loss report out of the three primary financial statements (profit and loss, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows). Using FreshBooks in conjunction with Bill.com would be an excellent pairing of tools.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks
Feature | Bill.com | QuickBooks |
---|---|---|
Monthly Pricing | Essentials: $39/user, per month Team: $49/user, per month Corporate: $69/user, per month Custom: Custom pricing | Simple Start: $25 Essentials: $40 Plus: $70 Advanced: $150 |
Bank Feeds | N/A | ✓ |
Payables | ✓ | ✓ |
Receivables | ✓ | ✓ |
Budgeting | N/A | ✓ |
Reporting | ✓ | ✓ |
1099 Contractors | ✓ | ✓ |
More Information |
Bill.com vs QuickBooks: Pricing & Features
Both Bill.com and QuickBooks Online have plans to fit a variety of budgets. Bill.com’s lowest tier, Essentials, costs $39 per user, per month compared to QuickBooks’ Simple Start, which costs $25 per month for one user. Bill.com’s highest-priced plan is $69 per user, per month, while QuickBooks’ Advanced plan is $150 per month and includes up to 25 users.
Price, and what you get for it, are the biggest considerations with Bill.com. Each pricing tier charges a fee for every user who has access, every month. As an example, let’s say your business needs five people to have access to the A/P and A/R information in your bookkeeping system. With Bill.com’s lowest subscription level, you would end up paying $195 per month, and you wouldn’t be able to sync your data to an accounting software.
In the same scenario, QuickBooks Online Plus costs just $70 per month, and because QBO is a full-cycle accounting solution, no data syncing is necessary. All of your accounting information is stored within QuickBooks Online already.
Bill.com Pricing & Features
Bill.com does a great job with its accounts payable and accounts receivable features. The automation of bill and invoice entry will save a lot of time for bookkeepers who have a lot of bills to pay and a lot of invoices to send out. If you have large volumes of A/R and A/P, Bill.com is worth checking out.
The main drawback to using Bill.com is that the automation features are only available at the Corporate and Enterprise levels. Another big consideration is that you have to pay per user on all subscription levels whereas QuickBooks allows a specific amount of users per tier. Finally, Bill.com is not a complete accounting solution. It is only for paying your bills and invoicing your customers.
Bill.com Tiered Features
Feature | Essentials | Team | Corporate | Enterprise |
---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Pricing | $39 per user | $49 per user | $69 per user | Custom |
Bank Feeds | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Payables | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Receivables | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Budgeting | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Reporting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Contractor Management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Payroll Capability | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Credit Card Processing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
User Access Roles | ✓ | ✓ | N/A | ✓ |
Bill.com Essentials
Bill.com’s Essentials plan, priced at $39 per user, per month, is great for small businesses that don’t have unique user access needs and also do not have complicated A/P and A/R processing requirements for. One nice feature in Essentials is the ability to use simple approval workflows, which isn’t available with QuickBooks Online.
Bill.com Team
The Team pricing tier is $49 per user, per month and offers everything included with Essentials plan plus data syncing with QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, QuickBooks Online, or Xero accounting systems. This tier also allows for customized user access roles.
Bill.com Corporate
This tier allows users everything included with Essentials and Team plans plus invoice and payment automation, approver-only users at a discounted rate, and the ability to set custom approval limits.
Corporate-level users can set up recurring invoices that get sent automatically according to your specifications. Likewise, if your business makes regular payments to a vendor that accepts Bill.com payments, you can set those to be paid automatically on the Corporate plan level.
Bill.com Enterprise
This level is a custom pricing and features option. This is the only plan that allows everything from the Essentials, Team, and Corporate tiers as well as syncing with NetSuite, Intacct, and QuickBooks Enterprise accounting software. This plan level also allows users to manage multiple business locations and entities with one Bill.com account.
Here’s how Bill.com stacks up against QuickBooks Online:
Bill.com: Bank Feeds
Rather than pulling transactions into your bank account register automatically as QuickBooks Online does, Bill.com requires you to manually enter all income and expense transactions. However, you can connect your bank accounts to your Bill.com account so you can your bills online only. Payments made through Bill.com can then be synced to your accounting software if you have configured an integration to do so.
Bill.com: Accounts Payable
Bill.com offers entry automation features for accounts payable that are not available in QuickBooks Online. You can scan a bill or drag and drop it from your email into Bill.com, and IVA, the program’s virtual assistant, scans the bill for important information and enters it into Bill.com. The bill is then loaded into your Bill.com dashboard for review and approval. From there, you can follow your business’s process for accounts payable without ever having to manually enter the bill information.
If you’re in charge of the financials for multiple businesses and want to track and manage them all from the same account, the Enterprise level subscription is for you. The pricing for this level varies depending on your needs, so you have to contact Bill.com to discuss to get a price quote. QuickBooks Online does not offer business portfolio management at any level of subscription.
Bill.com: Accounts Receivable
Much like the accounts payable module in Bill.com, its accounts receivable module offers some pretty cool automation features. For instance, it allows you to send invoices electronically to your customers. Your customers can create a Bill.com account for free to pay any invoices they receive from you or any other Bill.com vendors they use. QuickBooks Online also allows for electronic invoicing, but does not require your customers to create an account in order to pay their invoice.
You can also set up recurring invoices to send automatically according to your specifications, create personalized payment reminders, and process payments via ACH, credit card, or PayPal.
Bill.com: Budgeting
Bill.com does not offer budgeting tools like QuickBooks Online, so it’s not the right choice if your small business relies on budget vs actuals information to gauge your financial health throughout your fiscal year. Setting a budget and monitoring your spending is the best way to ensure your business turns a profit, and Bill.com does not offer tools to help you do that. Although Bill.com does not offer budgeting tools, it does have some cash flow forecasting and management tools. QuickBooks Online, however, offers robust budgeting tools starting with their Plus tier.
Bill.com: Reporting
Bill.com offers several pre-made reports in the accounts payable and accounts receivable areas. However, the layout of the Bill.com Reports area is confusing according to Bill.com reviews. Conversely, QuickBooks Online offers an easy to navigate, user-friendly reports dashboard that gives you many options to choose from, including customizing reports.
Bill.com: Contractor Management
Bill.com does not allow you to prepare 1099s. However, you can generate a list of 1099 vendors that includes the amount your business paid to them over the year. Bill.com also has a partnership with Tax1099 which will prepare your 1099s and subsequent filings for a fee.
The process for getting your 1099s taken care of at the end of the year is cumbersome in Bill.com and costly with Tax1099. With Tax1099’s current pricing, preparing 100 1099 forms and the accompanying filings costs $200. In comparison, QuickBooks Online allows you to prepare 1099s directly from the software starting at its lowest tier, Simple Start.
Bill.com: Payroll Capability
Unlike QuickBooks Online, Bill.com does not offer any payroll features. You can pay your employees via its bill pay options, but preparing and figuring payroll amounts has to be done outside of Bill.com. QuickBooks Online, however, offers payroll features and services as well as time tracking.
Bill.com: Credit Card Processing
Bill.com offers a risk-free month-to-month agreement and low commercial rates for credit card processing, as well as unlimited personal service, and reward points. However, when possible, Bill.com encourages you to use Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments instead.
Bill.com charges reasonable rates for processing electronic payments:
- ePayment/ACH processing: 49 cents for each transaction sent or received
- Credit card payments: Level 3* processing rates available
- ACH bank transfer payments: 49 cents per ACH payment
*Bill.com indicates its credit card processing partner’s commercial rates are around 3% plus a per transaction fee of 10 cents.
QuickBooks Online offers its own credit card processing solution, QuickBooks Payments, so there is no need to sign up with a third-party application. QuickBooks Payments charges a fee of 1% for ACH payments with a maximum fee charged of $10. Credit card processing fees through QuickBooks Payments range from 2.4% to 3.4% with an additional per transaction fee of 25 cents.
Bill.com: User Access Roles
Bill.com offers five predefined user access roles as well as one view-only auditor role to get you started. Starting with the Team plan, Bill.com allows custom user roles. You can start from scratch and build the role you need, or you can begin with one of the predefined roles and modify it to fit your needs.
However, QuickBooks Online offers custom user access roles beginning with its Essentials plan. QBO allows your admin user to set access levels to information in your financial system. QBO supports view-only roles, accountant roles, and many other variations of access.
QuickBooks Online Pricing & Features
QuickBooks Online offers five different plans to choose from. We’ve chosen to look at four of the plans that are most comparable to Bill.com plans.
In comparison to Bill.com, QuickBooks Online is far more generous with the number of user accesses allowed at each tier. In addition, many of the features not native to the QuickBooks Online application can be performed with an Intuit approved integration app. Hundreds of different apps can be purchased from the Intuit app store and many are free.
The fifth plan, QuickBooks Online Self-Employed, is for freelancers or solopreneurs and offers all the features needed to keep track of finances for a one-person operation. It is the least expensive QuickBooks Online tier available at $15 per month.
QuickBooks Online Tiered Features
Feature | Simple Start | Simple Start | Plus | Advanced |
---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Pricing | $25 / 1 user | $40 / 3 users | $70 / 5 users | $150 / 25 users |
Bank Feeds | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Payables | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Receivables | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Budgeting | N/A | N/A | ✓ | ✓ |
Reporting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Contractor Management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Payroll Capability | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on |
Credit Card Processing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
User Access Roles | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
QuickBooks Online: Simple Start
Simple Start is priced at $25 per month and gives you one master administrator user account and one accountant account. With this plan, you can link bank and credit card accounts, track income and expenses, run basic reports (20 to choose from), track mileage, capture receipts, send invoices and accept payments, send estimates and convert them to invoices, and manage 1099 contractors.
QuickBooks Online: Essentials
Essentials is $40 per month and offers everything from Simple Start plus bill management and time tracking. This tier allows for three users with five different predefined roles to choose from: master administrator, company administrator, standard user, time tracking only, and take payments only.
QuickBooks Online: Plus
QuickBooks Online Plus costs $70 per month and includes all the features from Simple Start and Essentials while adding project and inventory features plus two more user accounts. The projects feature includes labor, payroll, and expense job costing so you get an all-encompassing view of your project’s financial health. Inventory features include low inventory notifications, cost of goods, and product inventory tracking. You can also import Excel spreadsheets containing inventory data or sync with common online stores such as Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and more.
QuickBooks Online: Advanced
Advanced is the top tier for QuickBooks Online. It comes with a price tag of $150 per month and includes everything from the three previous plans as well as bill payment options, advanced reporting options, accelerated invoicing, custom user permissions, a dedicated account manager, enhanced custom fields, and 25 user accounts.
Although Bill.com can connect to your bank account so you can make payments, QuickBooks Online offers a much more robust interaction with your financial institution. With bank feeds, QuickBooks Online has the ability to automate a lot of transaction entry work for you.
Here’s a closer look at how QuickBooks Online and Bill.com compare:
QuickBooks Online: Bank Feeds
QuickBooks Online uses your bank account connection to import transactions into your accounting software. You can code a transaction directly in the bank transaction queue screen and post it to the expense account it belongs to.
After you have coded a similar transaction three times, QuickBooks Online learns your coding on repeat transactions and attempts to pre-code those transactions for you in the future. You can also set up rules to code specific transactions that come through your accounts, saving you tons of time.
In comparison, Bill.com does not offer the bank feed functionality. You can connect your bank and credit card accounts to your Bill.com profile, however, it is only for sending money out to pay bills, it does not allow for importing transactions from your financial institutions.
QuickBooks Online: Accounts Payable
In QuickBooks Online, accounts payable requires manual entry unless you use one of the many integration apps. Out of the box, however, bills need to be manually entered into QuickBooks Online at all subscription levels.
Once approved, you can easily print a check or issue an electronic payment for the invoice. The software automatically records the payment in your books without any other interaction from you.
With Bill.com, starting at the Corporate plan level, automation features for invoices and bill payments are offered. While this does not mean that your processes will be entirely hands-off, Bill.com’s automation features can save you a lot of time.
QuickBooks Online: Accounts Receivable
QuickBooks Online provides the ability to set up recurring transactions, automatic emailing of invoices, online payment options for customers, and customized invoices. Unlike Bill.com, customers do not need to create an account to pay their invoices.
Payments made using your electronic invoice from QuickBooks Online are automatically recorded to the customer’s account as well as to your designated deposit account.
QuickBooks Online: Budgeting
QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced offer easy-to-use budgeting tools. You can set your budget according to your chart of accounts in detail or summary. You can then run budget vs actual reports to monitor the progress of your business against your budgeted income and expenses. The budgeting tools are not available with the Simple Start or Essentials plans.
Setting budgets and comparing the budgeted amount to your actual expenditures is not a feature offered by Bill.com. Because it was built specifically to manage your accounts payable and accounts receivable, Bill.com lacks many of the basic functionalities offered by an accounting software solution like QuickBooks Online such as bank reconciliations, journal entries, and key financial reports.
QuickBooks Online: Reporting
Financial reporting is included with all levels of QuickBooks Online subscriptions. However, customization and advanced reports are only available in the Essential and Plus plans with even more advanced reporting and analytic information offered in Advanced with the Fathom reporting tool.
For most small businesses, the basic financial reports included in the Simple Start plan are plenty to get the information you need to make decisions. However, with Bill.com, your reports are limited to the information in Bill.com which is accounts payable and accounts receivable. Although the reports presented by Bill.com are very robust for these areas, the software is incapable of producing any of the three key financial reports (profit and loss, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows) because it is not possible to store the information required for these reports in Bill.com.
QuickBooks Online: Contractor Management
QuickBooks Online offers strong tools for tracking, paying, reporting, and filing your payments to 1099 contractors. From the vendor setup to the end of year reporting, they’ve got you covered. You can even e-File your 1099 report with the IRS at the end of the year directly through QuickBooks Online, or you can print and mail these forms. With custom reports for 1099s available even in its Simple Start plan, filing your 1099s is very easy.
If you are using the Contractors module in QuickBooks Online, you can send an email inviting a new (or existing) vendor to submit their 1099 information to you electronically. When tax time rolls around, you’ve got everything you need to quickly and easily prepare and file your 1099 reports.
QuickBooks Online: Payroll Capability
Payroll is quick and easy with QuickBooks Online. Please note, however, there is an additional charge to use the QuickBooks Payroll features.
QuickBooks Online offers two payroll options with very different services:
- Self Service Payroll: Self Service Payroll is an additional QuickBooks Online module integrated with, but separate from your base QuickBooks Online subscription. Self Service Payroll allows you to pay employees, get free 24-hour direct deposit, e-file your business’ taxes, and more. This level of service for payroll processing costs $35 per month plus $4 per employee, per month.
- Full Service Payroll: The Full Service Payroll option is also an additional module and includes expert help with setting up your payroll and tax filing. QuickBooks Online ensures the accuracy of its work, promising to pay any fees involved with an error. The Full Service Payroll option costs $80 per month plus $4 per employee, per month.
The payroll options offered by QuickBooks Online are reasonably priced and save a lot of time when processing payroll. There are no payroll services or integrations offered by Bill.com.
QuickBooks Online: Credit Card Processing
Similar to Bill.com, QuickBooks Online allows you to process credit card payments. If your customers use the link on their electronic invoice to make their payment, that payment is automatically recorded against the appropriate invoice in QuickBooks Online.
QuickBooks offers reasonable processing rates for credit cards as well as ACH payments.
Rates for credit card payments vary slightly depending on the process in which the payment is accepted:
- Swiped payments: 2.4% plus 25 cents per transaction
- Invoiced payments: 2.9% plus 25 cents per transaction
- Keyed payments: 3.4% plus 25 cents per transaction
- ACH bank transfer payments: 1% with a maximum amount of $10
QuickBooks Online: User Access Roles
While the Simple Start plan from QuickBooks Online has only one user at the master administrator level, Essentials and all other plans include several user access roles. The higher tier plans also allow you to set up Reports Only and Time Tracking Only user roles. These do not count against your allowed users.
The Essentials plan allows three users while the Plus plan allows five users. The Advanced plan allows up to 25 users as well as the ability to fully customize user roles. Unlike QBO, Bill.com requires a subscription fee per user, per month.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: Payables and Receivables
The main difference in A/P and A/R features between Bill.com and QuickBooks is the automation of invoice and bill entries. Even though Bill.com offers automation features, reducing manual data entry, they are not available in the lower subscription levels. Automation begins with the Corporate level.
Bill.com Accounts Payable and Receivable
The main attraction to Bill.com is its automation features, which are not offered with QuickBooks Online. These features allow you to scan your invoices, bills, bank statements, and other basic documents and upload them into Bill.com. Once scanned, Bill.com reads the content of the document and identifies the information needed for processing. Bill.com’s Corporate plan is the first tier that offers the invoice and bill automation features, and it starts at $69 per month, per user.
QuickBooks Online Accounts Payable and Receivable
With QuickBooks Online, you do not have the option of automation unless you select an add-on from the Intuit App Store.
In this instance, an app with a high rating and good reviews for automating invoice and bill entry is AutoEntry created by OCRex. This app has varied pricing depending on how many documents you need to process every month. For example, if your business has 100 invoices or bills to process each month, you pay $23 per month for the AutoEntry add-on and $25 per month for your QuickBooks Simple Start subscription for $48 per month, which is cheaper than Bill.com’s Corporate plan at $69 per user, per month.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: Reconciliations
Reconciliations are extremely important in any business because they allow you to identify missing transactions or errors. Because QBO offers a complete reconciliation module, this makes QBO the better choice for business owners.
Bill.com Reconciliations
Bill.com does not offer a reconciliation module. You can connect your bank account to your Bill.com account for the purpose of issuing payments. However, the software does not import transactions from your bank account and load them into your account.
QuickBooks Online Reconciliations
QuickBooks Online comes with a built in reconciliation module. The bank feeds feature pulls all the transactions going through your connected account into your QuickBooks Online banking dashboard. This allows you to post these transactions to the correct expense or income category.
QuickBooks also tries to match up all the transactions posted into QuickBooks with the transactions sent over from your bank. This is an automatic process. You only need to interact with the reconciliation module if there is a discrepancy between your records and the bank’s records.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: Bank Feeds
You cannot pull transactions directly from your bank account into your Bill.com transaction registers like you can with QuickBooks Online. You can connect your bank account to Bill.com for processing payments to and from your small business, but that’s the extent of the bank connection in Bill.com
Bill.com Bank Feeds
Unlike QuickBooks Online, Bill.com does not offer a two-way connection with your bank account. You can connect your bank account to your Bill.com account. However, as discussed above, that connection is only for the purpose of using your bank account to pay bills. Your bank or credit card account does not pass information back into Bill.com.
QuickBooks Online Bank Feeds
QuickBooks Online allows live, two-way connections with your financial accounts such as multiple bank accounts, credit card accounts, and loans. You link these feeds to the corresponding chart of accounts account and post the transactions with the correct coding. When you receive your statement, the automatic bank feed will have already provided all the transactions that went through your financial account, making reconciliations a breeze.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: Ease of Use
Both Bill.com and QuickBooks have user-friendly interfaces. Each software solution offers an “at-a-glance” dashboard with a snapshot of financial information as well as an easy to use left navigation bar.
Because QBO is a full-cycle accounting software solution, the dashboard in QBO shows much more information than Bill.com’s dashboard. QuickBooks Online dashboards show basic financial information such as profit and loss for a specified time period, assets, and whatever else you want to see. QuickBooks Online’s dashboard is customizable, letting you see what you want to see when you want to see it.
Bill.com Ease of Use
When you first log in to Bill.com, you are presented with your dashboard. From the dashboard, you can easily navigate to the four most common areas of the software: the navigation bar, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and the to-dos list.
Bill.com dashboard
The four main elements of the Bill.com dashboard are:
- The left navigation bar: You can access any part of the accounts payable and accounts receivable features you need from this navigation bar. From the left navigation bar, you can access your Bill.com dashboard, payables, receivables, reports, support, and information on international payments.
- Bills to Pay: This area of your dashboard is where you can get a quick look at bills that are overdue, due in the upcoming week, or due in the future. In addition, you can see the total amount of bills in the system and the total value of those bills.
- Open Invoices: In this section of the dashboard, you can tell at a glance how many invoices are currently past due and the amount. You can also see which invoices are due in the next seven days as well as what is due beyond that. At the right of this section, you can see how many invoices in total are outstanding as well as the value of those invoices.
- To Dos: This area of the dashboard can be left open or minimized depending on your preference. It shows you items that need attention right away and other tasks that need to be done. It also shows you the time frame in which the task needs to be completed.
QuickBooks Online Ease of Use
QuickBooks Online offers a similar dashboard experience when you log in to your account as that offered in Bill.com. By default, there are six main elements on the QuickBooks Online dashboard. However, it can be customized.
QuickBooks Online dashboard
- Left Navigation Bar: This is your main navigation in the system. Hovering over the menu items shows you additional options in most cases.
- Invoices: The invoices section of the dashboard gives you a snapshot of invoices that are unpaid, overdue, and due in the future. It also shows you money you’ve collected and not deposited and money you have deposited in the time frame indicated. You can customize this box to show a different time frame in your snapshot.
- Expenses: This box shows you the company’s expenses for the time frame selected. The circle chart shows you the expenses paid by category. The time frame for this box can also be changed as with the Invoices box.
- Notifications: Similar to the Bill.com To Dos list, QuickBooks Online has a notification section that shows any activities you need to handle right away as well as any upcoming tasks that need to be done and when those tasks are due.
- Profit and Loss: This area gives you a quick overview of how your business is doing. As with the other boxes, you can select a time period and see what your net income or loss is for the specified time.
- Sales: Here you can see how much money in sales your business made during a selected period.
These tools all show by default on your QuickBooks dashboard, giving you a snapshot of how your business is doing at-a-glance.
While both Bill.com and QuickBooks Online offer a similar dashboard experience, the QuickBooks Online dashboard has more options to customize because it stores a lot more financial information about your business than Bill.com.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: User Access
We already discussed the difference in cost for Bill.com vs QuickBooks based on the number of users allowed to access either. What we have not discussed is to what extent those user access accounts are customizable. Both software packages offer robust user role customizations.
Bill.com User Access
Depending on the plan you choose, you have different options for granting access to the A/P and A/R information in Bill.com. The lowest level, Essentials, has five predefined roles you can assign to users. Team, the next level up, offers custom user roles so you can modify what information each user can access. At the Corporate tier, Bill.com gives you a discount for “approval only” users and also allows you to set custom approval limits for your users.
QuickBooks Online User Access
QuickBooks Online’s customization of user access roles also depends on which plan you subscribe to. With its Simple Start plan, you have one user who is the Master Administrator for the software. They can see and work with anything in your company file.
QBO also allows you to invite an accounting professional to access your QuickBooks files. Each tier allows a different number of invitation users (accountants, consultants, etc.) as well as company users. Your invitation users do not reduce the amount of billable users you can have.
- Essentials: QuickBooks allows three users and two invitation users in the Essentials plan. This tier also offers five predefined user roles: master administrator, company administrator, standard, time tracking only, and take payments only.
- Plus: You can have up to five users and two invitation users. Available user types include all of the roles offered in the Essentials plan plus a Reports Only user.
- Advanced: Offers 25 users and three invitation users. The Advanced plan includes all of the user types found in the Plus plan while also allowing you to customize user roles.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: Customer Support
When it comes to customer support, you should look for a vendor that has multiple options. Sometimes it’s OK to wait a day or two for a response when you have a question, so email support is sufficient. Other times you need an answer right away, and that requires a live support line you can call for immediate assistance. Keep in mind, your ease in contacting a customer support representative may vary depending on your subscription level. For example, higher subscription levels in QuickBooks Online will provide you with a dedicated representative to help you with your account.
Here’s how Bill.com and QuickBooks Online measure up in the Customer Support category.
Bill.com Customer Support
The Bill.com help menu displays popular help topics related to the screen you are currently on. You can also search for a topic, watch some videos relevant to your topic, or browse the support center. While in the support center, you can click on the Contact Us button to send a request for assistance to the support team. Your email will be answered within one to two business days.
If you need more immediate assistance, you can log in to your Bill.com account and chat with a support representative through the Support Center. Chat agents are available Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time.
QuickBooks Online Customer Support
Similar to Bill.com, QuickBooks Online’s help menu shows some help articles relevant to the screen you are currently on. You can also search for a help topic or click on the Contact Us button at the bottom of the help menu. Searching for a topic will show you links to articles online, sections of the QuickBooks Online help repository, and tutorial videos. Additionally, the QBO Advanced plan includes a dedicated customer success manager.
Bill.com vs QuickBooks Online: Reviews
Bill.com and QuickBooks Online both score relatively high in user reviews. User reviews are an important part of considering which software solution to spend your money on. People who have used the product you are considering are often honest about what they like and dislike about the software, giving you valuable insight into the product before you invest in it.
Bill.com Reviews
One of the things mentioned as a negative in Bill.com reviews is its customer service. There is no customer service phone number on the Bill.com website. Bill.com prefers you contact the support team with an issue using the Contact Us box and wait for a representative to reply to your message. You will receive a response within one to two business days. Alternatively, you can log in to your Bill.com account and chat with a support representative.
QuickBooks Online Reviews
QuickBooks Online is far more widely used than Bill.com and QuickBooks has also been around much longer than Bill.com. The common pros expressed for QuickBooks Online are the ease of use and team collaboration allowed in the software as well as the features for accounts receivable that allow emailing and status review.
As with Bill.com, many of the cons mentioned for QuickBooks Online involve the level of customer support. Some QuickBooks Online users say its support team cannot explain why problems are happening and promise to call back with an answer within 24 hours, but the call never comes. Often, the user either figures out a way around the issue, or the problem stops happening with no call back from QBO support.
How We Evaluated Bill.com & QuickBooks
In comparing Bill.com vs QuickBooks, we looked at pricing, A/P and A/R management, reconciliations, bank feeds, user access, customer support, and user reviews. These criteria were chosen with the small business owner and their needs in mind.
For each consideration, the following criteria served as our benchmark:
- Pricing: Offers payment plans that fit most small business owners’ budgets
- A/P management: Allows for entering and tracking bills and payments
- A/R management: Ability to enter and track invoices and customer payments
- Reconciliations: Has reconciliation functionality for bank and credit card accounts
- Bank feeds: Allows connections with bank and credit card accounts
- Ease of use: Requires little technical knowledge to set up and use
- User access: Allows an appropriate number of users and access levels
- Customer support: Offers multiple solutions for support and help
- User reviews: Has positive and useful feedback from users
While Bill.com has strong features for A/P and A/R, it is not a full-cycle accounting solution. Because of this, we have selected QuickBooks as the best choice for any small business based on the basic criteria listed above.
Bottom Line
While both of these software solutions do a good job of what they were built to do, they are very different products. Bill.com is intended to manage accounts payable and accounts receivable while QuickBooks Online is a full-cycle accounting software solution. For many small businesses, the clear choice is QuickBooks Online. Though Bill.com offers some useful tools, it is not an accounting software solution. Having the financial information at your fingertips when you need it is priceless.
Save up to 50% when you subscribe to QuickBooks Online or try it free for 30 days to take advantage of features like customized user access, essential financial reports, and automated bank feeds.
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