FreshBooks vs QuickBooks 2023: Key Differences & What’s Best

While both FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online offer rich accounting features, they have significant differences and are built for unique business purposes. FreshBooks is best for small service-based businesses and freelancers needing strong project accounting features. Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online is a great fit for businesses heavily engaged in inventory management.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks at a Glance

	Visit FreshBooks	Visit QuickBooks
Our Overall Rubric Score	3.2 / 5	4.4 / 5
Best For	Small service-based businesses and freelancers seeking project accounting features	Small businesses needing strong inventory management features and the ability to print checks
Monthly Pricing	$17 to $55 or custom pricing	$30 to $200
Users Included	1 or 2 (can pay for extra seats)	1 to 25
Clients Included	5 to unlimited	Unlimited
Accessibility	Cloud	Cloud
Time Tracking	✓	✓
Invoicing	✓	✓
Banking & Cash Management	✓	✓
Project Accounting	✓	✓
Bill Pay & Management	✓	✓
Sales Tax Management	✓	✓
Inventory Management	✕	✓
Mobile App Accessibility	iOS and Android	iOS and Android
1099 Tracking & Reporting	✓	✓
Unlimited Customer Support	✓	✓
Compare Actual Project Costs to Estimates	✓	✕
Print Checks	✕	✓
Assisted Bookkeeping	Integrates with Bench	✓
Payroll	Integrates with Gusto	$45 per month plus $4 per employee
Credit Card Processing	Stripe and PayPal	QuickBooks Payments
	Read our FreshBooks review	Read our QuickBooks Online review

When To Use

Fit Small Business Case Study

Our case study compares FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online across 13 categories. The results show QuickBooks Online’s excellence in terms of general features, banking and cash management, inventory accounting, and reporting. Conversely, FreshBooks’ mobile app and project accounting features are slightly better than QuickBooks, not to mention that it has outstanding customer service. Neither FreshBooks nor QuickBooks offer fixed asset features, so that category is not included in the comparison below.

You can check out the detailed results of our case study in our FreshBooks review and QuickBooks Online review. See the graph below for the summary.

The biggest difference between FreshBooks and QuickBooks is inventory accounting, where QuickBooks is very strong but FreshBooks has virtually no functionality. Also, QuickBooks is much better with banking features, such as reconciliation and printing checks. FreshBooks is well-liked for its customer service, while QuickBooks doesn’t even allow users to call customer service directly.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online: Pricing

If you’re a very small business and work with five or fewer clients, then FreshBooks’s entry-level plan, Lite, might be enough. However, as your business and customer base grow, you might prefer to sign up for QuickBooks Online to save some money on additional users.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online: Features

Invoicing

QuickBooks Online and FreshBooks both have excellent invoicing features, but QuickBooks Online stands out with its ability to calculate sales tax rates automatically and apply them to invoices based on the customer’s address. With FreshBooks, you have to set up the sales tax for each jurisdiction manually. If you collect taxable payments from different jurisdictions, you’ll prefer QuickBooks Online.

Banking & Cash Management

If you’re comfortable connecting your bank account to your accounting software, then you might consider FreshBooks. However, if you want the option not to connect your account―probably due to security reasons―then you should consider QuickBooks. You’ll also likely prefer QuickBooks if your business relies heavily on paying vendors and employees by check as it can record and print checks.

Another important distinction with FreshBooks is the inability to assign outstanding transactions to a particular bank account until they come through the bank. Therefore, your bank account balances on the balance sheet will always be misstated whenever there are outstanding checks.

FreshBooks is designed for businesses that don’t write checks. It works best if you never enter transactions by hand, but rather wait for them to clear the bank. This means you may not know the available balance when you have payments pending.

A/P

Both platforms offer an easy way to record bills and track outstanding bills, but QuickBooks Online lets you create purchase orders (POs) and convert them into bills, enter a vendor credit and apply it when you pay the bill, and pay an independent contractor using the service item you created. If you want a more solid solution to manage your unpaid bills, then choose QuickBooks Online.

Inventory Management

Inventory accounting is QuickBooks Online’s biggest trump card against FreshBooks. FreshBooks lets you add inventory items to bills—but there’s no way to know how much inventory you have available or the cost of your inventory sold.

QuickBooks Online’s inventory management system lets you track available inventory, calculate quantities, costs, and prices automatically, and track which of your items are most profitable. If your business is focused on selling products, you should choose QuickBooks Online to support your inventory accounting needs.

Project Accounting

Both FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online offer useful project accounting features, but FreshBooks takes it one step further by allowing you to compare estimated to actual project costs. This helps you make better decisions in terms of budgeting and financial management.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online: Ease of Use

FreshBooks and QuickBooks are easy to use, especially if you have accounting experience. Both also include shortcut buttons to help you navigate the programs easily. However, it’s faster to get started with FreshBooks as it only requires minimal information to set up your company—you have to go through a series of steps to set up a company in QuickBooks Online. The good news is that both, depending on your subscription, include unlimited customer support to help you learn everything there is to know about the software.

FreshBooks Dashboard

QuickBooks Online Dashboard

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online: Integrations

The library of integrated apps of both programs should be enough to cover other business processes, like payment processing and payroll. If integration is important to you, both are great choices.

FreshBooks integrates with hundreds of third-party programs. A few include Gusto for payroll, Stripe and PayPal for credit card processing, Bench and Mazuma for bookkeeping, and Shopify and Square for ecommerce.

Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online has integration with native products, such as QuickBooks Payments, QuickBooks Payroll, and QuickBooks Time. It also connects with more than 750 third-party applications, including Gusto, Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, and Square.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online: Mobile App Functionality

FreshBooks’ mobile app is a little more functional than the one from QuickBooks, but it all comes down to your needs. If you’re doing business with many suppliers and managing project contractors, you’d appreciate the option to record a new bill and enter time worked using FreshBooks. Meanwhile, if you need to process and track incoming transactions from a bank feed, QuickBooks Online’s app comes in handy.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks Online: Assisted Bookkeeping

QuickBooks Online wins for assisted bookkeeping. It’s used by the vast majority of small business owners in the United States, which means that you can find a competent local bookkeeper easily and quickly.

Users needing a professional bookkeeping service can add QuickBooks Live to their subscription by turning the feature on in their left menu bar. Through it, you’ll be paired with a dedicated bookkeeper to help you accomplish tedious bookkeeping tasks, such as bank account reconciliations and reporting. You can learn more about the solution through our review of QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping.

In addition to QuickBooks Live, users can work with independent QuickBooks ProAdvisors. QuickBooks Online is a very popular accounting tool that many local bookkeepers will be very familiar with. You’ll be almost certain to find a local QuickBooks ProAdvisor near you.

On the other hand, FreshBooks partners with a third-party online bookkeeping service, Bench, to provide assisted bookkeeping services to users. Depending on your subscription, you’ll get access to a dedicated bookkeeping team, year-end reports, unlimited tax advisory, and one-on-one tax strategy planning. Read our Bench Accounting review for more details on the provider.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks: Customer Support

While both offer several support channels that you can access easily, FreshBooks comes out ahead, primarily because of its live phone support. The ability to make a phone call when encountering serious issues is a huge factor that sets FreshBooks’ customer support apart from QuickBooks.

FreshBooks vs QuickBooks: User Reviews

Both FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online scored high with users. FreshBooks users appreciate that it’s one-stop accounting software that’s easy to set up and use. Reviewers also praised its project tracking features and how easy it’s to invoice clients if you use the project feature. The software’s biggest drawback is its inability to manage inventory, and users wished that FreshBooks had a live chat feature.

FreshBooks earned the following average scores on popular review sites:

• G2: 4.5 out of 5 based on about 660 reviews
• GetApp: 4.5 out of 5 based on around 4,100 reviews
• TrustRadius: 8.1 out of 10 based on about 195 reviews

Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online users appreciate that the platform makes invoice management seamless with an easy-to-navigate user interface (UI) and analytics dashboard. Reviewers also praised the ability to customize reports and integrate with multiple software. The solution’s biggest drawback is the inability to contact customer support directly by phone, and some users experienced issues with integrating payments from Square.

QuickBooks Online has the following average scores on popular review sites:

• G2: 4 out of 5 based on about 3,050 reviews
• Software Advice: 4.36 out of 5 based on around 6,000 reviews
• TrustRadius: 7.9 out of 10 based on about 1,530 reviews

How We Evaluated Accounting Software

We evaluated the small business accounting software based on ease of use, pricing, and how well it performed against the ideal features we’re seeking, including project accounting, inventory management, and mobile accounting. Our evaluation was based on a rubric scoring methodology in six categories, each with a designated appropriate percentage.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How much does FreshBooks cost?

Does QuickBooks Online offer a mobile app?

Can you use FreshBooks to track inventory?

Does QuickBooks Online support multicurrency invoicing?

Does FreshBooks offer customer support?

Bottom Line

If you’re a small business or a solopreneur whose primary focus is to track project profitability and you’re comfortable connecting your bank account, then FreshBooks is for you. However, if you’re looking for more than project management, QuickBooks Online is the best choice. It beats FreshBooks in many aspects of accounting, including inventory tracking, banking and cash management, bill management, invoicing, and income and expense tracking by class.