QuickBooks for Mac Review: Features & Pricing for 2023
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Mark has researched and reviewed accounting software at Fit Small Business since 2019 and has developed an extensive knowledge of accounting software features and how unique business needs determine the best accounting software.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023, also called QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, is a subscription-based accounting software program designed exclusively for Mac users. It offers features that are more or less similar to its Windows counterpart but with added Mac-specific features, such as the ability to connect iCloud contacts for easy access to customer or vendor contact information. It’s available on an annual subscription plan, with prices that start at $549.99 for one user.
Although QuickBooks for Mac 2023 has been released to QuickBooks ProAdvisors, it cannot be purchased through the QuickBooks website or any major retailers as of the writing of this article. QuickBooks is pushing to convert Mac users to QuickBooks Online, which, in our opinion, is a better software. If you need additional information to help you decide, read our QuickBooks Online vs QuickBooks Desktop comparison.
QuickBooks for Mac
Overall Score: 4.00
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Has an easy-to-use and well-designed user interface
- Supports an unlimited number of companies with a single license
- Includes unlimited customer support and product updates
- Has Mac-only features to improve productivity
What's Missing
- QuickBooks appears to be phasing out this program as it is difficult to buy and all the online-support articles have apparently been removed
- No accountant’s copy—file sharing with your accountant is complicated
- No mobile app to manage accounting on the go
- Maximum of three users
Are you looking for something different? Explore other comprehensive accounting platforms for business owners in our guide to the best small business accounting software.
QuickBooks for Mac Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types | Self-employed professionals and very small businesses that prefer Apple products |
Pricing |
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Money-back Guarantee | 60 days from the purchase date |
Standout Features |
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Customer Support | Call back support (submit a request and they’ll call you), live chat, chatbot, and user guides |
QuickBooks for Mac New Features for 2023
- Pay bills online: QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023’s Pay Bills Online feature lets you schedule and pay bills online without leaving QuickBooks.
- Upload bills: You can now upload a photo of your bill using the iPhone scanner or QuickBooks Photo Sync feature. When a new bill is uploaded, QuickBooks will match the data to an existing transaction or create a new one automatically.
- Customer group reporting: You can now run reports on a specific customer group and create a group with certain criteria, such as high-balance customers.
- Additional reports: QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023 added four new reports: adjusting journal entries, profit and loss unclassified, profit and loss budget performance, and unpaid bills by job.
- Improved item management: You can now duplicate existing items with the ability to change information to the new item as needed.
- Improved condense facility: QuickBooks for Mac 2023 has added more options to condense your company file, allowing you to customize the data that you want to condense. For instance, you can choose to remove audit trail info to date or remove transactions based on date choices.
You can learn more about the new Quickbooks for Mac 2023 features with a series of videos from QuickBooks.
QuickBooks for Mac Alternatives
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
Best for: Businesses that want a cloud-based accounting program | Best for: Businesses that need mobile access to their accounting files | Best for: Budget-conscious businesses looking for an affordable solution |
Starts at: $30 per month | Starts at: $0 | Starts at: $12 per month |
QuickBooks for Mac Pricing
QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023 is available on an annual subscription basis, which costs $549.99 for one user, $749.99 for two users, and $949.99 for three users. All plans include unlimited customer support.
Fit Small Business Case Study
We conducted an internal case study to see how QuickBooks Desktop for Mac performs against our rubrics. In this review, we examined the Mac program across several core areas that we believe are the most important to small businesses looking for an accounting solution.
The table below summarizes the result of our case study.
Categories | Score (Out of 5) |
|---|---|
1.00 | |
4.30 | |
4.80 | |
4.80 | |
5.00 | |
5.00 | |
4.00 | |
5.00 | |
4.80 | |
3.90 | |
0.00 | |
4.00 | |
Overall Score | 4.00 |
QuickBooks for Mac vs Competitors
We conducted a comparative case study to see how QuickBooks for Mac stacks up against some of its competitors. We found that it has a decisive advantage over QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books in terms of project accounting and that it shares the spotlight with QuickBooks Online for banking and Zoho Books for inventory management. Meanwhile, QuickBooks for Mac’s biggest weakness is the lack of a mobile app.
The chart below sums up the result of our case study.
Case Study for QuickBooks for Mac vs QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books
Touch the graph above to interact Click on the graphs above to interact
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QuickBooks for Mac $549.99 per year for one user
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QuickBooks Online Starting at $25 per month, $85 as tested
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Zoho Books Starts at $0 for businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenue; $40 as tested
QuickBooks for Mac Features
General Features (4.30/5)
QuickBooks for Mac did well in this criterion but could have garnered a higher score if it could track income and expenses by location—the same weakness of the other QuickBooks Desktop products. If you need to track accounting data for location-based activities, a way around this would be to set up each location as a class.
Despite its weakness, QuickBooks for Mac still has great standard accounting features and includes added Mac-specific features, including the ability to add general contact information, credit limits, to-do lists, default sales tax, customer credits, maps, and directions. There’s also an option to create contact groups and invoice the entire group at once.
Importing an existing chart of accounts and beginning balances is also possible, but the program lacks an Accountant’s Copy―offered in the Windows version―making it complicated to share accounting files with your accountant. However, the new version lets you exchange data with the Pro, Premier, and Premier Accountant editions.
Accounts Payable (4.80/5)
QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023 has solid A/P features, but it’s not that easy to use—which explains the slight blow to its score. The A/P module allows you to enter and pay a bill, track unpaid bills, record recurring expenses, create and print vendor checks, and short-pay an invoice. The Pay Bill screen isn’t as streamlined as in the Windows version, but the fields are almost similar.
Entering a bill in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac
Vendor management is also excellent in the Mac version because it allows you to perform advanced transactions, such as record credit memos, and pay independent contractors through service items. QuickBooks Desktop for Mac would have the same features and benefits as QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop if only it included a mobile application. As such, it doesn’t have a feature that allows you to upload an expense receipt through a mobile app, which could have been time-saving for user
Accounts Receivable (4.80/5)
QuickBooks Desktop for Mac lets you create and send invoices to your clients. While not as flexible as QuickBooks Online’s invoicing, the Mac version allows you to change the format setup, adjust alignment, add a logo, and update the text color of your invoice. You can choose from QuickBooks’ default templates or create your own template.
Sample invoice in QuickBooks for Mac Plus 2023
Additionally, it offers excellent customer tracking in its A/R module, where you can view outstanding invoices, view balance by customer, view transactions by customers, and set up recurring invoices.
Banking and Cash Management (5.00/5)
Banking in QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023 is as great as in QuickBooks Online. You can connect your bank accounts, import bank transactions to QuickBooks, and perform bank reconciliations—even if you don’t connect your bank account to the software.
You can also enter the ending balance in your bank statement and match bank statement items manually with the books. After reconciling your bank and credit card accounts, the software generates a reconciliation report to show any timing differences between transactions in your books and those that have cleared your bank.
Project Accounting
QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023 allows you to create projects connected to customers. With this feature, you can set a job status, start date, projected end date, and description. You can also run job costing reports. Most importantly, the program allows you to compare actual and budgeted project costs—something unavailable in QuickBooks Online. You can track time, create timesheets, attach billable time to invoices, and use progressive invoicing as each step of a project is completed.
Adding a new job to a customer in QuickBooks for Mac
Sales & Income Tax (4.00/5)
This application offers the same features that other QuickBooks products have. You can add sales tax items, track sales tax liability, and adjust sales tax from sales returns. If you’re working with independent contractors, you can add them to QuickBooks and track their 1099 payments. Unfortunately, unlike QuickBooks Online, the Mac-only version doesn’t allow you to e-file your taxes.
Inventory (5.00/5)
QuickBooks for Mac 2023 uses the average cost method to track the cost of inventory items, as opposed to QuickBooks Online’s first-in, first-out (FIFO) method. Inventory tracking in the Mac version is easy, as it computes the cost of goods sold (COGS) automatically in every invoice and determines the cost of ending inventory.
This means that there’s no need to track the original costs of your removed items since they’re calculated automatically. What’s more, the inventory screen shows the quantity and total value of your item and reorder points, so you can be prompted to order more inventory.
Tracking inventory items in QuickBooks for Mac
Reporting (4.80/5)
There are more than 100 reports available in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, which include profit and loss (P&L) statements, balance sheets, sales reports, charts, and graphs. Reports can be modified through filters and presented per class. The only limitation to its reporting feature is the inability to create reports by location, which is a big deal for businesses that operate in multiple locations or offices.
Sample reports available in QuickBooks Mac
Ease of Use (3.90/5)
QuickBooks Desktop for Mac has a clean interface, but it isn’t as easy to use as cloud-based programs like QuickBooks Online. However, it becomes easy to navigate and use once you get the hang of it.
Luckily, with the new subscription-based plan for all installable QuickBooks products, users will now enjoy unlimited access to live customer support without an additional fee. With the earlier versions, you would have needed to purchase a QuickBooks Care plan to enjoy unlimited support.
You can also ask QuickBooks to call you in case you have questions. Apart from that, chatbots and self-help information are available online. Unfortunately, most articles about QuickBooks Desktop for Mac are outdated and scarce.
Just like the other QuickBooks Desktop products, QuickBooks for Mac has a workflow-based homepage. From the main page, you can find important features that are categorized by vendor, customer, company, and banking. This helps you navigate through the program easily.
QuickBooks Desktop for Mac Homepage
Mobile App (0.00/5)
QuickBooks Mac Plus 2023 doesn’t have a mobile app. It’s purely a program for Mac without mobile app functionality. We recommend choosing QuickBooks Online if you want to stay within QuickBooks or Zoho Books for its excellent mobile app.
User Reviews (4.00/5)
We found several QuickBooks for Mac reviews, and users love the program for its clean interface and the ability to enter transactions easily, such as monthly expenses and input checks. Others are also impressed by its seamless bank account reconciliation capability. On the other hand, some are dissatisfied with its customer service, explaining that they usually spend many hours on the phone just to receive support.
QuickBooks for Mac has generally positive ratings from several review sites:
- Software Advice: 3.97 out of 5 from about 80 reviews
- TrustRadius: 7.9 out of 10 from more than 110 reviews
QuickBooks for Mac Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is QuickBooks for Mac right for my business?
It’s the right fit if you’re a self-employed freelancer or an owner of a very small business who does your own bookkeeping on a Mac computer.
Is QuickBooks for Mac easy to learn?
While the interface is clean, it may still take time to familiarize yourself with the features, especially if you are used to cloud-based accounting programs.
Can I convert QuickBooks for Mac to QuickBooks for Windows?
Yes, you can convert QuickBooks for Mac to QuickBooks for Windows. Read QuickBooks’ guide on how to convert files from QuickBooks Mac to QuickBooks Windows.
Bottom Line
QuickBooks Desktop for Mac offers many of the powerful features found in QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop for Windows, such as job costing, class tracking, invoicing, and income and expense tracking. While it has some limitations, like the lack of a mobile app and location tracking, the added Mac-specific features make up for its weaknesses. If you use a Mac and manage your books in-house, then we don’t see any reason not to use QuickBooks for Mac.
