QuickBooks Online vs Desktop: Which Is Right for You in 2023?

QuickBooks Online has a slight advantage over QuickBooks Desktop in terms of invoicing because of its ability to calculate sales taxes automatically to apply to an invoice based on the customer address. This feature is particularly useful if you sell and ship products out of your state. Both programs allow you to create and send invoices to clients, but QuickBooks Online’s invoices are more professional-looking and have more room for customizations. Also, QuickBooks Online’s invoicing feature is more intuitive than Desktop, so if you’re planning to self-manage your books, we recommend QuickBooks Online.

• QuickBooks Online
• QuickBooks Desktop

Sample invoice in QuickBooks Online

Sample invoice in QuickBooks Desktop

Both platforms have great project accounting features, including the ability to create projects, assign income and expenses wages to a project, and convert estimates to invoices once approved. However, QuickBooks Desktop is better as it allows you to set up cost estimates for projects and then compare them to actual expenses.

When you create a new project in QuickBooks Desktop, you can enter estimated costs for various expenses, such as labor, materials, and equipment. As the project progresses, you can track the actual costs for each expense and compare them to the estimated costs to see how the project is performing financially. This allows you to identify areas where you may be overspending or underbudgeting and make adjustments to your project plan accordingly.

While QuickBooks Online also offers project management features, it doesn’t have the same level of depth and customization options as QuickBooks Desktop when it comes to project accounting.

One of the advantages of QuickBooks Desktop over QuickBooks Online is the availability of five industry-specific editions—manufacturing and distribution, professional services, contractors, retailers, and nonprofits. These versions, available in Premier and Enterprise, provide custom-tailored features and reports based on the unique needs of their industry.

For instance, the Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition has custom reports that are unavailable in the other editions, such as Inventory Valuation Summary, Sales by Item Summary, and Purchase by Item Summary.

QuickBooks Online beats QuickBooks Desktop in mobile accounting. As one of our best mobile accounting apps, the QuickBooks Online mobile app lets you perform many accounting tasks, like sending invoices, accepting payments online, and viewing financial reports from your mobile devices. The QuickBooks Desktop mobile app is very limited as it only allows you to capture expense receipts. If you want to perform bookkeeping from anywhere, we strongly recommend QuickBooks Online’s mobile app.

If you have employees, you can add QuickBooks Payroll to your QuickBooks Online account for as little as $45 per month plus $5 per employee. QuickBooks Payroll allows you to pay your employees by checks or direct deposits, e-file and e-pay taxes, print and e-File W-2 Forms at year-end, and more.

Meanwhile, QuickBooks Premier has three payroll options with prices that start at $50 per month plus $5 per employee. If you want to save yourself from the hassle of filing and paying taxes, you may upgrade to QuickBooks Desktop Assisted Payroll for $109 per month, plus $2 per employee.

If you need more automation features through integration with third-party tools, QuickBooks Online is the clear choice as it connects to more than 750 third-party integrations. QuickBooks Desktop has only a few integrations available and most are focused on eCommerce. Recently, it integrated with Webgility, an ecommerce bookkeeping provider, which boosts its inventory features across various platforms, like Amazon, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and eBay:

• QuickBooks Online: PayPal, Square, SOS Inventory, Fathom, WooCommerce, Shopify, and more
• QuickBooks Desktop: Webgility, Gusto, and Microsoft 365, plus a few others

In addition to third-party integrations, QuickBooks Online integrates with native products, such as QuickBooks Payments, QuickBooks Payroll, and QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets). QuickBooks Desktop can be integrated with QuickBooks Desktop Payroll and QuickBooks Time.

If you need more personalized support for your bookkeeping, QuickBooks Online might be a better choice since you can subscribe to QuickBooks Live for support. Users needing professional bookkeeping assistance can purchase an add-on called QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping, which connects you to a team of certified bookkeeping professionals for real-time support through video chat. Your dedicated bookkeeper will manage your books and provide month-end reports.

Alternatively, you can hire a QuickBooks ProAdvisor to help with your bookkeeping needs. To help you get started, we prepared a guide on how to find a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. Meanwhile, if you or your accountant wants to become a ProAdvisor to demonstrate expertise in QuickBooks, read our article on how to become a QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

While both QuickBooks Online and Desktop are supported by a large network of ProAdvisors, it’s much easier to share your books with your ProAdvisor using QuickBooks Online. Getting assistance with your Desktop bookkeeping is difficult since you must save an Accountant’s Copy of your company file and send it to your ProAdvisor. Also, QuickBooks Online integrates with some third-party assisted bookkeeping platforms, including:

• Bookkeeper.com
• Xendoo
• QuickBooks Live
• Bookkeeper360
• Pilot
• Merritt Bookkeeping

QuickBooks Online offers many advantages over QuickBooks Desktop, such as cloud accessibility, more convenient file sharing and collaboration, scalable plans with varying features, and a functional mobile app.

QuickBooks Desktop is preferable for companies that want to manage their books without an internet connection. It’s also a better option for businesses requiring complex inventory accounting features.

QuickBooks Online is cheaper than QuickBooks Desktop if you have many employees who’ll be using the program. For instance, QuickBooks Online Plus only costs $85 per month for up to five users as opposed to Desktop’s Premier, which costs $799 for only one user. If you want five users, you’ll pay around $2,000 per year.

Yes, and you can learn it from our tutorial on how to convert QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.

Yes, you can, but the process is a bit tedious. You need to manually export your files from QuickBooks Online by clicking on the gear icon and selecting Export data. You’ll then need to import your files to QuickBooks Desktop through the File menu.