QuickBooks Online vs Solopreneur: When to Use Each

We are driven by the Fit Small Business mission to provide you with the best answers to your small business questions — allowing you to choose the right accounting solution for your needs. Our meticulous evaluation process makes us a trustworthy source for accounting software insights. We don’t just scratch the surface; we immerse ourselves in every platform we review, exploring features down to the finest nuances.

We have an extensive history of reviewing small business accounting software, and we stay up-to-date with the latest features and enhancements. Our first-hand experience, guided by our internal case study, helps us understand how the products compare and how they work in real-world scenarios.

Eric Gerard Ruiz, CPA

Accounting and Bookkeeping Expert at Fit Small Business

We compared QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Solopreneur based on the factors most likely to affect a small business owner’s buying decision. These include pricing, core accounting features, ease of use and customer support, integrations, mobile functionality, assisted bookkeeping options, and user reviews.

We also considered each product’s intended user. QuickBooks Online supports a wider range of small and midsize businesses, while Solopreneur is designed specifically for one-person businesses. Because of that distinction, we focused on which product better serves its target user rather than simply counting which platform has more features.

QuickBooks Online lets you fully customize the chart of accounts, allowing you to organize your financial data in a way that makes sense to your business. You can rename and edit existing accounts, add account descriptions, and set account types and detail types based on your unique needs.

In comparison, QuickBooks Solopreneur uses a more standardized approach to your chart of accounts. Basically, it will determine your chart of accounts based on your company information, and you can’t modify or customize it to your unique needs. If you need to customize your chart of accounts, you should consider QuickBooks Online.

As a comprehensive accounting system, QuickBooks Online provides a balance sheet that shows your company’s assets, liabilities, and equity. You can easily run a balance sheet report and customize it by adjusting the date range, selecting specific accounts, and applying filters. You can also print it if needed.

Meanwhile, you can’t generate a balance sheet in QuickBooks Solopreneur.

One unique feature of QuickBooks Solopreneur is its growth goal-tracking tool. It lets you create target goals, such as increasing revenue or reducing expenses, and set a timeline for achieving them. The program then provides tools that help you track your progress toward your goals through key performance indicators (KPIs) displayed on the dashboard.

Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online doesn’t have the same dedicated growth goal-tracking feature, but you can track your business growth in many ways. For instance, eligible QuickBooks Online plans offer budgeting and reporting tools that let you compare actual performance with your financial targets.

QuickBooks Online and Solopreneur both support double-entry accounting, but they take different approaches to tracking income and expenses. QuickBooks Online offers more comprehensive tracking and reporting and lets eligible plans use classes and locations for more detailed income and expense tracking.

Solopreneur combines double-entry accounting with a simplified workflow designed for self-employed users. It automatically categorizes transactions into predefined categories and makes it easy to separate business and personal activity. However, you can’t use classes and locations as you can in higher QuickBooks Online plans.

We believe Solopreneur’s simpler approach is sufficient for many one-person businesses that primarily need a clear overview of where their money is coming from and where it’s being spent.

QuickBooks Online and Solopreneur have similar basic invoicing and estimate management capabilities. You can create estimates and invoices and send them directly from your QuickBooks account.

Solopreneur lets you customize estimates and invoices with your business information and logo, while QuickBooks Online provides more extensive sales-form and customer-management options.

Note that QuickBooks Self-Employed had no estimate management feature, so this is a significant improvement for many users moving to Solopreneur.

QuickBooks Solopreneur lets customers pay invoices by credit card, debit card, ACH, PayPal, Venmo, and Apple Pay when QuickBooks Payments is enabled.

QuickBooks Online also supports those payment methods and provides additional capabilities, including in-person payments. It also lets users set up recurring payments, making it a better option for businesses that provide ongoing or subscription services.

Receipt capture is available in both QuickBooks Online and Solopreneur.

With Solopreneur, you can take photos of receipts and match them with transactions. QuickBooks Online also lets you capture and upload receipts as part of its broader expense-management workflow.

This removes what was previously one of the more significant feature gaps between Solopreneur and QuickBooks Online.

Both QuickBooks Online and Solopreneur offer bank feeds that let you connect your bank and credit card accounts to your QuickBooks software. Alternatively, you may also choose to manually upload your transactions if you prefer that approach.

Both products provide banking tools to review and organize imported transactions. QuickBooks Online provides more advanced accounting and reconciliation capabilities as your bookkeeping needs become more complex.

You can enter expenses in both programs, but you can’t record bills in QuickBooks Solopreneur. With QuickBooks Online, you can enter and track expenses and bills, and you can even pay bills directly from the platform.

While expense tracking in Solopreneur might be enough for most one-person businesses, some may still need the ability to manage and enter bills, especially those who want to track upcoming expenses for budgeting purposes.

After you connect your bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online or Solopreneur, the program automatically imports the latest transactions and categorizes them based on your activity and categorization history.

QuickBooks Online provides more flexibility for organizing financial activity through its customizable chart of accounts and, on eligible plans, classes and locations.

Solopreneur offers a more straightforward option for tracking personal vs business transactions. It allows you to separate and categorize these transactions, which is particularly useful if you’re using the same bank account for personal and business expenses.

QuickBooks Online offers more flexible reporting options than QuickBooks Solopreneur. You can generate a wide range of reports in QuickBooks Online, including balance sheets, P&L, and cash flow statements.

Depending on your subscription, you can also generate reports on specific aspects of your business, such as A/P, A/R, projects, and inventory.

Meanwhile, report options in QuickBooks Solopreneur are more limited. It offers P&L and other business reports but doesn’t provide a balance sheet or the broader A/P, A/R, cash flow, project, and inventory reporting available in QuickBooks Online.

Both programs offer similar mileage-tracking capabilities. They can automatically track business trips using GPS, so you don’t need to log your odometer reading manually.

You can then categorize your trip as either business or personal. As the app tracks your mileage, it calculates the deductible amount based on business miles driven and the applicable IRS mileage rate.

Just like QuickBooks Online, Solopreneur automatically calculates sales tax rates based on transaction information such as your customer’s location.

For instance, when creating an invoice, it can calculate the applicable sales tax based on the sale location or the “ship to” address. If you’re billing customers for tax-exempt items, you can turn off tax tracking where appropriate.

Some of the features available in QuickBooks Online that are not offered in Solopreneur include:

• Class and location tracking: You can track activity, such as income and expenses, by class and location, allowing you to generate detailed reports on specific areas of your business. For instance, if you have multiple product lines, you can track how much money you make and spend on each product line.
• Contractor payments: QuickBooks Online lets you set up contractors as vendors, process payments by checks or direct deposits, and generate reports on contractor expenses.
• Inventory management: You can set up inventory products and monitor stock levels in real time. As you sell items, QuickBooks Online automatically calculates and records COGS, helping you keep precise inventory records.
• Project accounting: You can set up projects, assign them to team members, and track those projects until they are completed. You can also add income and expenses to a project and enter time entries if needed to track profitability.
• Fixed asset management: When you upgrade to QuickBooks Online Advanced, you’ll be able to set up fixed assets, calculate and track depreciation, and generate depreciation schedules.