QuickBooks Pro Vs Premier: Which Is Better?

Unlike Pro, Premier comes in five industry-specific editions. Each comes with the same features as the standard QuickBooks Premier, in addition to a few extra features custom-tailored for each industry.

For instance, the Contractor edition lets you create a “job by vendor” report to determine which vendors you need to pay. You can easily generate job estimates and convert them to orders. Meanwhile, the Retail edition provides Sales Summary Reports to help you track sales accurately.

With QuickBooks Premier, you can generate a new forecast or use your data from the previous year’s sales to create forecasts for the current and future years. You can choose to create forecasts for different timeframes, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually.

To help you generate accurate predictions, Premier allows you to segment your financial forecasts by various characteristics, such as jobs and types of income or expenses. If your business involves multiple projects or jobs, Premier allows you to segment your forecasts by job—enabling you to see how each project contributes to your overall revenue. When forecasting upcoming expenses, you can categorize them by type, such as utilities, rent, and marketing, and forecast each category separately.

Premier lets you track open and unfilled orders (backorders) with sales orders easily. Let’s say your company takes an order for an item that is out of stock. You can ship the in-stock items immediately and deliver the back orders at a later time. Premier lets you track what was already shipped and what else you need to provide to your customers.

If you build products out of a bundle of individual items, Premier lets you track each component separately. For example, if you are manufacturing a mountain bike in-house, you will need to assemble your product using components, such as one saddle, one set of handlebars, and two sets of brakes.

Premier will track the stock of the mountain bike and each component individually. When you assemble the bike, Premier will remove the components from inventory automatically and add the assembled bike to inventory. This helps you determine how many bikes are available for shipment and what materials are available to build more bicycles.

Once a customer accepts your estimate, you can convert it into an invoice instantly. This helps you reduce data entry as you won’t have to enter the same information twice. This feature is especially useful for contractors.

Pro lets you set up a fixed percent price, but it’s not flexible enough for businesses with complex pricing structures. With Premier, you can assign customized price levels for a specific customer or item so that every time you create a transaction for them, the price will apply automatically.

Those satisfied with Pro shared that the program makes it easy for them to track bills and credit card charges and reconcile bank and credit card statements. Others also like that it can create more than 100 financial reports while some appreciate its affordable pricing. Meanwhile, those who left negative reviews complained that it’s limited to only three users, making it unsuitable for small businesses. Others shared that the customer support team is difficult to contact.

As of this writing, Pro earned the following scores on third-party review websites:

• Software Advice³: 4.4 out of 5 based on more than 1,800 reviews
• G2¹: 4.3 out of 5 based on more than 1,700 reviews

What users like about Premier is that it has industry-specific editions, unlike Pro. Many are impressed by how it handles most of their accounting needs, including inventory and PO tracking while others like that there are numerous reports available.

Meanwhile, one user who left a negative review commented that Premier is more expensive than QuickBooks Pro. Another reviewer complained that the customer support is not easy to reach, which is also the case in QuickBooks Pro.

Here’s how Premier is rated by several review websites:

• Software Advice²: 4.4 out of 5 based on around 100 reviews
• TrustRadius⁴: 8.2 out of 10 based on more than 400 reviews

If you only need up to three accounting users and have light inventory to track, then Pro might be enough for you. It has strong invoicing, bill payment, banking, and project accounting features, which are usually enough to cover standard accounting needs.

Premier is preferable if you have four or five accounting users or need enhanced inventory features, like inventory assembly tracking. You also need to upgrade to Premier if you operate in one of these industries: retail, nonprofit, contractor, manufacturing and wholesale, and professional services.

If your business has upscaled and you now need to add up to 40 users to access your accounting software, then you should upgrade to Enterprise. Read our QuickBooks Enterprise review to explore what advanced features are available for your medium-sized or large business.