Please note this article is not financial advice. The purpose of our blog is purely educational, so please consult a professional accountant or financial advisor before making any financial decision.
You're in that stage of your business journey where you need to simplify your accounting. So you are looking for suitable software. The ones that will ease your business bookkeeping, accounting, and inventory management woes. After hours of looking, you come across two brands: Freshbooks and Quickbooks. So the question now is, what's the right software for you and your business?
Let Unloop answer that by examining these two popular accounting software brands.
Freshbooks vs. Quickbooks: Decision Criteria
Freshbooks and Quickbooks are two excellent accounting software rivals. They have their similarities and differences. Before you decide about which one you like better, let's set the criteria from which we'll compare the two.
Price
First on the list is how much money an accounting software will help you save. Of course, this is relative to the value they offer. But let's be square and look at this strictly from a price point perspective. That means the lower the price, the better.
Offerings
Here's where it gets interesting. Because we'll look at the structure of each software's offerings and how much these bring convenience or add value to your business.
Scalability
Another factor to consider before deciding what software you'll get is its ability to handle volumes of transactions. As an eCommerce business owner, you'll need to think long-term, and the long game aims at growing your business to a bigger size, with complex transactions left and right. So your software must keep up.
Inventory tracking
If you own an eCommerce business such as Fulfillment by Amazon, you'll need inventory tracking. So an excellent software can make accurate adjustments when there's inventory movement because it ties closely to your costs and revenue. On the other hand, inaccurate inventory management on the accounting end is a disaster that requires long hours of number crunching.
Number of Users
As your eCommerce business grows, you'll need more accounting savvy people to delegate the grunt work of poring over numbers. You'll want to have software with multiple user capabilities to share access to trusted staff if the work becomes too time-consuming for you or if you'd rather do something else.
Now that we’ve set the deciding factors for the two accounting software, let’s put them to the test. Which one would be a better choice for your business? Let’s start.
Freshbooks
Freshbooks has a strong value proposition that targets small business owners and self-employed people. The brand offers quality support at any stage of your business journey. In addition, they also support several types of businesses. So whether you're a freelancer, a professional, a traditional business, or a contractor servicing other businesses, Freshbooks will cater to your needs.
Their pricing structure is based on a subscription system, with their cheapest annual package priced at $15 per month up to $50 per month. If you pay the one-off price, you'll pay $180 for the lowest-priced package and $600 for the highest. They announce promotions on their plans sparingly.
Browsing the offerings of Freshbooks will lead you to three different plans: Lite, Plus, and Premium. In a nutshell, here are the features they offer:
- Expense tracking
- Customized invoicing
- Double-entry bookkeeping reports
- Tax tracking
- Integration with other helpful applications
- Time tracking
- Mileage tracking
Once you decide to explore Freshbooks, you can use the 30-day free trial to get a feel for how their software works. Its interface is straightforward enough that even non-professionals can use it. Not only that, it's also suitable for microentrepreneurs and small businesses.
Quickbooks
Quickbooks is the child of Intuit—a software company behind many other businesses and financial solutions. This company has been around for some time, and has built a wide array of products that cater to a specific consumer segment. For example, they have software designed for accountants, small businesses, and individuals. But their dominant software brand is Quickbooks.
Subscriptions also define Quickbook's pricing structure. The cheapest plan they offer costs $25 per month while the highest price reaches up to $180 per month. Occasionally discounts and promotions are also offered.
Potential Quickbooks users who are business owners can choose between four plans: Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced. Their offerings vary in scope depending on what plan you select, but to lay out all their offerings, this is what you'll get:
- Income and expense management
- Invoice creation
- Tax information sharing
- Financial statement reporting
- Business application integration
- Billable hours tracking
- Performance metrics tracking
- Job costing and analysis
Quickbooks shines in the number of plans and add-on features you can subscribe to. For example, their Quickbooks Point-of-Sale (POS) is an add-on that lets you track sales when they were made. They also have a Live Tax add-on feature that lets you consult with a tax professional.
The Verdict: Quickbooks is the Best Choice
Let's talk about similarities. Freshbooks and Quickbooks are the same in terms of functionality. They both can connect to your business checking or savings account. Both can generate financial reports, issue invoices, track expenses, and enable bookkeepers to make journal entries.
Now, let's talk about the advantages. In terms of inventory management, Quickbooks has the upper hand. For an eCommerce business, this is crucial. On the other hand, Freshbooks seems to be more focused on individuals such as freelancers and self-employed professionals. Due to the criteria mentioned above, we choose Quickbooks.
Price: Freshbooks
At face value, there's no doubt Freshbooks wins this criterion. In terms of savings, your $180 can get you a year's worth of Freshbook's Lite plan compared to Quickbook's Premium $180 per month plan subscription.
To put the subscription price in a better perspective, let's compare two of the cheapest plans from both software. Freshbook's Lite plan costs $15 per month, while the similar Simple Start plan costs $25 per month. So if you're pinching dollars and starting a business on a budget, Freshbooks is the better choice.
Offerings: Quickbooks
When it comes to Freshbooks and Quickbooks integration, no doubt Quickbooks is unbeatable in this criteria. Granted, Freshbooks can compete with similar standard offerings such as income and expense tracking, bookkeeping, and integrations, to name a few. But where Quickbooks wins is on the add-on features. Which brings us to the next point.
Inventory tracking: Quickbooks
Quickbooks for small businesses has inventory tracking that exceeds expectations. While Freshbooks has the basics handled, Quickbooks raises the bar with additional features such as low-inventory alerts and reorder functionalities. As a result, you are empowered to manage your inventory on the spot.
Scalability: Quickbooks
Small business software add-ons are available to take advantage of once you're subscribed to Quickbooks. As your business grows, what follows afterward are the number of employees and the volume of your inventory.
Quickbooks lets you upgrade your plan with additional features to adapt to growth. Features such as Quickbooks POS will let you track and manage a large sales volume. Quickbooks payroll will help you accurately pay your employees' salaries. Freshbooks is yet to keep up with these sophisticated add ons.
Number of Users: Quickbooks
Another concern when it comes to scalability is the number of users. FreshBooks vs QuickBooks self-employed and small business plans offer options to add users. Yet, Freshbooks has a base user of just one, and you'll have to add $10 per user per month. Quickbooks' plans vary in the number of permitted users ranging from one for their Simple Start plan to 25 users for their Advanced plan. Plus, you can even add accounting firms to the number of users and they all have their separate slots.
Get the Power of Quickbooks with Unloop
Getting accounting software will benefit you and your business, but only if you know how to run the software. So once you subscribe to Quickbooks, you still have to learn how to use it. This will take time. So let Unloop bridge the gap with our bookkeeping services. We use Quickbooks and are adept at using it, so we can work with entrepreneurs like you to free up your time. Call us at 877-421-7270 for more information about our bookkeeping services.