QuickBooks Online Review

QuickBooks Online is a powerful suite of digital accounting tools you can use to automate your business finances, saving you both time and money. Four tiers of service offer options for small to medium-sized businesses, providing tools for DIY accountants and professionals alike. QuickBooks Online isn't your cheapest option, and the software can be a lot to figure out, but folks who can make use of all the features will get plenty of value despite the high price tag.

QuickBooks Online features vary from plan to plan, with many of the deluxe features reserved for the higher-priced plans.

However, all versions of QuickBooks Online offer these standard features:

• Link bank and payment app accounts
• Track expenses and bills
• Capture and manage receipts
• Track mileage
• Generate reports (including profit & loss)
• Manage sales, send invoices, and accept payments
• Create customer database
• Track sales tax
• Manage 1099 payments
• Connect at least one online sales channel
• Work on-the-go with the Quickbooks mobile app

Upgrading to a higher-tier plan can unlock extra features, including advanced bill management, inventory controls, project profitability analysis, workflow automation, and more. You'll also need to upgrade if you want additional sales channel connections and/or to add additional Quickbooks users.

Link bank and payment app accounts

Sure, you could manually input every bank deposit, credit card purchase, or eBay transaction -- or you could let Quickbooks do the dirty work for you.

Under the Transactions tab, you'll find the Bank Transactions and App Transactions features. These allow you to link your external bank, credit card, and payment app accounts to automatically import transactions.

You can connect bank, credit card, and third-party app accounts to automatically import transactions. Image source: Intuit QuickBooks Online

Need even more automation? You can set up customized Rules to handle recurring transactions so they organize themselves. Rules can be set for any connected account, for both money-in and money-out transactions.

Rules are set up as simple if/then conditionals. For example, you can set a Rule that any purchase on your gas credit card is automatically assigned to the "Fuel" category. This makes it even faster to properly classify and track your expenses.

Have receipts that aren't in your transactions? You can scan them with the app and easily upload those, too.

Track expenses and bills

Under the Expenses tab, you'll find a variety of tools to help you track expenses and bills. This starts with a handy overview of all of your expenses, which can be sorted and filtered by Date, Status, Category, and more.

Expenses can be sorted and filtered to easily find what you need.

Expenses can be added manually, but it's likely far easier to link your business bank, credit, and payment accounts so Quickbooks can import them. You'll need to assign categories and tags yourself to start, but you can set up Rules (as mentioned above) so recurring expenses will be categorized automatically.

There's a separate tab to manage your Bills, which will show you both unpaid and paid bills. Sort by everything from Vendor to Due Date to see what you owe at a glance. You can add bills through a computer upload, or manually create both one-time and recurring bills.

Quickbook Online also offers a few ways to easily pay your bills. For instance, you can choose to print paper checks. Or, sign up for the online Bill Pay function that lets you schedule payments via bank transfer or credit card (there is a 2.9% fee for credit card payments).

Manage sales, send invoices, and accept payments

Under the Sales tab you'll find your income-based features, including:

• Tracking sales
• Creating and sending invoices
• Managing your customer database
• Staying on top of products and inventory

The Overview shows you a summary of your business's income, unpaid invoices, and any related tasks. You can find a list of all of your invoices, payments, sales receipts, and time changes on the All Sales page.

The Invoices page lists all invoices, with a quick graph of the status of unpaid and paid invoices. For any open invoice, you can send a reminder that the payment is past due, or email the customer a link to the invoice with an option to pay online.

Create and send invoices and payment reminders.

Not quite at the invoicing stage? You can create and send estimates for any customer, then easily transform them into invoices once the project is complete.

Manage customer information from the Customers page. Each customer entry can include everything from contact information to a transaction history. The same Customer list can also be accessed from the Customers & Leads tab. (That is where you'll also find any Mailchimp lead management services you purchase as add-ons.)

You can also manage your products and services from the Sales tab, where you can track inventory, establish reorder points, and set prices for easier estimates and invoices.. If you sell services but not inventory, you can keep track of those in this area as well.

Generate reports, including profit & loss

QuickBooks Online offers a good selection of (potentially) useful reports under its aptly named Reports tab. While you can also create custom reports, the main page offers a list of all the Standard reports, which it orders into the following sections:,

• Favorites: You can select specific reports you use regularly and want quick access to.
• Business overview: This lists handy reports on basic business details, including a variety of profit and loss reports.
• Who owes you: This section includes reports on where your money is, such as open invoices and accounts receivable.
• Sales and customers: Here you can find reports designed to show customer trends, such as seeing sales by customer or sales by product.
• What you owe: Check here if you want a report on bills and vendor balances.
• Expenses and vendors: Get quick access to things like vendor expense or purchase lists.
• Employees: This section houses an employee contact list.
• For my accountant: Here you'll see reports that may be useful for an external accountant, like a balance sheet, general ledger, and reconciliation reports.

Reports can be saved for future access once and you can or export it to Excel or as a PDF.

All reports can be customized and saved for future access once the report is run, and you can choose to email it directly to recipients, print it, or export it to Microsoft Excel or as a PDF.

Track sales and income taxes

The Tax tab in QuickBooks Online helps you track and calculate important taxes, including sales tax, income tax, and 1099 filings.

For instance, set up the Sales Tax feature to automatically calculate the appropriate sales tax amounts for each sale you make. It also tracks any payments made and the amount due. You can add as many sales tax rates as necessary, and can also add a new tax rate when creating a new invoice.

Save yourself a headache at tax time by automatically calculating sales tax.

Folks whose business income is filed under personal taxes may find the Income Tax page handy, as well. It includes tools for calculating both your income and self-employment taxes. It uses your transactions, trips, and tax profile to estimate your eligible deductions and annual taxes.

Send contractor and vendor 1099s

Businesses that work with a lot of vendors or contractors may need to generate a lot of 1099s. You can create, send, and manage 1099s from multiple areas of QuickBooks Online.

You'll find both Vendors and Contractors pages under the Expenses tab. Here you can add entries for new contractors or vendors, create 1099s, and set up payments. You can choose to prepare your own 1099, or you can have QuickBooks contact your contractors to collect the appropriate tax info and prepare the 1099 for you.

Let QuickBooks set up your 1099s or do them yourself.

The Contractors page can also be accessed through the Payroll tab. If you simply want a list of all of your 1099s, you can find this under the Taxes tab.

Manage your business on the go with the mobile app

Whether you're a contractor who works in the field or a digital nomad who country hops, many small business owners are mobile these days. So it's nice that you can manage your business's accounting while keeping on the go.

The app doesn't have everything the browser version offers, it still offers many of the most useful tools. You can send and track invoices, for example. The app also lets you organize transactions easily, offering the ability to categorize transactions with a simple swipe.

You'll also find an interesting bonus feature: mileage tracking. App users can have the app automatically track mileage with a few taps. This can be far more convenient than manually tracking and adding mileage reports.