With QuickBooks Online, you can customize income and expense categories, you can customize the settings to your specific business needs, and you can integrate it with apps to add functionality.
There are 4 different versions of QBO:
- QuickBooks Online Self-Employed
- QuickBooks Online Simple Start
- QuickBooks Online Essentials
- QuickBooks Online Plus
Here is a decision making guide:
You must use QuickBooks Online Essentials if:
- If you need more than one user and up to 3 users
- You want to manage and pay Vendor bills
- You want to control what users can access
You must use QuickBooks Online Plus if:
- You need more than 3 users
- You want to use purchase orders
- You want to track inventory
- You want to prepare 1099’s
- You want to give employees or subcontractors access to enter hours worked
- You want to track billable hours by customer
- You want to prepare budgets
- You want to track income and expenses by class or location
If you have a professional services business and you need to track billable hours you should purchase QuickBooks Online Plus.
If you want to sell inventory – you should purchase QuickBooks Online Plus or stay with QuickBooks Desktop version.
If you want to use purchase orders – you should purchase QuickBooks Online Plus.
If you own a construction company or a company requiring you to do job costing – you may start out with QuickBooks Online Essentials but you probably need QuickBooks Online Plus. However job costing is easier with the QuickBooks Desktop version.
Still not sure which version to choose?
I recommend that you start with the Essentials version or Simple Start. You can always upgrade to a higher version. If you purchase the Plus version you are not able to downgrade to a lower version.
I know that it can be scary to choose the wrong version. But you can always upgrade to a higher version if you purchase QBO Essentials or Simple Start. The important thing is to get started so that you can set up your company and start tracking your business finances in QuickBooks Online.
Here is a quick comparison guide of QuickBooks Self-Employed to QuickBooks Online
