 QuickBooks Online 2024, QuickBooks Software Types and Options. Get ready because we don't just do data input here. We get totally into it. With intuits, QuickBooks Online. First, a word from our sponsor. Yeah, actually we're sponsoring ourselves on this one because apparently the merchandisers, they don't want to be seen with us. But that's okay, whatever. Because our merchandise is better than their stupid stuff anyways. Like our, trust me, I'm an accountant product line. Yeah, it's paramount that you let people know that you're an accountant. Because apparently we're among the only ones equipped with the number crunching skills to answer society's current deep complex and nuanced questions. If you would like a commercial free experience, consider subscribing to our website at accountinginstruction.com or accountinginstruction.thinkific.com. Before diving deeper into the details of QuickBooks Online, we first want to think about the different types, the different categories of accounting software, both in general and with regards to the types of QuickBooks categories, in particular the comparison providing us a better understanding of where QuickBooks Online falls with relation to its peers of accounting software that providing us an understanding of what QuickBooks might do better and what other accounting softwares might do better in other areas. Now there's a lot of different ways that we might try to categorize accounting softwares. But one of the first ways you probably want to start categorizing accounting softwares is it a desktop version or is it an online version? QuickBooks is great for this comparison because they have both a desktop version and online version provided by the same company allowing us that head-to-head comparison with two softwares from the same company. But when you're comparing any kind of accounting software, you can do a similar question. That's one of the first questions you probably want to ask. So what does it mean then to be a desktop software versus an online software? The desktop software you can compare as being similar to say a Microsoft Office product like an Excel, for example. Microsoft Excel being a software that you're going to download and you actually house it on your computer whereas when you look at an online type of product like a QuickBooks Online, it's not housed on your computer, it's on a web page. Meaning when you're accessing it, you have to have the internet of course and you're going to be accessing it from someone else's server that you don't actually own, right? Your data is on their server versus the data and the software being on your computer. Now a lot of the differences that we'll take a look at will stem from that general situation, whether it be on your desktop or whether it be online. Now just note that there's other things that you might compare as well that would be some of your primary comparison points such as what industry are you in? Are you looking at a software that is going to be specific to a particular industry? How large is the business? Are you looking at software that's going to be a lot more flexible or customizable for larger businesses? Or are you a smaller business that possibly needs a software that's kind of an out of the box software doesn't need a whole lot of customization to suit the needs of a particular type of company? So those are some other kind of splits that you might want to look at. But again one of the first ones is probably that's going to be this question is a desktop versus online. Okay so for the QuickBooks in particular the question has come up as to whether or not the into it is going to remove it. Now notice there's different versions of both the desktop and the online. So once we start to talk about desktop versus online then we're going to get into the details of what are your options within each of these versions. In our case we're going to look at the online version. But there's different options for the desktop version as well. The higher option being the enterprise. Now QuickBooks enterprise on the desktop doesn't look like it's in danger because it has some specific benefits that are specific to particular companies like tracking inventory being an area it does fairly well. But the comparison of the desktop version pro or pro plus versus the standard online version there's been questions that come up as to whether they're trying to push people online possibly so that they can remove that desktop version while keeping the enterprise version. Now from a marketing standpoint if you just look at their website it clearly does look like they're trying to get the people that would be using the general version of the desktop pro or pro plus to instead move online. Whether or not they're planning on discontinuing the desktop version is basically up in the air. But that's a question that the first thing we have to basically address obviously the online version for the small to mid-sized companies is what QuickBooks is pushing. That's kind of seems like that's where they want people to go judging simply by the way that their marketing is going. And then when you get into the larger companies then again you might have specialized needs. One of those being for example inventory where you might go into the desktop version of enterprise the advanced desktop version which seems to be fairly secure. So then the desktop version has been moved to a subscription model so they both now have a subscription model. It used to be that the desktop version you would purchase it this was similar or the same for Microsoft Office products you purchase them, they're on your computer you can use them as long as you want and so on. And that was good for certain types of bookkeepers. If for example you're a bookkeeper that just needs basic bookkeeping to do the books of multiple small companies then that could be a great business model because now you have one software you can use it similar to using Microsoft Excel in that once it's on your computer you can make multiple company files from it and take care of multiple files and possibly you don't need to renew it each year because you just need basic bookkeeping you're not doing anything advanced. Now you can see why that's one reason that Intuit would want to move people to possibly online or to a subscription model. The fact that they move to a subscription model means that they can give their updates more all the time, they can update all the time instead of updating like the last year's version and then updates to the prior year version so that actually might make it easier that's one of the things that was probably driving them to try to push everyone online. So the fact that they move to a subscription model might be for the desktop version that means that they keep the subscription model if it works because they're not tasked with the burden of updating multiple different years of software but we will see. Now the desktop version also has the multiple company files for one purchase whereas the online version only has one company file per purchase so the general idea for the desktop version again it's kind of like a Microsoft Office product in Microsoft Excel. Once it's on the computer you can make multiple files. If you had QuickBooks desktop you can make then multiple company files with one version of the software which again is still could be very nice for some types of bookkeepers. So if a bookkeeper wanted to just pay one subscription and then they wanted to do multiple company files you can see how that could be advantageous by just scaling up the use of that one piece of software. So that's where that kind of business model would be most scared of into it trying to push everyone online because they're trying to maximize the amount of small businesses possibly they're doing with one subscription of the software making multiple company files. If you go online then what happens is you basically purchase one company file at a time. So if you're a bookkeeper and you wanted to do multiple company files then you would have to purchase multiple files each of them costing a separate amount. So now for us, for students here then it's still kind of the desktop version was kind of nice because we can then make a practice file and we can practice just with the practice file or if I want to duplicate or copy a file so I'm not messing with my original data but I'm still looking at my data I can do things like that with the desktop version which I can't do so well with the online version because you just have the one company file so you can't make multiple files with it. That's where the challenge comes with us when we're trying to learn QuickBooks Online because what we want to have as a sandbox that's different than our company file so that we can use it to practice with. Static backups versus data stored on a secure server. So when we get into the backup situation there's a couple questions that come up. One is the security of the data what if I lose my data and some others are how can I use the backup files for other reasons other than just making sure I don't lose the data input that I did just yesterday. Now from the standpoint of securing the data QuickBooks Online's standpoint is or QuickBooks standpoint would be that the online is actually safer because your data is on a secure server that's being double backed up and they're doing all the security measures on the server. So that argument there would be that you're not going to lose your data if there's a fire in your house or your hard drive crashes or something like that and even if you have a very good backup system their argument is that their backup system is better because it's on their server and that may well be the case but there's other questions as well with the static backups you could use them for other reasons than just losing the data so if you had the desktop version what you would want to do is backup your files nightly and you would do that on an external drive or you would do it to the cloud right you'd backup your stuff nightly whenever you do updates to your file and do it somewhere other than where your actual data file is at and that's a pretty secure type of system but the other benefit would be that if I wanted to use my file for practice or if I wanted to test something out I can make a backup of the data securing my data possibly and then use the backup or use a separate company file to test something or to practice with something or if I wanted to have another plugin that I'm trying to use and see whether or not that would be good or if I wanted to try to connect to the bank account which maybe I haven't done before and I'm trying to test out if that would be something I want to do but I'm scared that it's going to mess up my whole file if I try to test it out then I can have another file to test it out with these are all things that you can use the static backup for in ways that you can't really you can't do if you don't have the static backups because the QuickBooks Online is always real time now QuickBooks Online and the advanced versions now which they might be putting into all versions at some point is trying to put in a system where you can restore your data to a prior point which would be great you might also use other software that can do a similar thing where they try to restore your data to a prior point but even that is still not quite as versatile as the backup because if you restore your data to a prior point it's not like it's a different file right now they've taken your one file it now has the different data point it's hard to go back and forth from a prior point to the current point I don't have two different files you're restoring my one data file to different places as opposed to like if I was using similar to Microsoft Excel where I have two data files right which I feel safe about because they're different and I can open them differently so those are going to be some of the pros and cons with the backup side of things the desktop version like I say for these two reasons in particular is really nice to practice with because you can get those backup files the online we have a little bit more of an obstacle to practice with again online is where Intuit wants to go that seems to be where everything is headed so that's the place to be generally that's what we want to learn often times but we have a little bit more of an obstacle to practice with it because we can't restore the backup files so I can't do things we can't do things like make a backup and then you restore the backup so we have the same data on your side and my side as we start the practice problem those things are more difficult to do so we'll get creative so consistent design, changing design so the desktop version has had a very consistent layout for a very long time it looks kind of like the old people probably don't even know the old Microsoft office before they had the ribbon they had the drop downs that's what the desktop has and it works, it works fine and it doesn't change and doesn't change very much at all over a long period of time and that consistency is what a lot of people like about it because if it's not broke you don't need to fix it as the general idea there whereas the QuickBooks Online it being a web-based software one of the benefits of a web-based software is that they can do A-B testing just like any kind of website and put different buttons in different areas or label the button differently so when you click on it it has a different name on it and on the plus side of that the idea would be that they can get to an optimal place because they can A-B test and they can improve constantly improve their website and I think there's some truth to that so they can optimize their website to be as user-friendly as possible however, I also kind of feel like because designers are paid to design even if they hit that optimal site if they got to the peak if they got to the best point I don't think they would stop designing because they're going to keep A-B testing so they're still going to move off of the peak of the optimal position because they're paid to change the website I think with the online version you're going to deal with different website designs that are going to be happening so all that means is the button was over here was on the left before now it's on the right they used a different term it used to have really formal accounting language to try to appeal to accountants possibly then they changed it to really informal language to try to draw in the new hip crowd that there aren't accountants they think accountants are boring or whatever so they want language that isn't accounting language they'll try these different tactics and what we have to learn is just to roll with it because everything is basically the same it's just the double entry accounting system it's just the question of what are they doing this time to try to improve the website it's better but it's probably just the same it's just the surface layer so we have to deal with that online which keeps us on our toes and that's why we update the course here try to update the course so you can see those changes on a periodic basis as we go so enterprise may fit special needs like inventory tracking better so with the desktop version some things the desktop version does better so one of those things tends to be like if you had advanced inventory tracking needs then that might be one area where you're like okay I want to get into details in terms of is the online version or is the desktop enterprise version what I need versus the online the online has general inventory needs and you could possibly get advanced inventory needs but I think the desktop version still might have a superiority in advanced inventory tracking so it's more difficult to work from different locations obviously the desktop version is on the desktop so there could be workarounds for you to access your desktop from other locations but that's going to be more difficult than accessing the cloud from any location now that's a benefit for people that are accessing their work from different locations but I still again I think Intuit would argue that it's not a security issue because their website is secure and everything but it still seems like it's another access point that is at least open to someone that gets your password and logs into your account because then they can access your stuff a little bit more easily on the cloud than actually hacking into your computer which they can also theoretically do so you have to deal with that you want to make sure your password is secure and have everything secure on that or if it's on your desktop you still want to make sure that you have the double verification and everything set up but it might be a little bit more difficult you would think for someone to hack into it on your desktop versus if they got access to it online possibly any case bank feed may be a little more difficult to use on the desktop versus online this is what the online does really well so the bank feeds are us connecting to the bank we'll talk about that at the second part of the course and the desktop version you can do that there might be like an added step for the connection and you might have to make sure that you update the connection yearly as the software is updated whereas the online version once you're connected it flows quite well at this point in time so this is an area where the online is great so add apps may be more difficult for the desktop and the online is easier so clearly if you're on a web based application adding apps or add-ins different types of applications that can help you do stuff is easier to do online it's also kind of a detriment that that's the case because you want to be careful of what apps you put in there because if you tie something in an app that is not good that could be difficult to undo but the fact that obviously developers and whatnot that are trying to work new things out can do it more easily on an online type of application than a desktop application for the most part so people that are trying to think about how can we make things either how can we make an app that will make things better they're typically going to be working you would think more likely with the online version than the desktop once we've chosen or desktop we're now jumping over to the Intuit website so this is intuit.com the owner of QuickBooks and I'm going to go into the QuickBooks area the QuickBooks page and I like to go all the way to the bottom now and then look under the products and under the products we have the different QuickBooks desktop versions here and then we have the QuickBooks online versions let's go to the QuickBooks online and then we can compare the different options here so what we're going to primarily be practicing with is the plus option so that's where we're generally going to be but if you have really basic needs you might be able to be over here versus the advanced so you can compare on this page the comparison is pretty straight forward in that the new stuff is on the bottom right so basically you could say okay this is going to be all the same and then you've got basically the new stuff and bold down here which is the differentiating factor so the simple start it used to be something that was almost unusable for most businesses but I think they made it a little bit better so more businesses can use it so you've got the free guided setup the income and expense banking so the banking 5% so bookkeeping automation let's take a look automated bookkeeping to cut down on tedious tasks but more time to focus on your business invoice payments so obviously the invoicing is going to be key because that's going to be one of the primary things you might be using the software for tax deductions general reports so run and export reports including profit and loss expense and balance sheet those are the main ones you need it used to be I think at one time they didn't have like the balance sheet or something which is a main report so you kind of have to have those two the income statement and the balance sheet you would think so receipt capture snap photos of your receipts mileage tracking if you want to take a look if you want to use that for the tracking of the miles get paid online or in person deposit instantly on the cash flow sales tax and sales tax information which is useful if you have to deal with the calculation sales tax the estimates which is necessary for certain types of businesses where you're sending out the estimate first and the contractors helping you assign the 1099 which is a requirement in the United States and connect one online sales channel and automatically sync this is a thing if you do like online marketing and you're syncing up to a shop like Shopify for example assisted bookkeeping you can add the assisted bookkeeping here notice payroll is not in there payroll is generally going to be an add on type of feature that is typically the case with any kind of online software so you can do payroll either internally through QuickBooks and hopefully we can set that up and practice a little bit with the payroll here although payroll is the whole course in and of itself or you can use payroll with a third party provider like an ADP or paychecks or something like that we'll talk more about that later but the essentials so all the stuff up top is basically going to be the same and then they got the bill manager organize and track your business bills online now so this is going to be the added one here so it looks like if you would did the simple you'd have basically what you would need for the invoicing side of things and then the bills when you track when you're small business you might not enter a lot of bills because you might be just paying your expenses as they come up and then rather than entering the bill which would be tracking accounts payable so if you're dealing with accounts payable in the system that's when the bill comes up here and then you connect three sales channels so these are the sales channels to connect a Shopify but you might have like an Amazon or something like that so you have more sales channels you can include if you're trying to connect to that stuff include three users this is one of the major restrictions that you have to deal with with QuickBooks Online is how many people can access the software because you'd like to have them logging in with different accounts accessing the software and possibly having different abilities to access different parts of the QuickBooks file enter time enter employee time by client project and automatically add it to the invoices so notice they're indicating they have the projects there by client or projects which is another tool that's useful within QuickBooks Online but notice the entering the time is not the same as payroll because you can enter the time then you have to process it with payroll which will typically be an add-on type of thing so you've got the plus which is what we'll basically use here and this is their customer favorite so this is like the standard one connect all sales channels so you've got more sales channels let's just see connect any available online sales channel and automatically sync include five users so invite your accountant to access your books that's another thing you can do which I don't think counts as a user like if your accountant can access it and then you have five other users that can log in if you have this one control user access levels so you have capacity to adjust the levels of users meaning restricting some users to certain parts of QuickBooks and then you have the time entry you have inventory this is the big one so notice that if you don't have to track inventory that's when you might be able to deal with the essentials and the simple start and so you might say okay if I don't have inventory then I'm on the essentials what's the thing that kicks you back from the essentials to the simple start well possibly if you don't have bills and possibly if you only need one user to be using the account but we want to deal with inventory here and so remember that we're dealing with basically basic inventory tracking within QuickBooks Online advanced inventory tracking you might have to level up to advanced or possibly that's where QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise is often that's where it's strong point often is but well that's why we're going to use this one because we want to track the inventory in their project profitability so now you've got the tracking of projects notice it had over here that you can include time for but they didn't specifically say they have the projects now a project is for job costing often times it's similar to like a class tracking kind of thing and it's for particular industries will typically benefit from it so we'll touch on it we won't spend a lot of time focusing in on it particularly but we'll look at it financial planning so create budgets with real time data so budgets is another thing that's not exactly part of bookkeeping per se because your future is broadcasting so you're taking the past data that was created from bookkeeping and doing a future plan QuickBooks has a capacity for you to enter the budget which gives you nice reports that are comparative reports versus what actually happens versus what you budgeted to happen so we'll take some look at the budgets in our course as well and then if you wanted to go to the advanced you've got the 25 users that's usually one of the things that restricts the use of QuickBooks one of the reasons people level up in other words is that they want more users so this one's up to 25 invite your accountant control user levels and share reports with share login so you can share reports in it I think this one actually has more ability to assign more specifically what each of the users can access as well so you have internal controls allowing people to access only certain parts of the software a little bit more flexibly than the other one so then you have financial planning create budgets with real time data you can collaborate with your team on so you have that collaboration piece I think is a level up from the budget over here data sync seamlessly send data back and forth between QuickBooks Online advanced and excel for more accurate business data so you might have more ability to input data possibly into excel for example and then upload it sync it up into QuickBooks Online and possibly vice versa which could make some data input faster employees submit expenses in QuickBooks so everyone's in one place and easy to track so now you've got the employees they can put their expense data directly and batch invoices and expenses create invoice enter edit and send multiple invoices faster through the batching process so when you're trying to send out like your reminders for invoices and whatnot or when you're trying to send out the invoices it might be easier if you're sending a lot of invoices to use the batching invoice and expenses process custom access controls here's the custom one easily control who sees your data assign work to specific users and create custom permissions so we have the 25 users and we have more capacity to say what those users can see and what they cannot see workflow automation save time and mitigate risk with automated workflow we've got the data restoration here's the one I was talking about where they're trying to match it a little bit more to the desktop it appears to me where it says continuously and automatically backup your changes restore a specific version of your company and view version history they have like that backup it sounds like a backup system where you can back it up to a prior point for example so that's a similar to the desktop where you have the static backups but I still don't think it's quite as safe to restore to a backup point and then try to go back to where you were before as if you had two files but 24-7 support and training so QuickBooks Priority Circle support and access to special training resources revenue recognition stay consistent complaint and credible with automated revenue recognition this is a new thing they put in stay consistent compliant and credible with automated revenue recognition now the revenue recognition you come into an issue where you have things like unearned revenue so let's see automatically track and enter deferred revenue to your books avoid manual work and spreadsheets get the most clear and accurate picture of your business health with better analysis give financial institutions correct incredible revenue info so certain businesses have certain revenue recognition revenue recognition issues such as businesses that have customer prepayments or deposits and things like that so we'll talk a little bit about that in the course but we're going to be going more we're going to be using this plus version primarily because it's the favorite version and because it has that inventory so that we want to practice doing the data input for