QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are both very versatile accounting software variants, However, it depends on the usage of a particular user to choose among these. It also depends upon the size of the business and the number of employees a company has. And many ad times it depends on the number of users going to use. This decision is generally taken by the owner and bookkeeper collectively as it is very important to choose the accounting software to finish up the daily task quickly and efficiently.

QuickBooks Online is for the users usually very busy traveling and has a field job, such users always look for simple and precise information to take decisions and check the status of their business on mobile devices like Laptop, tablets or smartphones.

QuickBooks Desktop is for the users having many employees working together to complete the accounting tasks and those needs detailed information about the business in the shape of customized reports and user access, it is also used by the users who need to track expenses.

Differences Between QuickBooks Online vs Desktop

QuickBooks Desktop is good for:

1. Users who do not want to pay for software on a monthly basis.
2. Users with fixed working locations.
3. Users want to track on budgeting and spending and through customized reports.
4. Users do not want their data accessible Online for security reasons.

QuickBooks Online is good for:

1. Users with employees or bookkeeper need to access data at the same time from different locations.
2. Users who want to pay every month as they do not want to pay for a longer period at a time.
3. Users who want their data to be accessible Online only.
4. Users who like Automation in the tasks with updating the chart of accounts from the bank website.

QuickBooks Desktop Advantages:

QuickBooks Desktop has a major advantage, It has ability to manage large amounts of inventory and job costing.

QuickBooks Desktop has many features that QuickBooks Online does not. Here are some of the features below are only supported in QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise.

1. Data Entry:

1. Price Levels.
2. Create Invoices in Batch.
3. Billing Rate Levels.
4. Batch Enter Transactions.
5. Batch Enter Timesheets.
6. Pay Vendors Online (ACH).

2. Job Costing:

1. Progress Invoicing/Billing.
2. Job Costing Module and Reports (Estimate vs. Actual reporting).
3. Mileage Tracking.
4. Payroll job Costing/Labor Burden Costing.
5. Change Orders on Estimates.
6. Markup Column on Estimates.

3. Reporting:

1. Multiple Vendor Ship to Addresses.
2. Industry Specific Reporting.
3. Business Planner, Forecasting, Balance Sheet by Class.
4. Better Report Header and Footer Customization.

4. Inventory:

1. Average Cost Inventory Valuation Method.
2. Set and Maintain Inventory Reorder Points.
3. Receiving Partially Against Purchase Order.
4. Sales Orders.
5. Availability to Promise.
6. Build Assembles or Manufacturing Features.
7. Unit of Measure.

5. Accounting:

1. Backup and Restore Feature.
2. Condense File.
3. Period Copy.
4. Client Data Review tools.
5. Fix Unapplied Payments and Credits.
6. Cleanup UN-deposited Funds.
7. Fix Sales Tax.
8. QuickBooks Statement Writer.
9. No 1099 Feature for Simple Start and Essentials Client.
10. Cannot Post to Additional Accounts receivable /Accounts payable.

QuickBooks Online Advantages

Below are some exclusive features supported by QuickBooks Online that are not the part of QuickBooks Desktop:

1. Automatically schedule and send transactions.
2. Attach documents, images, signatures & more to transactions using a mobile device, or upload on your computer.
3. Use Audit Log to review actions and track changes over time.
4. Bank Transactions download automatically. The user can also “Undo” (and in batch) an added, matched, or excluded transaction within the banking tool.
5. Custom Banking Rules can be made to split by $ or % and the user can assign a class/location within a rule.
6. Bank rules can be set to Auto-add to register.
7. Unlimited time tracking and reports only users.
8. Delayed Charges and Delayed Credits to create non-posting transactions that a user can bill for or apply later.
9. Journal Entries can have multiple Accounts receivable /Accounts payable lines.
10. Set up multiple budgets per fiscal year.
11. User Management Reports building a presentation ready package of reports from cover page to end-note.
12. Seamless integration with 3rd party apps.

Also Read: Comparison Between QuickBooks Online and Desktop