[titoav15]

Just thinking about starting bookkeeping services and possibly have 2 clients. Was wondering what would be the best software (and economical) to use? I will be doing payroll and adding expenses and and revenues. Please keep in mind that these are small businesses. As always you guys are amazing with your suggestions! 🙂 Last things, I have a mac…

BEC: 5/21/14 82! PASSED HALF WAY THERE!
FAR: 4/2/15 80! Almost there!
AUD: 69, 74, 4/3/14 81! PASSED
REG: TBD

[sdguy]

Quickbooks desktop version definitely. Don't touch the online version, it's complete crap. I speak from experience and many experienced accountants would agree.

AUD: 83
FAR: 77
REG: 86
BEC: 86

[sasricks]

I'm a QB ProAdvisor and have clients in QB desktop, QB for Mac, and QB online. There are strong points for all three as well as weak areas. Xero is another web based platform that is gaining on QB, although I haven't tried it.

[sasricks]

I'm a QB ProAdvisor and have clients in QB desktop, QB for Mac, and QB online. There are strong points for all three as well as weak areas. Xero is another web based platform that is gaining on QB, although I haven't tried it.

[sasricks]

tncincy, my MacBook doesn't have a 10 key, but I have a wireless pc keyboard with a 10 hooked up to it. I did this mostly because I run boot camp and have both the iOS and Windows so I can support all of my clients.

[Ag12thman]

QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online are separate products and their differences are pretty heavy-duty. I have used both and have clients that I do bookkeeping for in both and they are really feel like they are almost products of different companies. Like others mentioned, there are positives and negatives on each. I generally push the desktop version, but some clients do not want to fool with having to load back-up copies on flash drives and run them to and from my office. I have one client in particular who wanted to do no back-up/portable copies of QuickBooks files and chose to switch everything to QuickBooks Online for that very reason. But QuickBooks Online is very limited as far as what you can go in and edit, change, and/or modify. For example, a couple of days ago, I had to call Intuit support to have a payroll deposit setting changed because the program would not allow me to do it. There was no way I could change it myself and had to call and have their support team change it for me. In QuickBooks Desktop, I could have easily and quickly made the modification myself without having to call support. This client also wanted to have unlimited, anywhere access to their QuickBooks information via the mobile app as well, so that's another reason they chose to switch to the Online version.

FAR: July 2016

[Anonymous]

My experience – the ONLY things I like about QB Online are that you can access it anywhere, anytime & don't have to wait on the client to send you a backup or accountant's copy & that I can log into my ProAdvisor & every client I have will show up. I don't have to have their username & password as long as they've added me as their accountant. As far as using QB Online… I hate it. It is not user friendly, you can't do near the customization of reports & the navigation is clunky. I would rather use the QuickBooks desktop version any day! I dread having to do work in QuickBooks Online.

As far as Xero… I had one client that their previous CPA had switched them to Xero & they were trying to get back to QuickBooks. It was a disaster. Though my use of Xero primarily consisted of finding transactions & reviewing data, I was not impressed.

One more thing to note… if you need to keep up with job costs, neither QB Online nor Xero will work well for you.

[Ag12thman]

I totally agree with BoutTime4CPA. QuickBooks Desktop all day long and 7 days per week over QuickBooks Online.

FAR: July 2016

[Author]

Replies