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Quickbooks vs. Freshbooks: Which is Right for Your Small Business

January 12, 2014 By Tom Grant 4 Comments

Freshbooks vs Quickbooks
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As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you probably find that keeping the books is one of your least enjoyable tasks. However, there is no getting around it: accurate recordkeeping is essential to maintaining your company’s bottom line.

Fortunately, there are a number of software programs that remove much of the tedium from performing accounting and bookkeeping functions.

Two of the most popular programs are QuickBooks and Freshbooks.

While the names may seem somewhat similar on the surface, the two programs actually perform significantly different functions. Depending on your online business accounting needs, either or both programs may represent the best choice for your company.

Table of Contents

  • QuickBooks
  • Freshbooks
  • Using Both Programs Together
      • Tom Grant
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QuickBooks

QuickBooks is designed for billing and bookkeeping, and is perhaps the most popular accounting software on the market. Many accountants and bookkeepers use QuickBooks.  If your record-keeping needs are primarily focused on tracking sales and maintaining inventory, QuickBooks is an excellent choice.

However, its timekeeping and expense-tracking functions are rudimentary, at best. The software wasn’t set up to perform those kinds of functions. Nonetheless, if you are a solo practitioner, you may be able to use QuickBooks to track your own billable hours.

On the other hand, if multiple people attempt to insert timekeeping records within a single QuickBooks program, matters can become complicated very quickly.  Therefore, if your company’s primary administrative recordkeeping needs are timekeeping and invoicing, QuickBooks is definitely not the right choice.

Freshbooks

Although the program has the word “books” in its name, Freshbooks is not bookkeeping software.  If your company only needs bookkeeping or accounting software, don’t waste your money purchasing Freshbooks.

Instead, what Freshbooks does, and does well, is track your billable hours and generate customer invoices that you can customize to fit the needs of your business. The program allows you to send invoices by email or regular mail, and accept payments online if you prefer. You can also set up automatic payments with a credit card merchant account.

Unlike QuickBooks, which can take some getting used to, Freshbooks is extremely easy to use, even if you have no training in accounting or bookkeeping.  Freshbooks also features outstanding telephone customer service from knowledgeable representatives.

The one snag is that Freshbooks does not allow customers who sign up for automatic billing to update their address through their profiles or when they pay invoices. However, this is not a problem for one-time billing.

Using Both Programs Together

If you need timekeeping, billing, accounting and bookkeeping software for your company, it makes sense to invest in both QuickBooks and Freshbooks. You will more than make up the initial financial outlay in reduced recordkeeping headaches.

However, if you opt for the strategy of using both software programs together, you must ensure that you account for all transactions within each software program.

To minimize the amount of duplication between the two programs you can create detailed customer invoices with Freshbooks, and limit the total monetary amount of each transaction as a single line item listing in QuickBooks.

Using both programs together in this manner also provides a handy means of double-checking your entries for accuracy.

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Filed Under: Small Business Advice Tagged With: accounting, freshbooks, quickbooks, time tracking

Comments

  1. Caleb says

    May 21, 2014 at 4:04 pm

    Quickbooks is an effective tool for any business when utilized in the correct way.

    Reply
  2. Catherine says

    January 22, 2014 at 6:17 am

    Great article! We use both Quickbooks and Freshbooks online. We found that Freshbooks is better for tracking sales tax. In Washington State, there are multiple sales tax rates, destination based, so the DOR wants taxes reported according to where the product is delivered. Details of all billing and accounts receivables are tracked in Freshbooks. Quickbooks is used for all other bookkeeping. We appreciate that both are web based so we can send invoices, track deposits, pay taxes, etc. while out of the office. We also subscribe to Quickbooks payroll service and have been very happy with that as well.

    Reply
    • Gail Gardner says

      January 24, 2014 at 1:46 am

      Hi Catherine,

      Thank you so much for sharing your experience. What you have written can benefit others in knowing which will work better for their business situations.
      Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Guest Blogging is Dead; Long Live Guest Blogging; NOT Done!My Profile

      Reply
  3. Zareen says

    January 20, 2014 at 12:44 am

    My vote goes for QuickBooks, as they are providing some great services to the subscribers. Its an amazing service, and i would like to say best of luck to the creators / developers.
    Zareen would love you to read ..Discovery Health Offers Plumber Internships 2014My Profile

    Reply

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