The New Year Is The Right Time to Get Started With QuickBooks Online

Happy New Year and Happy New Beginnings!

As someone who once worked as an accountant for Fortune 500 companies and two of the Big 4, I honestly find cloud accounting software, like QuickBooks Online (QBO), to be a breath of fresh air. It is one system that can grow as your company grows. I’m going to repeat a key word: ONE

The companies and firms I once worked for had multiple accounting systems to support their business. Multiple systems were needed because each did something unique that the other did not. Unfortunately, many of those systems failed to talk to each other, which was why someone like me had a job.

With QBO [as well as the other cloud accounting software], the ability to talk or communicate is what makes it great. For example, it communicates with major banks and credit card companies to seamlessly import your transactions into the system. It also gives you, the user, the ability to communicate directly from a phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop. And if you have been using the desktop version of QuickBooks, you can easily import your data into QBO.

QBO has three different subscription levels. There is Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus. The main difference in each subscription level is the user access.

There is another online subscription called QuickBooks Self-Employed, which will be reviewed in another article.

QBO Simple Start

Simple Start allows for one primary user and up to two accountant users. It is the primary user that gives the accountants access.

As mentioned earlier you are able to link your business bank account and credit cards to Simple Start, which will automatically download transactions to the system. Your business is also able to manage receivables (money owed), generate unlimited invoices, print checks, and record transactions. However, you are not able to enter bills to manage your accounts payable, and Simple Start does not have a general ledger report.

QBO Essentials

Essentials has all the features of Simple Start and more. It allows for three users and two accountant users. Bills can be entered for accounts payable management. Essentials also supports multi-currency transactions and it does have a general ledger report in addition to other report options.