QuickBooks vs Quicken
Millions of accountants and CPAs use either QuickBooks or Quicken as their primary accounting software. Of course, these are two accounting software that comes to your mind when talking about tools used for accounting. Both applications are proficient tools for managing accounting and finance. Hence, many try to find a comparison of QuickBooks vs Quicken.
If you are looking for a direct comparison between Quicken and QuickBooks, this article is for you. Here, we discuss the similarities as well as differences between the two on every feature. This helps to give you a comprehensive idea of which one may be useful or suitable for your needs.
Let’s dive into the QuickBooks vs Quicken comparison:
QuickBooks vs Quicken: Purpose
The fundamental difference between QuickBooks and Quicken lies in their purpose. Quicken was created to serve as a comprehensive personal finance management software, while QuickBooks was created with business accounting requirements in mind. If you own a business and need features such as 1099 reporting and inventory management, QuickBooks is what you require. Quicken does not have several features offered by QuickBooks (like management of accounts payable and accounts receivable, advanced app integrations, and more) because they are specific to business customers only. Meanwhile, Quicken helps you manage your personal investments and view your portfolio of various asset classes in real-time. QuickBooks can’t do this because they aren’t business accounting requirements. Also, if you have invested in real estate, then Quicken can help you simplify the management of your rental properties.
From a different perspective, QuickBooks is targeted for anybody who is either a self-employed professional or has a registered business. If you are only a salaried employee, you most likely do not need QuickBooks since you only have a single source of income. However, if you have a side business of any kind, you may benefit from QuickBooks’ business accounting capabilities. Quicken, however, is generally used by individuals looking to gain better control over their personal finances. Quicken can be used in your daily life to monitor, track, analyze, and control your expenditure. If you are a self-employed professional who does NOT hire others to work for you, there are two options for you: Quicken or QuickBooks Self-Employed.
Quicken stands out here in the comparison because it also allows you to analyze stock market funds for investing, something that QuickBooks is yet to implement. At the same time, however, QuickBooks allows you to track miles so your tax deductions can be effectively computed and applied. Both applications have their advantages and disadvantages, but it depends on what you are looking for.
QuickBooks vs Quicken: App Integrations
Without a doubt, QuickBooks wins here. QuickBooks includes integration with potentially hundreds of apps to give you a plethora of features that your business requires. For example, you can integrate your QuickBooks client with apps like TSheets that simplify employees’ leave scheduling and employee tracking, or you can choose apps like Wasp which simplify your company’s inventory management. There are a lot of apps on the Intuit App Store created for various purposes that you can access. Therefore, QuickBooks offers you tremendous flexibility when it comes to what it can do.
Quicken, on the other hand, only integrates with a handful of apps like Dropbox (for cloud storage), PayPal (for payment processing), and Zillow Zestimate (for property valuation). Hence, in terms of the functionality, QuickBooks wins any day because there is so much you can do with the various apps. Quicken as an application seems largely restricted to personal finance and real estate property valuation.
QuickBooks or Quicken: Value-Added Services
For an added cost, QuickBooks offers an option of ‘live bookkeeping’ meaning that you can have a professional bookkeeper prepare and maintain your QuickBooks accounts for you. If you run a business, it can be easy to get caught up with your day-to-day operations and managerial tasks. Thus, you can appoint a QuickBooks-certified bookkeeper to handle and prepare your QuickBooks accounts and keep them updated frequently so you don’t have to. With that said, you still need to hire an accountant to handle and file your taxes. However, coming to Quicken, there is no such official feature for you to hire anyone to handle your rental property management. So, you need to handle those accounts yourself.
Quicken vs QB: Credit Facilities
Both QuickBooks and Quicken offer credit facilities, but on different levels. QuickBooks offers business funding to help its customers manage their short-term expenses; if you own a business and need capital, QuickBooks Capital may be a viable option.
However, Quicken on the other hand functions much like a bank when it comes to extending line of credit facilities; for personal credit needs, you can sign up for a Quicken Mastercard credit card (subject to various terms and conditions that set the eligibility criteria) that helps you save more money by offering more rewards for everyday actions like dining out, grocery shopping, and more. QuickBooks, on the other hand, may not entertain capital requirements unless they are for the purpose of growing your business.
QB vs Quicken: Price Comparison
When comparing QuickBooks vs Quicken, pricing is one of the most important factors to consider. Since both applications provide the same functions to a certain level, it comes down to their pricing structure in the end. Quicken offers 4 editions including Quicken Starter, Quicken Deluxe, Quicken Premier, and Quicken Home and Business which are priced at only single-user licenses that renew annually. QuickBooks, on the other hand, offers several editions such as QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, and QuickBooks Enterprise some of which come with monthly plans (such as QuickBooks Self-Employed) and some others have yearly plans.
QuickBooks vs Quicken: What to Choose in 2020?
Having hosting options for your application can be quite convenient. After all, you can access your application and data from any location since it is delivered to you over the internet. On that note, QuickBooks offers a cloud-only version of the product, QuickBooks Online and you also have the option to opt for QuickBooks hosting. With QuickBooks hosting, a trusted cloud solutions provider (CSP) such as Apps4Rent hosts your QuickBooks application on a virtual desktop (or cloud desktop) that you can access from anywhere as long as you have internet connectivity.
If you are an accountant, this feature could potentially help you boost your revenues several folds as you can work and bill your clients while traveling. Quicken does not support any such hosting functionality although their new product Quicken on the Web, is meant to serve as a streamlined version of their desktop client. However, the web-based version is more of a trimmed-down version of the application which contains only the key features, unlike a hosted QuickBooks which offers the complete set of features from any computer anywhere.
Quicken and QuickBooks both are quite similar when it comes to their purpose. Both applications are designed to help simplify the financial affairs of the person (or the business). However, their approaches are different. QuickBooks focuses on the accounting and reporting of financial information while Quicken tries to focus on the spending and budgeting aspects. Now that you have a fair idea of what each application can do, we hope you can use this information to make better-informed decisions regarding your purchase.
If you would like to see and understand further how QuickBooks can help your business, get in touch with us today!
