QuickBooks Desktop Premier vs. QuickBooks Online

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Desktop Premier is an installed version of QuickBooks for general business, contractors, manufacturing and warehouse accounting, as well as nonprofits, professional services, and retail.N/A
QuickBooks Online
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.
$38
per month
Pricing
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Simple Start
$38
per month
Essentials
$75
per month
Plus
$115
per month
Advanced
$275
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Considered Both Products
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
We actually switched with the hiring of a new Chief financial officer to Sage Intacct. We are significantly behind with prior year audits and regulatory reporting and still used QuickBooks Premier for those reasons. In hindsight we should have done more research with …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
They are similar, my clients like QuickBooks Desktop Premier setup better and I like the payroll better in QuickBooks
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Online - We have some clients on AgExpert, Xero, and QB Online. All 3 provide good value in my opinion.
QuickBooks Desktop Premier - In our experience, QuickBooks Desktop Premier is the best desktop software we have encountered.
We have some clients using AgExpert and Simply, …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
We've used QuickBooks Desktop Premier for many, many years. We've not reviewed any other accounting products internally - but have a handful of the customers that use Cyma (mentioned above). While I've never had occasion to functionally use Cyma, I have had to install and …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
It is so much better with reports and journal entries.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
We tried a few other options like Bookkeeper and using Excel to track it. Bookeeper was a little outdates and more difficult to use. I had issues find the functions that I needed. Excel is just spreadsheets of the information with no easy way to do reporting. They don't have …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
[QuickBooks] doesn't have meaningful Reorder Reports. TracLine wouldn't work on my new computer. I'd have to invest $35,000 again & buy new Unix software 7 & new Cobol. I should have done it. I thought [QuickBooks] was a leader.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
[With] QuickBooks [it] is easy to make corrections without having to do a journal entry every time you need to correct an entry.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
I have always used QuickBooks and I am not familiar with others.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
This question really isn’t applicable to me, but I am intrigued by some of the new online systems that are replacing QuickBooks. That said, I really don’t want to be dependent on the delays and other limitations of working on a web-based application only. QuickBooks is still …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
We reviewed Sage 50/Peachtree and went with QB because of date flexibility in reporting.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
We have looked at Peachtree and other custom applications for an enterprise organization. Those products might be more robust - but for a small business, our needs are basic. This is easy to learn, intuitive and affordable. It's easy to install and maintain. Even non-technical …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
The only other accounting software I have used, and it was a long time ago, was Axapta.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
I think Quicken for my purposes is superior to QuickBooks Premier. I selected QuickBooks at my accountant's urging. It took a significant amount of time to set up, migrate, learn, and maintain. After almost 2 years of use, I abandoned it and returned to Quicken. Easier bank …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
The other accounting-based programs I have attempted to utilize in this position have been far inferior to the functionality of QB premier. One, in particular, has several methods of use and not all of them were easy to navigate. QB's use of icons and homepage direction chart …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
I have recently started working with Deltek Vision as a consultant project for a large sized architectural company with firms across the world. Understandably, Vision is a great project for this firm because of the needs that are required for a global firm, but is much more …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Although cloud-based platforms with a monthly subscription are very popular, I still prefer a desktop enterprise solution. Profit & Loss reports by Customer are not accurate in the online version because they cannot account for employee-related costs that should be assigned to …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Not so user-friendly, and has limitations depending on the level of software that you sign up for.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
QB Premier allows us to better track from a cost accounting standpoint and is easy for the average user to understand.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Selected QuickBooks over ten years ago due to it's ease of use and low-cost. At the time, it was a good bang for the buck!
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
QuickBooks' user-interface and features are better than that of other accounting systems we have encountered so far. It is easier to navigate through accounting modules and reports even for bookkeeping beginners.
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
QuickBooks Premier is more powerful and versatile than QuickBooks Online. We use QuickBooks Premier in a hosted environment, which allows our clients to access their software online, but retains the great features of QuickBooks Premier that we love. QuickBooks Online's web-page …
QuickBooks Online
Chose QuickBooks Online
I think of the two products this has less hassle as it is pretty straight forward and streamlined. Unfortunately, as much as we use the payroll version I cannot give that product the same raving reviews as QuickBooks Online. I really wish Payroll was not as complicated as it …
Chose QuickBooks Online
We use QuickBooks Online since it is user friendly and it has the ability to accommodate small businesses with more complex accounting needs. Price is not that expensive although the users that you can add are limited, if we need to add a user we need to remove the other users.
Chose QuickBooks Online
QBO works much better for our needs and our business. Netsuite had a few too many layers for our business, it was a little harder to use. QBO makes everything simple you don't need to be an accountant to use it. We are happy with the product and will most likely continue to …
Chose QuickBooks Online
None. The only other accounting software I used was a proprietary MSDOS system 20 years ago; this is much better.
Chose QuickBooks Online
We did not look at any other products as QB online is typically considered best in class.
Chose QuickBooks Online
Desktop is way cheaper, but QuickBooks Online stays more upto date and is way better at integrating with other software.
Chose QuickBooks Online
We went with Quickbooks because it was recommended to us by our accountant, as they too use Quickbooks.
Chose QuickBooks Online
Melio was a little easier to use, but could be clunky while syncing to QB, and also got expensive as they added charges for every transaction as well as syncing.
Chose QuickBooks Online
As an accountant, QuickBooks Online uses the language I learned in school and throughout my career. Xero tries to simplify it, while actually making it more difficult to understand.
Chose QuickBooks Online
I truly hated Sage as a bookkeeper. I know that accountants don't have the same experience, but from a day to day perspective, it was not user friendly.
Chose QuickBooks Online
Easier to use and setup. More accountants are familiar with it so that also made the selection easier. Other software was also more expensive and had features that we weren't going to utilize at our current growth stage.
Chose QuickBooks Online
I have to use SAP for billing with some clients, and I think Ariba is much less intuitive, and the interface/GUI is much less modern and appealing. The fact that the client needs to send a PDF "user guide" says a lot to me about how counter-intuitive a lot of the features in …
Chose QuickBooks Online
Sage Timeslips and Avaza
Chose QuickBooks Online
Reporting is more diverse and ability to add multiple dimensions
Chose QuickBooks Online
I think QuickBooks Online is better than Xero. However I think is is lower then NetSuite and Sage Intacct. The system isself is great because it's cloud based so it can be accessed readily. However, in my opinion, it's not built for companies that are growing or expect to grow. …
Chose QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online has better options for sending invoices and receiving electronic payments.
Chose QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is by far the easiest and fastest accounting management platform that I have used, especially compared to any industry specific tools like Sage, Foundation, Northstar, etc. I like how user friendly it is, the visual is great, and it can fit for a wise array of …
Chose QuickBooks Online
They are expensive and always have freezing issues and duplicating entries and no one available to address issues. To change the way you use the sites it takes time to update and its too jumpy and makes annoying issues. These effect the whole company and can take a lot of time …
Chose QuickBooks Online
User friendly for smaller communities.
The cost seems to be reasonable for smaller communities.
Support is helpful, and trainings provided online are helpful.
Chose QuickBooks Online
Unfortunately, in my opinion, QuickBooks Online is not anywhere cloase to coupa or Blackline in terms of functionality. Both platforms are head and shoulders above where i understand QuickBooks Online to be currently. Specifically in relation to task automation and more …
Chose QuickBooks Online
As I've mentioned, there aren't a lot of similar products, and certainly not with all the capability of QuickBooks Online. In my opinion, they nickel and dime for everything but they also do work pretty well across the board. I think the reconciliation process is also by far …
Features
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
9.0
Ratings
15% above category average
QuickBooks Online
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Pay calculation7.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Benefit plan administration10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Reimbursement management10.00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
1.3
Ratings
142% below category average
QuickBooks Online
8.3
Ratings
8% above category average
API for custom integration1.30 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Plug-ins1.30 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
10.0
Ratings
18% above category average
QuickBooks Online
9.7
Ratings
15% above category average
Single sign-on capability10.00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Role-based user permissions10.00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
8.2
Ratings
4% above category average
QuickBooks Online
8.1
Ratings
3% above category average
Dashboards9.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Standard reports9.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Custom reports6.50 Ratings7.50 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
8.3
Ratings
6% above category average
QuickBooks Online
8.5
Ratings
9% above category average
Accounts payable10.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Accounts receivable10.00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Cash management10.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Bank reconciliation10.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Expense management10.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Time tracking5.00 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Fixed asset management5.00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Multi-currency support9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Multi-division support7.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Regulations compliance1.80 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Electronic tax filing10.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Self-service portal5.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Global Financial Support5.00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers7.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting10.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Localizations10.00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations10.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting10.00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Configurable Accounting10.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework10.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Standardized Processes10.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
2.9
Ratings
87% below category average
QuickBooks Online
7.5
Ratings
2% above category average
Inventory tracking1.70 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Automatic reordering1.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Location management8.00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Manufacturing module1.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
8.0
Ratings
3% above category average
QuickBooks Online
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Pricing10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Order entry10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Credit card processing10.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Cost of goods sold10.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Order Orchestration10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility1.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Order exception Resolution5.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Small Businesses
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 8.9 out of 10
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.0 out of 10
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Score 10.0 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.3
(0 ratings)
1.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.7
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(0 ratings)
1.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(0 ratings)
1.3
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.2
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Desktop is an easy-to-use software with good services. Their invoicing, employment, and vendor sections are all wonderful. These sections allow efficient tracking and instant business summaries and reporting. However, the pricing for additional services and upgrades and lack of good customer service makes it a less attractive software for small businesses.
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I appreciate the ability to auto-generate invoices for recurring transactions, which saves time, as well as the option to set up auto-generated transactions. The report option is super helpful when reviewing information, as you can click to view the details in the report without having to go back and forth.
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Pros
  • QuickBooks Premier is easy to use, yet flexible and powerful enough to handle some complicated accounting scenarios.
  • QuickBooks Premier offers a wide array of canned reports. Custom reports can be easily created.
  • QuickBooks Premier with Enhanced Payroll gives us the tools to handle complex payrolls with multiple variables.
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  • It enables me to do a P&L for each specific program as requested by the county for the grant money that they give us.
  • It enables me to do [an] organizational budget as well as a budget for each specific program
  • It enables the accountant and the auditor access at any time for transparency
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Cons
  • I would like to be able to choose how i want to view accounts receivable aging. I would like some flexibility to sort and choose how to present the data.
  • For a seasoned accountant, I would like to see some of the restrictive controls that are in place for novices to be able to be relaxed so that I can easily make some entries and adjust some balances that ordinarily a regular user would not be able to do.
  • I would like to see an easy way to clear old outstanding checks that need to be reversed without affecting prior balances/history.
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  • Purchase Orders cannot be linked to multiple bill payments which makes tracking purchase orders in QuickBooks Online obsolete. Without the function we have to track this within a different more manual spreadsheet.
  • Would be helpful if you could "split" bank transactions directly from the "review" downloads from the bank. Currently, to split transactions to multiple accounts we need to first categorize, then review after assigning to 1 account.
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Likelihood to Renew
Because we have been extremely happy with the product and our organization tends to be creatures of habit. We rarely leave a product that works this well for the latest and greatest. Typically we follow the "if it's not broken, don't fix it rule". While QB does make changes we typically just roll with it. If we do find something we don't like we work through it until we fully understand its functionality.
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QBO needs better integration with non-Intuit products and developers need to use Intuit's open API to develop better add-ons. Clients are having a great deal of problems with their data importing from the bank and this takes time away from better revenue producing activities. Although the efficiencies are there, they are outweighted by the shortcomings of the product. When we ran a parallel of QBO versus other cloud accounting products, we had more issues with the QBO product than any other
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Usability
We switched to a more "robust" software program with the hiring of a new CFO. The migration of historical data and ancillary information has been cumbersome and riddle with errors and issues. In hindsight much of what the new software program was touted to accomplish is not come to fruition. QB Desktop Premier was sufficient for the organization needs
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I had very little trouble setting up the program and migrating from our old accounting system. The daily usage is also very intuitive and easy. Anytime we run into minor trouble with the program, there are always tons of help available on YouTube, so we don't even look up the online manual anymore.
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Reliability and Availability
This is very reliable software, the desktop version is fast. If there is a problem, it is most likely on your own hardware!
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We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
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Performance
It takes forever to load.
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Everything process has its bugs lately with the new interface. Nothing has worked smoothly since this all began last month.
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Support Rating
This is where QuickBooks falls short. Many times my staff has had questions that have not been able to get resolved easily with a chat or call. I personally have had more general questions that have not been answered easily as well. I think QuickBooks needs to provide the resources of having readily accessible help in order to make it simpler to get solutions.
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In my experience, most representatives keep me on the phone for hours, literally, for a single issue and then usually cannot resolve it satisfactorily. I have 10 open cases that need resolution and, in my experience, there has been NO follow-up communication on any of them.
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Implementation Rating
It is important to do your research. There are tutorial videos online that could help new user of this accounting system. These tutorials are straightforward and easily understandable.
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The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
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Alternatives Considered
We've used QuickBooks Desktop Premier for many, many years. We've not reviewed any other accounting products internally - but have a handful of the customers that use Cyma (mentioned above). While I've never had occasion to functionally use Cyma, I have had to install and troubleshoot problems with it. Put simply... not impressed. I found installation a bit confusing, and once started up, I wasn't able to easily find anything I would have wanted to find - where conversely, QuickBooks Desktop Premier excels on both of these fronts.
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QuickBooks Online is an accounting software package that allows companies to use a cost-effective and efficient software package. QuickBooks Online allows companies to prepare their balance sheets and income statements. It connects with a variety of other applications, which allows you to be efficient. We are very pleased with QuickBooks Online, and we would highly recommend it.
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Scalability
They're getting better. Still room for improvement.
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As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
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Return on Investment
  • Most of our business clients use QuickBooks which makes it efficient for us to work on clients that use the program. We can import QuickBooks data into our software which adds efficiencies to our tax practice.
  • Having staff that are familiar with the software enables our firm to provide quality service to the clients that use QuickBooks.
  • We receive referrals from satisfied QuickBooks clients.
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  • I think the help function is cumbersome and hard to use. When I go to refresh myself on a function, say quarterly, I feel like I have to cast about just looking for it.
  • The account reconciliation works, but in this place that could benefit from messaging, there are no easy helping functions flagging things like amounts that fit the discrepancy.
  • Even styling invoices and documents is more cumbersome than it should be.
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ScreenShots

QuickBooks Online Screenshots

Screenshot of the accounting and bank transactions interfaceScreenshot of an overview of the accounting inventoryScreenshot of book marksScreenshot of the business tax overviewScreenshot of the customer hubScreenshot of the dashboard