Go through this article to know the detailed, feature-by-feature comparison of two of the best accounting software FreshBooks Vs QuickBooks:
FreshBooks and QuickBooks both are powerful accounting software that are efficient enough to tackle your accounting needs like a pro.
FreshBooks is made for freelancers, self-employed people, owners of a business with employees, or contractors. It has all accounting features that can make the working of your business smooth and more efficient.
Table of Contents:
FreshBooks Vs QuickBooks – Key Differences
With FreshBooks, you can create professional-looking invoices, organize your expenses to make the tax process smooth, track working hours, collaborate with your team for efficient operation on projects, accept online payments, get insightful financial reports, and a mobile app to look after all of this, from anywhere, anytime.
QuickBooks is another incredible accounting software, which is loaded with features that are worthy of every penny that you would ever spend on it.
The features offered by QuickBooks include tracking income and expenditure, creating invoices, accepting payments, maximizing tax deductions, tracking working hours, budgeting, financial reporting, analytics, tracking inventories, artificial intelligence tools that can track project profitability, and a mobile app that lets you take control of your accounting processes, anytime, from anywhere.
In this article, we will look into the features offered by FreshBooks as well as QuickBooks, minutely. We will enlist the main plus points and the drawbacks of both of them to draw a conclusion on which one is overall a better accounting software.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q #1) What is the most commonly used accounting software?
Answer: Intuit QuickBooks is undoubtedly the most commonly used accounting software. The reasons for this are the features offered by the platform at surprisingly low prices. It is a highly recommended accounting software for small to medium-sized businesses.
Suggested Reading =>> QuickBooks Alternatives or small businesses
Q #2) Is QuickBooks cheaper than an accountant?
Answer: Yes, QuickBooks can prove to be cheaper, more accurate, easier to use, and efficient than an accountant. Accounting software has the plus point: it rules out the possibility of errors that could occur while performing the accounting tasks manually.
But you may also need to have an accountant along with QuickBooks, who can keep a track of your tax returns and other accounting details.
Q #3) Is FreshBooks cheaper than QuickBooks?
Answer: The price plans offered by FreshBooks as well as QuickBooks are almost the same. The starting plan offered by both of them is priced at $7.50 per month. QuickBooks, though, offers some more features than FreshBooks.
Q #4) How much does FreshBooks charge per transaction?
Answer: When you process an online payment through FreshBooks Payments, which is powered by WePay, you need to pay a specific transaction fee, which is: 2.9% + $0.30 on all credit card transactions. For American Express, it is 3.5% + $0.30. Payments made with Bank Transfers (ACH) are charged 1%.
The transaction fee is deducted from each processed payment before it is being credited into the account.
Q #5) What is FreshBooks used for?
Answer: FreshBooks is accounting software that lets you create professional-looking invoices, organize your expenses to make the tax process smooth, track working hours, collaborate with your team for efficient operation on projects, accept online payments, get insightful financial reports, and a mobile app to look after all of this, from anywhere, anytime.
Q #6) How much does accounting software cost?
Answer: Most accounting software offers different price plans. You can choose the one according to your requirements and your budget.
The monthly fee for accounting software can start from as low as $7.50 per user and can be as high as $999 per user. There is some accounting software that can be bought for a lifetime with a one-time license fee. The one-time license fee can range from $95 to more than $1000.
QuickBooks Vs FreshBooks
Features | FreshBooks | QuickBooks |
---|---|---|
Best for | Extremely easy to use | Quarterly tax estimation and bookkeeping |
Founded in | 2002 | 1998 |
Price | Lite: $7.50 per month Plus: $12.50 per month Premium: $25 per month Select: Custom Pricing | Self employed: $7.50 per month Simple Start: $12.50 per month Essentials: $25 per month Plus: $40 per month Advanced: $90 per month |
Free Trial | Available for 30 days | Available for 30 days |
Free Version | Not available | Not available |
Languages Supported | English, French, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), Swedish | English, Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish |
Deployment | On Cloud, SaaS, Web, Mac/Windows Desktop, Android/iPhone mobile, iPad | On Cloud, SaaS, Web, Mac/Windows Desktop, On Premise- Windows/Linux, Android/iPhone mobile, iPad |
Pros | ? Attractive interface ? Extremely easy to use ? Affordable ? Automatically reminds your clients for payments ? Recurring invoices | ? Easy integration with other platforms ? Affordable ? Compatibility with many devices ? Bookkeeping ? Top-notch reporting ? You can check whether your clients have opened and viewed the invoices |
Cons | ? Lacks quarterly tax estimation ? No feature of tracking inventories | ? A bit complicated as compared to Freshbooks |
Suitable for | Small businesses | Small to medium sized enterprises |
FreshBooks Ratings
Our Rating | 4.8/5 stars |
Capterra | 4.5/5 stars - 3,513 reviews |
G2.com | 4.5/5 stars - 625 reviews |
TrustRadius | 8/10 stars - 169 reviews |
Android Rating | 4.4/5 stars - 3 Trillion reviews |
iOS Rating | 4.8/5 stars - 9.7k reviews |
QuickBooks Ratings
Our Rating | 5/5 stars |
Capterra | 4.5/5 stars - 18,299 reviews |
G2.com | 4/5 stars - 2,587 reviews |
TrustRadius | 8.2/10 stars - 1,030 reviews |
Android Rating | 4/5 stars - 41 Trillion reviews |
iOS Rating | 4.7/5 stars - 126k reviews |
Detailed Feature Comparison
#1) Price
FreshBooks and QuickBooks offer a free trial for 30 days. Both of them give the option to choose between the free trial or 50% off on prices for three months.
Price plans of FreshBooks are as follows:
- Lite: $7.50 per month`
- Plus: $12.50 per month
- Premium: $25 per month
- Select: Custom Pricing
The price plans offered by QuickBooks are as follows:
- Self employed: $7.50 per month
- Simple Start: $12.50 per month
- Essentials: $25 per month
- Plus: $40 per month
- Advanced: $90 per month
*Pay additional charges for Payroll and Bookkeeping.
If we compare FreshBooks vs QuickBooks self employed, we will find more features are offered by QuickBooks self employed, than FreshBooks Lite (the lowest plans).
QuickBooks additional pricing for Payrolls:
This pricing for QuickBooks and FreshBooks is for the first three months. From the fourth month, you will have to pay a double fee per month for each plan.
The price plans offered by both the accounting software are very much similar to each other. You need to look for the features offered with each plan to distinguish between the two.
#2) Invoicing
FreshBooks lets you create and send unlimited invoices even with the cheapest plan of $7.50 per month. You can also opt for automated recurring invoicing with this plan. It also sends time to time reminders for payments to your clients. Your clients get many options to pay you, which makes payments done quickly and easily.
QuickBooks offers the feature of creating and sending invoices with its ‘Simple Start’ and higher price plans. They give you the feature of accepting payments through credit cards and bank transfers, right in the invoice. Automatic payment reminders and matching the payments with the invoices are also included.
#3) Tracking Expenses
Tracking expenses is an important part of any business, which needs to be done with utmost accuracy. An accounting software rules out the possibility of manual errors that could give a misleading result while tracking your expenses. Plus, you do not need to worry about losing the physical receipts when everything is automatically tracked on your accounting software.
FreshBooks as well as QuickBooks, both allow unlimited expense tracking with all their plans.
Expense tracking with FreshBooks is reported to be very easy by its users. You can view all your expenses and profitability of the business in a single view.
With QuickBooks you can connect your bank accounts, credit cards, etc. to the QuickBooks app so that all your expenses are imported, categorized and tracked automatically. For your physical receipts, you need to take snaps of them and then save them in with your QuickBooks account.
#4) Tracking Work Hours
QuickBooks lets you track work hours with its ‘Essentials’ plan of $25 per month (and higher plans), while FreshBooks offers this feature even with its ‘Lite’ plan of $7.50 per month.
#5) Payrolls
FreshBooks does not offer Payroll services. However, if you wish, your FreshBooks account will get integrated into Gusto, which is payroll software. Thus, for Payrolls, you will have to pay according to the plans offered by Gusto.
QuickBooks offers Payroll as an add-on feature. Payroll services can be availed from $22.50 to $62.50 per month. Plus, pay $4 to $10 per employee per month.
QuickBooks Lite price plan does not allow using the Payrolls add-on feature. For Payroll, you need to opt for higher plans.
#6) Reporting And Analytics
FreshBooks lets you run business health reports and financial and accounting reports. You can also get double-entry accounting reports, cash flow reports, retainer summary reports, accounts payable aging report,s and profitability details reports.
QuickBooks lets you stay on track with inventory reports, sales reports, profitability reports, income and expenditure reports, and profit & loss reports. You can also get access to in-depth analysis tools to figure out how your business is performing.
#7) Tracking Project Profitability
With QuickBooks, you can track the profitability of a project, with detail about labour costs, payroll, and expenses with job costing. This feature is provided with the ‘Plus’ plan of $40 per month (and with higher plans).
FreshBooks also allows you to check project profitability, with its premium and higher plans. It can also show you a profitability graph with a clear picture of total costs, income, and profit.
#8) Mobile Application
Both QuickBooks and FreshBooks offer a mobile application that can access their features anytime, from anywhere.
QuickBooks is a more popular accounting app, as compared to FreshBooks. QuickBooks app is available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish languages while FreshBooks app supports only English and French language.
QuickBooks has 1 Million+ download on Android, whereas FreshBooks has 0.1 Million+ downloads.
#9) Languages Supported
The languages supported by QuickBooks are English, Chinese, Français, Italiano, and Español.
The interface of FreshBooks is available in the English language only. But you can send invoices and estimates in French, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), and Swedish languages.
#10) Tax Calculations
QuickBooks lets you take snaps of your receipts and upload them, which are then recorded for tax time so that you can save your money through tax deductions.
QuickBooks gives you an estimate of your quarterly taxes even with its lowest-price plan.
FreshBooks lets you track sales tax and gives you tax time reports.
#11) Mileage Tracking
QuickBooks lets you track the miles you travel with the help of your smartphone GPS so that you can save taxes by showing the expenditure incurred on business. This feature is included with the QuickBooks Simple Start plan.
FreshBooks offers a separate mileage tracking app, which is free to use (with all the price plans offered by FreshBooks).
Conclusion
In the battle of FreshBooks Vs QuickBooks, both seem to have a cutthroat competition. With price plans offered by them being almost identical, features offered, though, differ in many ways.
FreshBooks is extremely easy-to-use accounting software, which can be used even by those having little or no knowledge of accounting, QuickBooks, on the other hand, is complicated to use and requires at least a little knowledge of accounting, or you would need to hire an accountant for this purpose.
QuickBooks outperforms FreshBooks in bookkeeping and tax estimation. The feature of inventory tracking is also absent in FreshBooks.
Thus, we can now say that QuickBooks offers more features with the same prices as of FreshBooks. Hence, overall, QuickBooks is a better option to go for, as compared to FreshBooks. But if you want simple, easy-to-use software with minimal features, then FreshBooks can be a good choice for you.