This tutorial compares Quicken Vs QuickBooks to find out which one is better accounting software for personal and professional use:
Many people get confused between QuickBooks and Quicken, because of their similar names. While both of them are highly popular accounting software, they differ in their functionality and the specific segment of users that they target.
QuickBooks is one of the best accounting software, made for small to medium-sized businesses. It offers almost all the features that a small to midsize business would require, at reasonable prices.
Quicken is made while keeping in mind the financial management needs of individuals, investors, and households. Quicken may or may not be suitable for a small business. It offers just the simple features for budgeting, billing, tax calculation, and investment, at exceptionally low prices.
Quicken Vs QuickBooks
In this article, we will draw the basic differences between Quicken and QuickBooks so that you can get a clear picture of the one suitable for your requirements.
Featurewise Comparison Of QuickBooks Vs Quicken
| Features | Quicken | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Budgeting, Planning and Investment Tracking Tools | Bookkeeping, Quarterly Tax Estimation |
| Founded in | 1983 | 1998 |
| Price | Starter: $35.99 per year Deluxe: $46.79 per year Premier: $70.19 per year Home & Business: $93.59 per year | Self employed: $15 per month Simple Start: $25 per month Essentials: $50 per month Plus: $80 per month Advanced: $180 per month |
| Free Trial | There is a free trial for 30 days | Available for 30 days |
| Free Version | Not available | Not available |
| Deployment | Web, Mac/Windows Desktop, Android/iPhone mobile, iPad | On Cloud, SaaS, Web, Mac/Windows Desktop, On Premise- Windows/Linux, Android/iPhone mobile, iPad |
| Languages supported | English | English, Fresh, Spanish, Italian, Chinese |
| Pros | ?Access your automatically synced account through web, desktop or mobile ?Easy to use ?Affordable ?Investment tracking tools | ?Reasonable prices ?Wide range of features ?Tax estimation |
| Cons | No features for payroll, inventory tracking, tracking project profitability and tracking miles | Can be a bit complicated for beginners |
| Suitable for | Individuals and small investors | Small to medium sized businesses |
| Number of clients | 2.5 million + | 5 million + |
| Ease of use | Very easy to use | Not so easy as Quicken |
Quicken Ratings
- Our Rating- 4.8/5 stars
- Capterra- 3.9/5 stars – 299 reviews
- G2.com- 4.1/5 stars – 55 reviews
- GetApp- 3.9/5stars – 302 reviews
QuickBooks Ratings
- Our Rating- 5/5 stars
- Capterra- 4.5/5 stars – 18,299 reviews
- G2.com- 4/5 stars – 2,587 reviews
- GetApp- 4.3/5stars – 4,440 reviews
Detailed Comparison
We will now compare Quicken and QuickBooks in detail, based on the following grounds:
- Pricing
- Ease of use
- Budgeting and Planning
- Bookkeeping
- Invoices
- Tax Calculation
- Payroll
- Investment Tracking
- Security
- Quicken Home and Business Vs QuickBooks
- Quicken vs QuickBooks for small business
#1) Pricing
Price plans offered by Quicken are as follows:
- Starter: $35.99 per year
- Deluxe: $46.79 per year
- Premier: $70.19 per year
- Home & Business: $93.59 per year
*The Home & Business plan is available for Windows users only. Mac users have access to Starter, Deluxe and Premier plans only.
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The Starter plan offers features for budgeting only. Their Deluxe plan is the most popular one. It has features for financial planning as well as tracking cash flow and investments.
The Premier plan is designed for investors. You can track your investments and pay your bills through Quicken.
Their best plan is the Home & Business plan, which offers you all the features from the Premier plan, plus tools to manage the finances of your small business and investment properties.
QuickBooks offers you to choose between a free trial for 30 days or 50% off for the first three months.
The price plans are as follows:
- Self-employed: $15 per month
- Simple Start: $25 per month
- Essentials: $50 per month
- Plus: $80 per month
- Advanced: $180 per month
The following plans are suitable for a small business (Prices are mentioned at 50% off rates. You can either choose a free trial for 30 days or 50% off for 3 months):
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This one is for freelancers or personal use:
The price plans of QuickBooks are higher than that of Quicken. But there is also an obvious difference in the range of features offered. The features of payrolls, time tracking, inventory tracking, tracking project profitability and many more are not there with Quicken.
#2) Ease Of Use
Quicken is reported to be very easy to use by its users. You can easily manage your finances and get them organized to make the tax filing process smooth.
QuickBooks is complicated as compared to Quicken, because of the wide range of accounting features offered by the software for small businesses.
#3) Budgeting And Planning
The key feature offered by Quicken is that of financial management. It lets you track your income, expenses, and even investments. You can achieve your financial planning goals with the help of this software.
QuickBooks is made for the use of small businesses. It also offers features for tracking income and expenses and managing the cash flow. But it lacks proper features for financial planning that can be used by individuals or households for their personal use.
QuickBooks can prove to be a bit costly as compared to Quicken if you want financial planning software for personal use.
#4) Bookkeeping
Quicken keeps track of your personal as well as professional expenses and a full record of invoices that help in the tax filing process.
QuickBooks is a more sophisticated tool for bookkeeping. It provides you with financial reports having well-organized and balanced cash flow details, at the tax time and the whole year.
#5) Invoices
QuickBooks is a highly beneficial invoicing tool. It lets you create professional-looking invoices with your logo and accept payments directly in the invoices, through credit cards and bank transfers. This makes your payments being processed quickly.
QuickBooks tracks invoice status sends reminders to your clients, and then matches the processed payments with invoices, all on its own, automatically.
Quicken lets you send simple invoices through email and pay your bills online.
#6) Tax Calculation
Both QuickBooks and Quicken keep track of your expenses and organize them so that the tax process can be simplified and tax deductions can be maximized.
QuickBooks offers a Quarterly Tax Estimation feature with all its plans.
#7) Payroll
Quicken is a simple financial management software for individuals which does not have a feature for payrolls. It offers you invoicing and online bill payment options, though.
QuickBooks can be a good option for a small business. It offers a payroll feature. This feature is not included with its plans. If you want to do Payrolls with QuickBooks, you need to pay additionally for it.
The prices for add-on payroll are as under:
#8) Investment Tracking
Quicken lets you track investment performance with tools like Portfolio X-Ray® and gives you the latest news about the assets you hold. It also gives you portfolio analysis tools and features to compare your returns with the market averages.
On the other hand, QuickBooks is accounting software, which does not give you any feature for tracking your investments.
#9) Security
Quicken has 256-bit encryption security, so no third party can access your personal data. Plus, you can access your data anytime, even if you do not renew your subscription.
QuickBooks offers you automatic data backup so that you do not lose your valuable data. Also, they assure you that all the data is encrypted with at least 128-bit TLS.
#10) Quicken Home and Business Vs QuickBooks
The Quicken Home and Business plan have some nice features to offer.
It can assist you in tracking income, expenses, taxes, investments, creating and mailing invoices, paying bills online, creating and following saving goals, and getting access to priority customer support.
It is a complete package for your personal use, at very low prices.
While QuickBooks is made for small businesses, it can prove to be costlier for individual use. The Simple Start plan offered by QuickBooks is very much similar to Quicken home and business.
#11) Quicken vs QuickBooks For Small Business
If you are a small business owner and your financial management requirements are not very broad, you can look for the features offered by Quicken.
Quicken can be a good option for beginners in a business who have a limited budget. Quicken Home and Business plan even has the feature to track your personal and business expenses separately.
QuickBooks is a complete package for small businesses. It has almost all the features that a small business would require, that too at reasonable prices.
While features offered by Quicken are very few as compared to that of QuickBooks, Quicken is much cheaper than QuickBooks. So if your needs are fulfilled with Quicken, then there is no need to spend the extra money and opt for QuickBooks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q #1) What are QuickBooks and Quicken’s major benefits?
Answer: QuickBooks and Quicken both are highly popular software for financial management.
The major benefits of QuickBooks are bookkeeping, tax estimation, tracking income, expenses, inventories, mileage and project profitability, payrolls, and much more, all at very reasonable prices. Thus, QuickBooks can be a good option for small businesses.
Quicken is a financial management solution for individuals. It gives you the benefits of tracking income and expenses, financial planning, simplifying taxes, invoicing, and tools for tracking investments and portfolio analysis.
Q #2) Is QuickBooks difficult to learn?
Answer: QuickBooks can be difficult to learn for beginners who do not have an accounting background. Once you get along with QuickBooks, it can prove to be an extremely easy and helpful tool for tackling the accounting needs of your small business.
Q #3) Do you have to buy Quicken every year?
Answer: Yes, you need to buy a subscription to Quicken every year. It does not offer any free version. Thus, you have to pay every year according to the plan that suits you.
Q #4) What is the best alternative to Quicken?
Answer: If you want an alternative to Quicken, in the form of financial management software for your personal use, then the best one would be YNAB, Personal Capital, Mint, MoneyDance, or GoodBudget. These are some of the nicest personal budgeting software out there.
MoneyDance can be an excellent alternative to Quicken if you want tools for tracking your investments in multiple currencies. If you want a software for your small business, then QuickBooks can be a good option.
Q #5) How often do QuickBooks Online Backup?
Answer: Your data with QuickBooks Online is backed-up every 5 – 10 minutes. This means that you do not need to worry about losing your data. Apart from this, your data is encrypted with at least 128-bit TLS, so no one can access the flow of data between the user and QuickBooks.
Q #6) What do Quicken’s home and business plans do?
Answer: Quicken home and business is the best plan offered by Quicken.
It lets you track your income, expenses, and taxes. You can also create and email invoices, pay bills online, create and follow your saving goals and get access to priority customer support.
Apart from this, the features offered by the investors are applaudable. It lets you track your investments, analyze your portfolio, compare returns with market value, and much more.
Further Reading =>> Alternative to QuickBooks for your business
Conclusion
In the end, we can now conclude the following points:
- Quicken and QuickBooks both can be used for small businesses.
- Quicken is best for beginners in the business, while QuickBooks has a broader range of features with higher prices.
- Quicken lacks many features that any business would require, for example, tracking inventories, payrolls, mileage tracking, tracking project profitability, and more.
- QuickBooks is overall better than Quicken if we compare the range of features offered.
- If you are an investor, go for Quicken.