If you are a business owner, you surely know that streamlined accounting is necessary for your business’s sustainability. For your business to sustain itself in the market for the long term, you need an accounting process that can help you manage your cash flow, tracking expenses, tax preparation, managing invoices, and so on.
There is numerous software available in the market to make the accounting process easier for your business. But you require consideration of few factors before choosing any accounting software for your business. The product must have scalability features and customizable plans so that you only pay for the services you use in your accounting software.
Here are two QuickBooks version that facilitates exceptional individual options: QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-employed.
QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks self-employed got designed for the freelancers and sole contractors that have limited budgets and elementary business structure. It includes few clients for whom the invoice needed. There are no employees or contractors are in collaboration with these businesses. It is the best solution for those businesses where a single income stream available, and the expenses get paid off with cash or card without any process of banking cheque transaction involved.
The users of this software are:
- Taxi drivers or other employment economy workers,
- Sole contractors and consultants,
- Individual proprietors,
- Freelancers,
- Realtors.
QuickBooks self-employed version is an easy, cost-efficient, and smooth solution for managing the data over the manual data entries.
Advantages of QuickBooks Self-Employed
- It is a cost-efficient solution for the users.
- It has a user-friendly interface and features that are easy to use and understand.
- Its installation and working are smooth.
- It comprises simplistic and general invoicing features.
- It allows personal and business transaction management instant and quick on a single platform.
- It has easy accessibility anytime without any device constraint.
- It includes a built-in automated tool for mileage tracking.
- It is compatible with the Turbotax software for filing taxes independently.
It allows you to collaborate with an accountant to assist you in filing your taxes in the tax season. In other words, you can manage your accounting needs for the entire year and can give access to an accountant when you require assistance while filing your taxes. Also, this software is well-known by every CPA, bookkeeper, and other accounting professionals.
Significant features of QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks self-employed has salient features that cater to numerous users. It provides a convenient and quick accounting process for users who want hassle-free accounting software.
- Process automation –
Users of QuickBooks self-employed have to manage fewer business trades and elements, but they still combat documentation of all, that includes:
- Mileage Tracking –
It can impact your tax deductions, precisely for the taxi or delivery drivers. QuickBooks self-employed will help you to manage the detailed data of all your trips. The mobile app of QuickBooks self-employed gives you automated tracking of business mileage.
- Documenting and managing receipts –
It allows you to document everything in a single place via attachment of receipts photographs in the transactions. It gives leverage to the quick and automated filing. If you manage your accounting records, QuickBooks software is the right solution to make your life comfortable.
- Transaction management –
You can effortlessly link your bank accounts with the software and can import the transactions for allocation. You can even set the defined rules and groups to automate transaction processing.
- Easy tax filing –
Management of tax filing is easy with QuickBooks self-employed. It will remind you of the submission date and constantly reflects the proposed tax returns for your records.
- It backs both the federal and state tax returns,
- You can conveniently prepare your Schedule C tax returns as the software will pass on the related data to TurboTax with this feature. It will calculate the returns for your benefit.
- Keeps business and personal transaction apart –
If you are a business owner and using a personal truck for the delivery, it can create confusion while maintaining the personal and business transactions discreetly. Simultaneously, for the tax filing, you surely want to track it more.
- Hassle-free reporting –
When your data is up-to-date, you can review the yearly profit anytime. The software will also create Profit and Loss statements along with your tax summary.
However, mostly Profit & Loss statements are the vital report required for the sole business owner, and other reports are essential only for the tax consultant.
QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is popular for small businesses. It provides advanced features than the QuickBooks Enterprise. It is a vibrant but simplistic version of general accounting tasks like sending invoices and tracking inventory. It tracks the transactions involved in the business accounts. It has advanced features like tracking of sales tax, and inventory, and much more.
It is a step ahead of the QuickBooks self-employed version, and it supports:
- Procurement and Product sales
- Accounts payable
- Records of employees
- The hiring of 1099 contractors
Advantages of QuickBooks Online
- Automated invoices, statements, and reports.
- Keeps banking data updated via downloading the banking transactions in the nighttime.
- Allows operating multiple windows simultaneously.
- The payroll subscription add ons uniqueness for the employees.
- Global accessibility without device constraint.
- Time tracking makes tracking of projects and billing error-free easy.
- Multi-user accessibility.
- Importing of data from other QuickBooks versions.
- Tracking of inventory.
- Provides scalability with optional add-on features.
Comparison between QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks self-employed both are attractive software versions, but only a single application may be suitable for you and your business. Here are some differences to assist in finding the accurate version for your business:
- Reporting –
QuickBooks self-employed gives only Profit & Loss statements, whereas QuickBooks Online provides an advanced reporting facility to the users.
- Mileage –
QuickBooks self-employed is the version that is solely available with mileage tracking.
- Industry features –
It provides necessary features for small businesses like inventory tracking and billing management available with QuickBooks Online.
- 1099 Contractors –
QuickBooks Online is the single version where you can pay 1099 contractors.
- Personal and business –
QuickBooks self-employed is the only version that allows you to keep separate management or category of personal and business transactions.
- Cost –
- QuickBooks Online ranges from $25 to $150 monthly, as per your requirement. The advanced plans of QuickBooks Online offer multi-user access, inventory tracking, payment to 1099 contractors, management of sales tax, filing of quarterly taxes online.
- QuickBooks self-employed costs $15 per month with certain limits. The TurboTax bundle costs $25 per month with QuickBooks self-employed.
Finally, we can say that determining the accurate accounting software version solely depends on the business requirement. However, selecting the correct business software not always deciding upon the cheaper plans but depending on the benefits you will gain by adding value to your business and saving your valuable time for accomplishing more crucial tasks.
