Quickbooks Review

Overview – Quickbooks

Intuit’s QuickBooks Online is widely recognized as the go-to accounting software for small businesses, making it an excellent choice for companies that frequently collaborate with bookkeepers or accountants. Its comprehensive feature set caters to both small startups and growing businesses that require in-depth reporting to evaluate different aspects of their operations.

QuickBooks Online stands out for its balance between robust functionality and user-friendly design. Its seamless payroll integration and extensive add-ons enhance its capabilities. Recent updates have introduced an Etsy integration, improved transaction management, enhanced tax tools, and a powerful shipping support feature.

New Features

QuickBooks has recently introduced a wide range of AI-powered tools and user experience enhancements that significantly streamline business operations:

• Smart Search: Quickly locate transactions, contacts, accounts, and reports with customizable filters.
• Business Feed: AI summarizes key actions for your review, helping you stay on top of approvals and next steps without digging through data.
• Suite of Apps: A growing ecosystem of apps designed to extend QuickBooks’ core functionality.
• Progressive Onboarding: Personalized onboarding to help users get started faster.
• Basic Automation: Handles routine tasks like categorization and reminders.
• Tax Readiness: Real-time tax estimates and simplified filing through integration with TurboTax.
• Accounting & Payments Agent: Automates expense tracking and recommends the fastest way to get paid.
• Customer Hub (CRM): Manage referrals, feedback, appointments, and tasks in one place.
• Customer Agent (Beta): Prioritizes leads, drafts follow-ups, and tracks status.
• AI-Powered Reconciliation & Anomaly Detection: Detect inconsistencies automatically and simplify account matching.
• Insights (P&L, Balance): Surfaces trends and anomalies proactively.
• Finance & Projects Agent (Beta): Helps monitor profitability and ensures accurate records.
• KPI Scorecard: Track key performance indicators in real time.

How it works?

Once you sign up for QuickBooks Online, you can log in and navigate to the main dashboard. If you’re switching from another accounting platform, you can seamlessly import your existing files into QuickBooks. The dashboard provides a snapshot of your financial data, including profit and loss summaries, invoices, expenses, and sales.

The Banking tab, located on the left sidebar, allows you to link your bank and credit card accounts. QuickBooks will then automatically import and categorize your transactions. When it’s time to reconcile your books, you can review these transactions in the For Review section within the Banking menu.

Next, you can personalize your invoices, enable automatic sales tax tracking if needed, and explore how to input mobile receipts and bills. To adjust your business account settings, simply click on the gear icon in the upper right corner.

If you need to collaborate with a bookkeeper or accountant, you can invite them to your QuickBooks Online account through the My Accountant tab or the Manage Users section in Settings. If you don’t have an accountant yet, QuickBooks also provides a search feature to help you find one.

How AI Works in QuickBooks

Artificial intelligence is at the core of many of QuickBooks Online’s newest and most impactful features. Unlike legacy accounting tools, QuickBooks now incorporates AI to automate and optimize everything from daily bookkeeping tasks to strategic insights.

Automated Categorization and Reconciliation
AI automatically classifies transactions as they are imported, learning from historical user behavior and improving over time. This dramatically reduces the time needed for manual review and cuts down on human error. When reconciling accounts, QuickBooks’ AI highlights mismatches and suggests corrections based on contextual clues.

Smart Search and Natural Language Processing
Using AI-powered search capabilities, users can find transactions, clients, or reports with plain language queries and filter results using intuitive options. Instead of digging through menus, a user can simply type “last month’s invoices over $500” and get precise results.

Anomaly Detection and Alerts
QuickBooks proactively scans your books to surface irregularities—whether it’s a missed bill, duplicate entry, or cash flow inconsistency. Users receive alerts in a dedicated feed, helping them fix issues before they impact the bottom line.

AI-Powered Insights and KPI Tracking
Machine learning identifies trends and performance anomalies across financial statements. For example, if your gross margins shift significantly or customer payment behavior changes, QuickBooks notifies you with suggested actions. These alerts are tailored to your business type and industry.

Lead Ranking and CRM Automation
For users leveraging QuickBooks’ Customer Hub, the AI assigns scores to potential leads based on engagement signals and transaction history. It can even auto-draft follow-up emails and track interaction statuses, helping small businesses run lightweight CRM operations without additional tools.

AI Agents in Beta
Several emerging features—like the Finance & Projects Agent and the Customer Agent—use AI to actively support forecasting, profitability analysis, and prioritization. These tools act as intelligent assistants embedded in the platform, streamlining workflows that previously required dedicated analysts or manual spreadsheet modeling.

Plans and Pricing

QuickBooks Online offers four subscription tiers: Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced—all of which share a similar interface and functionality. Each plan comes with a 30-day free trial, allowing users to explore the platform before committing. Regardless of the plan, users get access to QuickBooks Online’s mobile app, customer support, and third-party app integrations. However, additional services like QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time require separate purchases.

Simple Start

Price: $35 per month

QuickBooks Online’s entry-level plan provides access for one user and two accounting firms, enabling seamless collaboration. It allows businesses to track income and expenses, send invoices, accept payments, and categorize transactions for tax purposes. Users can generate and export financial reports, upload or email receipts via the mobile app, and automatically track mileage using GPS.

Additional features include cash flow monitoring, customizable estimates, 1099 contractor payment management, bill payment capabilities, and the ability to sync one sales channel with QuickBooks for streamlined financial management.

Essentials

Price: $65 per month

Building on the features of the Simple Start plan, this version allows access for three users and two accounting firms. It includes enhanced reporting capabilities, such as sales, accounts receivable, and accounts payable reports.

Users can manually track hours worked and add billable time to invoices. Additionally, it supports syncing with up to three sales channels and enables businesses to send and receive payments in multiple currencies, providing greater flexibility in financial management.

Plus

Price: $99 per month

Expanding on the Essentials plan, this version grants access to five users and two accounting firms. It offers advanced reporting features, including inventory, sales, profitability, and budgeting reports. Users can track inventory levels, monitor the cost of goods, and integrate inventory with third-party platforms.

Additionally, it enables businesses to assess project profitability, evaluate job costs, and categorize transactions by department using class tracking. Expenses can be marked as billable and assigned to customers, while all sales channels can be seamlessly synced with QuickBooks for streamlined financial management.

Advanced

Price: $235 per month

Building on the Plus plan, this version expands access to 25 users and three accounting firms while offering advanced financial management tools. Users can create custom charts to track financial performance, streamline workflows with batch invoicing, and manage employee expenses efficiently. It also includes automated revenue recognition, data backup with restoration capabilities, and customizable user access and permissions. Additionally, subscribers benefit from premium customer service, featuring a dedicated account team and 24/7 phone or chat support for enhanced assistance.

QuickBooks Online delivers a rich suite of tools designed to streamline financial operations, from basic bookkeeping to advanced analytics. The software provides customizable invoice forms, a variety of sales transaction types (including estimates, receipts, and credit memos), and robust tools for managing expenses, bills, payroll, and taxes. Unique integrations—such as ShipEngine for shipping label generation and TurboTax for filing—extend its capabilities beyond standard accounting tasks.

Bills and Expense Management
QuickBooks allows users to upload or email bills and receipts, with OCR (optical character recognition) automatically extracting details and organizing them for review. Businesses can pay bills electronically through QuickBooks Bill Pay and track vendor payments efficiently.

Inventory Tracking
Inventory management is built-in with real-time stock alerts, item categorization, support for bundles, and integration with sales platforms. The system also tracks non-inventory parts and service-based sales.

Project Management
Each project in QuickBooks has its own dashboard that aggregates income, expenses, and time-tracking. It supports granular tracking of job costs and real-time profitability insights.

Reporting
QuickBooks offers one of the most comprehensive reporting suites available, from P&L summaries and cash flow statements to customizable dashboards for accountants and business owners. Reports can be exported in CSV, Excel, or PDF formats.

Tax Readiness
With real-time estimates, transaction mapping to Schedule C, and TurboTax integration, tax preparation is simplified. The system also flags potential deductible expenses and provides audit trails.

Mobile App
The mobile apps mirror much of the browser experience, with on-the-go functionality like receipt capture, mileage tracking, and invoice sending. Some features are hidden in deeper menus, but overall performance is solid and intuitive.

Security
AES-256 encryption, mandatory multi-factor authentication, and fraud monitoring make QuickBooks a secure environment for sensitive financial data.

Conclusion

Online stands out as a top accounting software choice due to its robust features, scalability, and suitability for small businesses with advanced financial requirements. Considering the premium cost of Intuit QuickBooks Online, users should be prepared to fully utilize its features to maximize value.

When used effectively, it proves to be a powerful accounting solution that streamlines financial management and provides valuable insights for business growth. Its inventory management and reporting capabilities stand out as some of the best in the industry.