QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based financial suite that has been designed for SMBs, to perform accounting, billing and invoicing tasks, from a single platform. With QuickBooks Online you can create and manage invoices, print checks, track payments, reconcile banking and credit card transactions, manage bills, and create estimates.
QuickBooks Online has an intuitive and user-friendly interface to work with, along with mobile tools for iOS devices and Android powered smartphones and tablets, that provide a more flexible and time-efficient way of managing financial transactions, such as creating invoices, and tracking expenses whilst on the move.
Built-In Reports
QuickBooks Online has numerous pre-built reports to choose from, which can give a visual representation showing the overall financial health of your business. These reports fall into several different categories: Business Overview, Manage Accounts Receivable, Manage Accounts Payable, Accountant Reports, Reconciliation Reports, Manage Products and Inventory, Review Sales, Review Expenses and Purchases, Manage Sales Tax and Manage Employees.
To create a report, navigate to Reports from the QuickBooks dashboard and simply select the type of report you need. If you need to customise the reporting fields you can do so here, if required. Next, select a transaction date from a drop-down menu or specify your target date range. Finally, click Run Report. The produced information can be printed, emailed, or exported as an Excel file.
Online Banking Integration
With QuickBooks Online’s banking integration, you are able to securely connect and sync your online bank feed, in order to automatically gather financial transactions. This is a great time saving feature that saves you having to manually input the data. Once synced, using the information that your bank has stored with the funds going in and out of your account, such as amounts, transaction dates, and the places where the transactions occurred, you can either accept or delete transactions. You can then categorize and assign them to suppliers or customers.
Connecting your bank to your Quickbooks Online account is straightforward enough. Navigating from the QuickBooks Online dashboard, choose Transactions, and then Banking. On the upper right hand of the screen there is a blue button marked Add Account. Here is where you will be prompted to enter your bank’s name or URL. You can also choose from a list of popular financial institutions. You will also need your online banking username and password to establish a secure connection. As soon as your login credentials have been verified, simply follow the prompts to continue.
Invoice Creation
The layout of the dashboard is easy to navigate and will feel familiar to most users. On the top section of the QuickBooks Online dashboard, in the middle, there are three buttons which allow you to view recent transactions, search for transactions, and create invoices. To create an invoice, simply click on the plus (+) button and select Invoice from the drop-down menu. You are then shown the Invoice page, where you then populate the data, such as customer name, email address, billing address, payment terms, invoice date, and due date. You can enter product/service line items manually, or select them from a pre-defined field. Any tax calculations and discounts are automatically deducted from the invoice amount, viewable in the top right corner of the screen. Invoices can also be branded by adding your company logo, a background image, choosing your own font and designating custom fields. Usefully invoices can be sent individually or in batches.
Integrations
QuickBooks Online seamlessly integrates with other QuickBooks apps such as QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Payroll. QuickBooks Online also offers add-ons such as Bill.com, Jobber, Mavenlink, Method CRM, Shoeboxed, and TSheets.
QuickBooks Online also integrates with the following apps and services; Abacus, Chrometa, Concur, Fundbox, Gusto, Insightly, NimbleSchedule, PayPal TriNet Expense, Receipt Bank, Shopify, Vend, Workfront, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, Unleashed Software, Xpenditure Expenses, Unify by Webgility, and VeriClock. QuickBooks Online also has an API available for use.
QuickBooks Online is available in English, French, Portuguese and is supported on Android and iOS devices.
Pricing
QuickBooks Online uses a subscription pricing model that has a free trial available (no credit card required)
It has three pricing plans: Simple Start, Essentials and Plus. Simple Start is priced at $9.99 per month and allows one user to reconcile bank transactions and create estimates and invoices. The data can be shared with two accountants. The Essentials plan is priced at $19.99 and includes all the features of the Simple Start plan, with an additional accounts payable feature, which allows up to three users track and pay bills. Finally the Plus plan is priced at $29.99 per month and supports up to five users. It also comes with inventory and 1099 preparation included.
Bottom Line
QuickBooks Online is a complete accounting solution. With invoicing, billing, estimates, and more, all available from one single platform. It has native mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, which allow you to keep track of the financial health of your businesses anytime and anywhere. QuickBooks Online is easy to set up and highly customizable.
With automatic syncing tools to link your bank and credit card accounts, QuickBooks Online gives you an easy way to collaborate with your accountant or bookkeeper.
