Quicken Vs Quickbooks

Every business, especially small businesses, requires financial management- not just businesses but also families and individuals. With the digitalization of the world, there are several financial management software out there that can help you, your family or your business track and manage your assets and a whole lot more.

Quicken and QuickBooks are two of the most prominent financial management tools in the world. Although they are both owned by Intuit, they serve different purposes. While QuickBooks is a full-featured business and management suites for small businesses, Quicken is tailored for families and individuals to track their account balances, investments, budgeting and other expenses.

Both software has unique features that set them apart. This article will be reviewing the two most prominent and most common management software globally. This review should guide you in choosing the best software suitable for your needs.

Quicken Vs Quickbooks

Although they are both financial management and accounting software, they have different functions. Quicken is designed for personal and family finance, while QuickBooks serves small businesses better. Besides both of them being financial management tools, they were both parts of Intuit until Quicken was sold to H.I.G Capital in 2016.

For better understanding, this article has been divided into categories:

• General overview
• Features
• Pricing
• Reviews

General Overview

Quicken

Quicken is majorly a personal finance tool that helps to track expenses, investments and retirement plans. It has many versions, one of which is Quicken Home and Business.

It works well for property (rental) owners and will help them keep track of their tenants, rental rates and terms for lease on rental properties that they own. It is, however, more limited for business and costs less. It is also a locally hosted software that needs to be downloaded and installed on your computer. Also, the Home and Business version only runs on Windows devices.

Quickbooks

QuickBooks in any of its versions is specifically for small businesses. It is a full-featured financial management and accounting tool for double-entry bookkeeping, inventory, payroll, managing expenses, budgeting and many more.

It is web-based and can be accessed anywhere in the world with an internet connection; you can access your account from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection. It costs more and has four different plans to select from. The most popular version of QuickBooks is QuickBooks Online.

Features of Quicken

Quicken has mentioned earlier, is predominantly for personal finance. Let us take a look at some of its features:

• It can track account balances
• It can track transactions and investments
• It can tracks budgeting and loans
• The Home and Business version tracks rental properties
• It creates invoices
• It generates financial statements
• The business version is specific to those who own rental properties, but if you have a small business, probably a side hustle or a
• freelancer, it might be the basic tool you need.
• It is a desktop program
• It has very few numbers of integrations with third-party apps. Some of the apps it has integrations with include PayPal- for online payments and Dropbox, for storing important documents.
• Customer Support is available via phone calls or chats on weekdays.
• Apart from the Home and Business version of Quicken, other versions include Quicken Starter, Quicken Deluxe and Quicken Premier, all of which are targeted at managing personal finance.

Quicken has a mobile app that is available on Android and iOS devices. The mobile app allows you to do everything you do on the desktop versions except create invoices and enter unpaid bills.

Features of Quickbooks

QuickBooks is solely for small business accounting, and here are some of its features;

• It tracks business income and expenses from multiple accounts.
• It sorts transactions automatically into tax categories
• It organizes receipts
• It tracks mileage automatically
• It allows you to capture your receipt
• It can send and track invoices and allows you to customize your invoices to suit your brand
• Your accountant can access your account
• It has integrations with over 600 third-party apps and also has built-in integrations with some Intuit apps
• It is cloud-hosted
• Like Quicken, it also has a mobile app available on Android and iOS devices.
• Customer support is also available via calls and chats
• Its most common version, QuickBooks Online, has four different subscription plans.

Pricing

Both Quicken and QuickBooks operates on paid subscriptions. However, Quicken works on a fixed yearly subscription that will auto-tune at the end of the year, while QuickBooks runs on a monthly subscription that you can cancel at any time.

Pricing Plans on Quicken

Quicken has four different versions, and each has its various plans and features. The first three plans are mainly for personal finance management, while the last one is for rental property but can be useful for freelancers or small business owners. Here are the plans and their pricing;

• Quicken starter: $39.99
• Quicken Deluxe: $49.99
• Quicken Premier: $79.99
• Home and business: $99.99

Quicken is way less expensive compared to QuickBooks and offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Pricing Plans on Quickbooks

For QuickBooks Online, there are four different plans to select from. The plans differ in extra features but have the following features in common;

• Unlimited invoices
• Unlimited estimates
• Expense tracking
• Mileage tracking
• Reports
• Integrations with over 600 third-party apps

These are the plans;

• Simple Start: $25 (1 user plus accountant)
• Essentials: $40 (3 users plus accountant)
• Plus: $70 (5 users plus accountant)
• Advanced: $150 (25 users plus accountant)

You can choose to integrate your QuickBooks accounts with other QuickBooks services like QuickBooks Payroll and the likes but at additional costs.

You can access QuickBooks Online with a 30-day free trial. It is, however, more harmful than beneficial. It is beneficial because you don’t need to input your payment details before accessing it, but once the trial is over and you want to subscribe to a plan, you no longer qualify for discounts. QuickBooks is three times more expensive than Quicken, and periodic discounts help reduce the high subscription costs.

Pros and Cons of Quicken Vs Quickbooks

The two software serve different purposes and have various features. However, we can set apart the individual advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

Pros and Cons of Quicken

Pros

• Perfect for personal finance
• Ideal for tracking income and expenses
• Moderate pricing
• Easy to use

Cons

• Is limited in terms of business accounting tools
• It is not cloud-hosted, which makes it more difficult to access on the go
• The software can be glitchy while trying to integrate with third-party apps

Pros and Cons of Quickbooks

Pros

• It is cloud-hosted, which means you will always be on the latest version as updates happen automatically
• It makes accounting very easy
• Ideal for small business and has features that can support medium-large sized business (Advanced plan)
• Wide integration capacity

Cons

• Slow customer support
• Very expensive
• Might have excess features necessary for a business
• No access to discounts once the 30-day trial has been used

In addition to the above review between Quicken and QuickBooks, below is a table that summarises it;

	Quicken	QuickBooks
Personal Finance	Yes	No
Business Accounting	No (except for the Home and Business  version)	Yes
Create invoice	Yes	Yes
Track rental properties	Yes	No
Track Mileage	No	Yes
Accountant access	No	Yes
Cloud-hosted	No	Yes
Integrations	Limited	Wide (over 600)
Customer Support	Yes	Yes
Subscription	Annual	Monthly
Mobile App	Yes	Yes

Depending on your financial management needs, whether business or person, you can tell from the information above the financial management software that best suits you. Quicken is a personal finance management software major with only the Home and Business version having business tools, while QuickBooks is ideal for small business accounting. They have different features, different prices and overall functions.

We hope you enjoyed this article on Quicken vs Quickbooks. For more business tips, make sure to read our other blog posts!