My clients frequently ask the “Quicken vs. QuickBooks” question. Or restated, the question is, “Should I use Quicken or QuickBooks for my personal service business?”
Let’s start by listing the basic tasks that your accounting system should do for you:
Task 1: Your accounting software should provide timely information so that you can accurately report your profit or loss and your financial condition. You might use this feature to report to the IRS, your partners or your banker. The software should easily provide the information you need to manage your business on a daily, weekly or monthly business. The reports necessary for managing your business are often different than required for tax purposes.
Task 2: Your accounting software should produce the business forms—checks, invoices, customer statements and reports necessary to easily perform your accounting functions on a day to day basis. For example, once you create a master invoice form you will use it over and over again.
Task 3: Your small business accounting system should allow you to keep appropriately detailed records of the assets and liabilities of the business. In other words, your accounting system should be able to tell you with a mouse click how much money you have in the bank, which customers owe you money, and which marketing initiatives are producing revenue for you
Task 4: In addition, your accounting software should easily and simply communicate with your banking and other financial institutions electronically. You want to be able to download your bank transactions so that reconciling our accounts is simple.
For all practical purposes, Quicken produces only three business forms: checks, invoices statements. Quicken works really well for service businesses. If you have a personal service business with no inventory then Quicken is for you.
Note: Your tax preparer and/or bookkeeper may lobby (hard) for you to pick Quickbooks. This may be because they like it and think that Quicken is not sophisticated enough for you. Please remember that it is your business and your needs must be paramount in the selection of this critical piece of software.
And finally, you must be able to easily and frequently know whether you made or lost money. Knowing how you do profit-wise on a quarterly or annual basis is a recipe for disaster. You can go really, really broke over a quarter and certainly over a year. In this case more frequently is better.
And other reason to purchase Quicken over Quickbooks is that Quicken is available
here for only $73.99 and Quickbooks is available for here $139.99. Your choice.
Looking for more information on this vital subject, give me a call, leave a comment or send an email.
To your continued success,
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