Software Comparison

QuickBooks vs Quicken: Which Should You Use? (2024)

The main difference between QuickBooks and Quicken is that QuickBooks is accounting software for businesses, while Quicken is mainly designed for managing personal finances.

Keep reading for more details on QuickBooks and Quicken—then confidently decide which is best for your accounting needs.

Only QuickBooks Online syncs with Jobber to connect your accounting with your field service quoting, invoicing, and payments without double entry.

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QuickBooks and Quicken are both accounting software that can help you manage your small business finances. Each has a mobile app and is available to use on a desktop computer.

What is QuickBooks?

QuickBooks is software that helps you manage all parts of your accounting and bookkeeping from one platform. Businesses of all sizes use QuickBooks to run income and expense tracking, accounts receivable and payable, tax preparation, financial reporting, and payroll.

With multiple versions available for different industries and levels of accounting experience, QuickBooks has a broader set of features than most accounting software.

| QuickBooks Online vs Desktop: How are They Different?

What is Quicken?

Quicken is a personal finance management tool that helps you manage and track your personal income, expenses, and investments.

Aside from its Business & Personal plan that includes tools for business accounting, Quicken is primarily for individuals and families.

Side-by-side comparison of Quicken and QuickBooks

Use QuickBooks if you need to:

  • Manage your business bookkeeping
  • Report on account balances and cash flow
  • Log and categorize business expenses
  • Track customer invoices and payments

Use Quicken if you need to:

  • Manage your personal or family finances
  • See your personal and business finances side by side
  • Manage leases for rental properties and collect rent online

Here are other ways Quicken and QuickBooks are different:

QuickBooksQuicken
Unique features• Accept online credit card payments

• Track costs, payroll, and expenses by project

• Manage payments to 1099 contractors

• Share your books online with an accountant

• Automate your inventory management

Sync with Jobber’s field service management software
• Track your complete net worth, including personal and business accounts

•  Track and analyze your investment portfolio
Number of users supported1–251
Available add-ons• Track time on a project from anywhere (QuickBooks Time)

• Pay your team, track hours, and offer employee benefits (QuickBooks Payroll)

• Get live online support from expert bookkeepers (QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping)
None
Third-party app integrations450+Paypal
Customer support• All plans include 24/7 live chat support within the app

• Phone support is available at select times Monday–Sunday
• Phone support is available Monday–Friday

• Chat support on their website is available daily

Feature comparison: QuickBooks vs Quicken Business & Personal

On the whole, QuickBooks has more tools for business accounting than Quicken. Quicken’s Business & Personal plan (known as Quicken Home & Business in Canada) offers a few of the same business accounting features, like bank reconciliation, invoicing, and property management.

Here’s how some of those features compare:

Bank reconciliation

  • Quicken can memorize which payees you’ve selected for certain types of transactions. When automatically categorizing transactions for you, Quicken will make suggestions based on your previous actions.
  • QuickBooks lets you set more specific, “if-then” rules around how your transactions get automatically categorized.

Invoicing and payments

  • Quicken’s invoice creator is in a more traditional, spreadsheet-like format and has limited design options. To record invoice payments in Quicken, you have to manually download the transactions from your bank.
  • QuickBooks lets you customize your invoice layout, add payment terms like ‘net 30’, and see when a customer has viewed the invoice. Customers can pay their invoices by credit card or bank transfer directly from a QuickBooks invoice.

Property management

  • Quicken simplifies financial management for landlords by tracking rental income, expenses, and lease details. The Quicken Rental Property Manager gives you organized financial reporting to save you time and prepare you for tax season.
  • QuickBooks has the same property management tools, but finding and using them is difficult without detailed instructions.

Compare pricing plans

Quicken Business & Personal is the only Quicken plan that’s made for business accounting. Quicken’s other two plans, Quicken Starter and Deluxe, are for organizing your personal finances.

Meanwhile, QuickBooks offers multiple pricing plans for business accounting:

  • QuickBooks Online EasyStart offers basic accounting tools for a single user. It’s the best place to start for solopreneurs, freelancers, or sole bookkeepers.
  • QuickBooks Online Essentials supports up to three users, includes accounts payable tools, and offers multi-currency support. It also integrates with QuickBooks Time, a time tracking add-on.
  • QuickBooks Online Plus supports up to five users and lets you track project profitability, inventory, and multiple business locations.
  • QuickBooks Online Advanced supports up to 25 users and offers robust reporting and customization. Advanced also lets you build automated accounting workflows to save time, send invoices in batches, and sync your Excel spreadsheets.

| Wondering about QuickBooks Desktop plans? Read this guide to compare QuickBooks Online with QuickBooks Desktop

Only Quickbooks Online connects with Jobber to keep your service business organized

QuickBooks Online pairs with Jobber—a highly rated field service management solution—to keep your customer, invoice, and payment information accurate without any double entry.

By quickly and accurately syncing your important business information from Jobber to QuickBooks Online, you’ll cut hours of manual work every week and get back valuable time.

When you connect Jobber with QuickBooks Online, you can:

  • Easily import existing clients, products, and services from QuickBooks Online to ensure both are accurate from day one
  • Control when and how important information is synced from Jobber to QuickBooks Online moving forward
  • Automatically sync your clients, products and services, timesheets, invoices, payments, refunds, tips, and payouts from Jobber to QuickBooks Online
  • Approve timesheets in Jobber and sync them to QuickBooks Online to use for payroll
  • Automatically reconcile payouts for payments and tips collected through online payments in Jobber
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