QuickBooks Online

As the Co-Director of the Grant Park Academy of the Arts, a music-school startup, I am new to accounting.  The learning curve was a little stiff at first as I tried to work my way around the program.  I needed the help of an accountant just to understand it, and even with that help it took me a year to get comfortable.

Now that I am familiar with the program, I find it incredibly easy to use.  I can send and keep track of invoices, check our balances, and share everything easily with our accountant at tax time.  I have no doubt it's saved me tons of time and is worth the price.

I have been using Quickbooks Online for 7 years, first as a solo business owner and now as the bookkeeper in a partnership. Gateway Productivity finds Quickbooks Online to be intuitive and easy to use. I love that I never have to worry about upgrading or buying new software. My only concern is that the price has doubled since I began using it, but it is still worth the amount paid.

PROS:

• The ability to access my accounts and invoices from anywhere, right down to producing an invoice whilst at a client site.

• Simple to configure invoice templates.

CONS:

• Some features are slightly unintuitive, such as producing custom reports. 

• Web interface could be a little more attractive.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE:

HomeWorkingClub has used Quickbooks online for several years and much prefer it to products I’ve used previously, including Sage and the long-discontinued Microsoft Office accounting. It’s not the most exciting software solution, but it’s dependable and easy to understand, to the point that it doesn’t seem worthwhile to switch to a new system like Xero.