Quicken vs QuickBooks: Deciding the Best for You

Quicken and QuickBooks are the two widely used accounting software. These accounting software were initially developed by Intuit Inc. While the former has been recently sold to H.I.G. Capital, QuickBooks is still owned by Intuit Inc.

Quicken, the 34-year old accounting software was first launched in 1983 and has around 1.5 million users. Currently, Quicken has its stable version Quicken 2018. After the massive success of Quicken, Intuit came out with QuickBooks in the year 1998.

QuickBooks, designed and developed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses, with 4.3 million users has around 74 percent market base. In comparison with Quicken, QuickBooks is loaded with almost all the accounting and bookkeeping features needed by SMBs and CPAs.

After a brief overview on Quicken and QuickBooks, any starter can get confused and have a tough time selecting the most suitable accounting software to manage their business finances.

To ease down your confusion, and help you select the best accounting software that ensures ease-of-use, high performance, and maximum ROI, in this blog post, let’s look at the key differences between Quicken and QuickBooks.

Quicken vs QuickBooks: Which is Best for You?

PARAMETERS	QUICKEN	QUICKBOOKS
Recommended for	It consists of features to manage personal finances along with few features to manage small business finances.	It is loaded with almost all the features needed to manage finances of SMBs.
Accounting Capability	Single entry	Double entry
Look and Feel	The only plus point of this software is its ease of navigation.	It has both - simple user interface and navigation.
Account Reconciliation	Account reconciliation process in Quicken is somewhat complex. You need to start from Account Register, and then, add or update changing transactions until the account reconciliation process isn’t complete.	Account reconciliation process in QuickBooks is intuitive.You just need to navigate Account Reconciliation, and then, follow few simple steps. You can update account reconciliation in QuickBooks without having much expertise.
Transaction Download	Downloading financial transaction for credit cards, bank statements, etc. in Quicken is complex.	It is much easier to download any type of financial transaction that you need with QuickBooks.
Payroll Feature	The most important accounting feature, Payroll isn’t available with Quicken.	QuickBooks provides the most advanced Payroll feature to take care all round payroll activities.
Invoice & Tax Feature	To simplify most complex accounting functions of invoice and tax feature, there is no specific feature or tool integrated with Quicken.	There are several features and tools available with QuickBooks that take care of your complex accounting functions of managing invoices and taxation.
Apps or Add-on Integration	Apps or add-ons can’t be integrated with Quicken to get customized accounting experience.	Over 500 business applications can be integrated with QuickBooks.
Multi-user Environment	This accounting software cannot be used in a multi-user mode.	QuickBooks Desktop hosted in a cloud environment can be securely accessed in a multi-user mode.
Integration with Microsoft Outlook, Excel, etc.	It can’t be integrated with Outlook or Excel to ease accounting and bookkeeping experience.	QuickBooks can be easily streamlined with MS Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.).
Create Purchase Orders	You cannot purchase orders with Quicken.	Purchase orders can be easily created with QuickBooks.
Track Income/Expenses by Class	There isn’t any feature to track income or expenses using the different set of classes.	You can easily track income, expenses and even other financial activities of inventory management with QuickBooks.
File Format	Quicken has *.QDF file format.	QuickBooks has three different file format: *.QBM, *.QBA and *.QBW
Inventory Management	It doesn’t have any feature or tool to manage inventories.	QuickBooks Enterprise consists of tools such as Advanced Inventory to easily manage and track inventories.
Business Forecast	Quicken doesn’t have any feature to analyze and forecast future of your business.	QuickBooks provides comprehensive business forecasting to help you know where your business is heading towards.

Bottom-line

After comparing features of these two accounting software, we can undisputedly say that QuickBooks has an absolute edge over Quicken.

QuickBooks can be in fact termed as the Swiss Army Knife that  provides the most comprehensive and customized accounting and bookkeeping experience to different business domains, while Quicken has limited features and good only if you want to manage personal finances along with business.

However, you want to have an accounting software for your own personal needs then, you can go with Quicken.

What’s Next? 

After selecting QuickBooks to re-strategize accounting for your business, you have an option to get QuickBooks hosted on a cloud server.

QuickBooks hosting ensures enriched, powerful and advanced QuickBooks experience at an even more affordable price.

There are several benefits of QuickBooks hosting, which primarily include anytime, anywhere and from any device accessibility, 24/7 support, flexibility, scalability and optimal data security.

It is, however, important to select a QuickBooks hosting provider, who have exhaustive experience and equipped with the most advanced infrastructure for QuickBooks hosting. 

Techarex Networks, US based QuickBooks hosting provider have immense experience in delivering a seamless QuickBooks hosting solutions. In case if you have any query or if you want to know about our QuickBooks hosting pricing, feel free to contact us right now.

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 2017: Business Accounting Software

QuickBooks is all set to launch the successor of its 2016 version; all new QuickBooks Desktop 2017 as a latest business accounting software. All desktops variants of QuickBooks (Pro, Premier and Enterprise) are now available for users.

This latest Version will offer new features in order to simplify accounting and various improvements.

IMPROVED FEATURES IN QUICKBOOKS DESKTOP

1. MULTI USER EXPERIENCE IS IMPROVED IN QUICKBOOKS DESKTOP

No need to switch frequently between Single user and Multi user mode.Bill payments, printing and scanning checks, link estimation and invoices all can be done even in Multi user mode (Available only in Enterprise Version 2017).Even switching modes become faster and easier.

2. DELETED USER DETAILS ON AUDIT TRIAL 

Even when Admin user deleted user names associated with transaction, Audit Trial can retain and display them. Tracking of deleted users and marking.

Note : You can get our QuickBooks Enterprise page. Let us guide you to the quickest answer or QuickBooks 2016 Enterprise expert. Contact us by QuickBooks phone number: 1-855-909-3300, post a question to the QuickBooks enterprise support Or Chat, Get Better Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions.

3. SECURITY IMPROVEMENTS

To keep your business safe, QuickBooks added a new feature called Multi-Factor Authentication.

4. REMINDER OF UNDEPOSITED FUND

Explicit view which deposits needs attention and notify about pending deposits.

5. QUICK FILTER SELECTION

 QuickBooks Added “SELECT ALL” and “CLEAR ALL” options in QuickBooks 2017.

WHAT IS NEW?

1. SMART SEARCH

Latest version will include Easy and fast search option. You can search while typing.

Also, you can now search for range of values.

2. SCHEDULED REPORTS

You can now set up a schedule for reports and have them automatically sent as PDF attachments email messages at scheduled time even if QuickBooks is closed.

3. ENHANCED CREDIT CARD STATUS

On Credit Charge Window, QuickBooks added a new CLEARED icon if the transaction has been cleared.

4. REPORT FILTERS

Now it is easier to reproduce memorized posts with visible filters. Also, in QuickBooks 2017 you can filter by customer type.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The latest version QuickBooks Enterprise 2017 is now available for purchase.

You can either purchase it directly through Intuit or its genuine resellers like Techarex Networks. 

Security for Your QuickBooks Premier Hosting – A Fueling Business Issue

The internet seems to be connected with the questions regarding security. Any program or service that is running over the internet, raises the suspicion of some kind of threat or attack dragging in. Around all of this, the question arises, 'Is my accounting data secure?' and it is quite obvious.

As the capital and operational expenses account for the major part of decision making for QuickBooks Premier hosting service, still, the security consideration is equally important. Then, how to ensure that your data is safe? 

There are three major points that allow you to be free from this mental turmoil of security regarding

QuickBooks premier software.

1. Physical Security

If you are wondering about the physical location of your servers and the connected security, then physically there are huge data centers that have multiple servers setup at one location. The hosted QuickBooks Premier software is hosted on such servers so that the clients can access from a remote location.

Organizations that are committed to the security of your critical information ensures that all the access to the data center is authorized. The access is usually based on the two-step verifications method that is based on the biometric as well as card-based access. 

Apart from that, this highly sensitive information centre is guarded by CCTV cameras round the clock to monitor the access.

2. Virtual Security

The network security of the hosted QuickBooks is the most vulnerable of all. There is also a provision for the series of firewalls in order to protect the critical data. The intrusion detection systems ensure the complete monitoring of any kind of suspicious activity that takes place. 

The system is completely protected with highly advanced antivirus software that protects each and every bit of data that is stored on the servers. Moreover, the proper 128 bit encryption is implemented at the network end and also the LAN network is clubbed with the proper tunneling. 

Apart from all this, the data backup on multiple protected servers ensures that in the case of any kind of natural calamities, the data of the client will be safe & secure and can be recovered to the mark of their last checkpoint.

3. Trust is Very Important

You have to trust your service provider. When you are considering QuickBooks Premier hosting solutions, so the providers may not offer you any legal documentation for the security of your critical data but they do offer their word. 

Even Intuit inc. states in its documentation that the data may be used for the comparative analysis but the client data will not be accessible to any other firm or to any other unauthorized server personnel. The data lies protected with the hosts. 

 They also may perform some tests in order to analyze the weaker sections of their services. However, by using or leaking out the client data is what will totally break down their corporate image in the market and which organizations would want that.

So, if you are going to opt for some hosted QuickBooks Premier provider, you have to make sure you ask all about the security at both the physical as well as network end and lay your trust on your particular service provider.

Simple But Effective Safety Measures To Secure Your Company’s Financial Data

Company’s financial records are the most important things to determine its position and growth.  It helps you to maintain smooth operations for the business and develop huge profits with no inflexible endeavors.

Therefore, it is very important to maintain proper security for financial records. Security is important not only to keep data away from unwanted hands but also for unforeseen circumstances.

Once you lose the records, it becomes hard for you to achieve lost profits. So, what are the best practices to go for the data security? How can you be stress-free by keeping the records at the safe place?  How can you be sure that all sensitive information does not go for wrong use?

In this blog post, you will read crucial techniques that you can adopt to save data and access it freely. Take a look at the practices that you should consider-

Create Access Restriction Features to the Company Data

If you have a big organization with sensitive information, QuickBooks enterprise is the suggestion. Prepared with ultra-high technology, the accounting software comprises features to keep all data saved.

You can enable restricted access to data in a particular number of people. Not only this, you can only restrict access of components depending on the user’s login.

Restricted access is possible with QuickBooks enterprise. All you need to do is modify user permission to preserve crucial components of your financial records. So, give access to a few people (CEO, Accountant, CFO and other) and avoid getting your company information misused.

Intuit’s QuickBooks is an excellent software with this best practice of data security and user access management. If you have not gone for QuickBooks enterprise, go with it and take a big step towards ceaseless business profits.

Go for the Accounting in a Dedicated Space for More Security 

Company financial records are confidential of course. The person handling financial matters should have privacy and restriction from unauthorized parties. Involvement of any other person can be a loss!  QuickBooks enterprise hosting can help you in this matter. You can provision user based, role based access restrictions or grant only the accountant to access the data privately in a dedicated space.

QuickBooks values preservation of all facts, figures, elements and other components of your company data.  The accounting software with best hosting services allows your accounting staff and specific individuals to always to view the information.

Therefore, you do not need to lock the computer and restrict one for not looking at the computer screen. This is the potential advantage you get by best accounting solution in the United States.

The software has many features. It keeps management and accounting staff in a separate area and helps your business to be run safely. So, you can allow all employees to work in the same place, but in a different manner.

Be Specific While Selecting the Cloud Hosting Service Provider 

You should not take the risk of keeping the data in your local office as it can be a big risk to your business. Since you use QuickBooks enterprise, your data is in safe hands. But, there is no surety for outside influences or natural disasters like flood, tsunami, fire, earthquake, hurricane and burglary.

In that case, you need to get a backup of the company data and save it to multiple, secure locations for re-use. Storing huge amount of data at multiple locations needs a lot of expense and equipment too.

Choosing QuickBooks hosting services from a right destination can help you deal with it. Besides, you can go with Techarex Networks.

Techarex Networks takes security as major concern and ensures high level of data safety governed by industry endorsed security policies built on very secure architecture in the regulatory compliant datacenters. It has multiple datacenters where your data is kept safe. Your daily data is backed up within every 24 hours and synchronized at all data centers. These data centers are equipped with biometric and keycard access to allow access to specific individuals. Techarex Networks has a team of highly qualified individuals who are always ready to help you out with any QuickBooks or cloud products, managed services related issues or requirements.

Consider these important safety measures to run your business with zero hassles and complete peace of mind.

Build Assemblies in QuickBooks - Differences in the Premier vs Enterprise Editions

Building an assembly is a beneficial feature that is available only in two versions of QuickBooks- enterprise and premier. By installing them, you can upgrade the versions. Building an assembly means a way to add items to the inventory. While you perform the activities to build the assemblies, the content of the assembly deducts from the stock and quantity increases automatically. 

Now, the question is how to schedule a future build? 

The activity of building an inventory assembly in the QuickBook needs to coincide with the act of physically building item and placing them in the inventory. The user can schedule a future build by simply marking the building as pending after filing the build assemblies’ form. 

If you want to mark it as pending, you can do that by clicking on edit menu and selecting mark build as pending. Later on, after completing the physical build later, mark the inventory assembly build in QuickBook as final. 

Here are the steps: 

1. Go to the Vendors menu, choose Inventory Activities, and then click Build Assemblies.

2. Click the Assembly Item drop-down list and choose the assembly item you want to build.

Some differences separate the two versions called enterprise and premier. Here is a list of them: 

In the premier version, you cannot customize the content like cannot edit and print the build assembly. While in the enterprise version, you can overwrite the items and can make changes as per your need. So, this makes both the versions different. Also, you can build the assemblies in the enterprise version. 

You can also set up different templates in enterprise version by simply clicking on the customize button and build assembly templates like in sales and invoices. 

These are the major differences in between two that separates them. To know more and install them, you can ask the experts and get the job done.