QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is a cloud accounting platform that small businesses use for bookkeeping, invoicing, expense tracking and reporting. Payroll, online payments and sales tax sit alongside the books.
#18 in Business & Finance ToolsAccounting SoftwareNo free plan
Who it's for
Best for
Small business owners who need bookkeeping, invoicing and reports in one place
Small teams running direct-deposit payroll and sales tax inside the books
Not for
Cost-conscious owners of tiny firms who only need simple invoicing- Teams that cannot risk slow pages or outages during month-end close
Features
Invoicing and online payments
Send invoices and take online payments from the same workspace, with automated invoicing for repeat work.
Expenses, bills and mileage
Track expenses and pay bills inside the books, alongside a mileage tracker for business vehicle use.
Reports, budgets and forecasts
Run reports and track budgets, with cash flow forecasting for the months ahead.
Intuit Intelligence insights
Intuit Intelligence draws insights from 40+ years of financial outcomes and patterns across 7 million businesses.
Mobile app and multi-device access
The QuickBooks mobile app puts the books on a phone, and one company file can be worked in from several devices at once.
What users say
Pros
- The core accounting ledger stays dependable across years of continuous bookkeeping.
- Well-built bank rules handle most categorisation, cutting the manual coding an accountant would otherwise do.
- Payroll runs are quick to set up and direct deposits go out smoothly for a small team.
- Bank feeds and sales tax handling for HST/GST stay reliable, so recurring reconciliations hold up month after month.
Cons
- Subscription prices climb year after year, pushing long-standing small businesses to look at cheaper alternatives.
- Loading a single transaction can take a full minute, and the interface crashes and requires three times the clicks of the desktop version.
- The AI layer misreads bank matches and adds payment lines, forcing manual clean-up of deposits.
- Every update rearranges menus and adds clicks, so routine invoicing takes longer than it used to.
- Plan migrations and sync bugs duplicate transactions or wipe saved receipts, leaving months of entries to redo.
- Payroll tax was debited from the bank account with an exemption documented, and the refund only arrived a week later.
A selection of the review sources we used:
Summarized from public user reviews and community discussions. View details
Global Traffic Rank
Top 10k
Alternatives
Rank#18 in category#6 in category#10 in category#11 in category
Free planNoYesNoYes
ProSturdy ledger, bank rules, quick payroll, reliable feedsLow cost, free plan, smooth migration, helpful phone helpGuided onboarding, quick bank setup, help videos, automationQuick HMRC filing, free with partner banks, fast phone support
Better forRunning everyday bookkeeping on a free tier or low-cost plans starting at $10 a month.Getting started via free one-to-one onboarding calls with follow-up video guides.UK sole traders and contractors getting free access via NatWest, RBS or Mettle accounts.
Weaker atRunning built-in direct-deposit payroll inside the accounting workspace without a separate payroll app.Tracking project-level profitability, classes and heavier inventory in growing firms.