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The Great Debate – QuickBooks Desktop vs

There seems to be an incredible debate going on between QuickBooks Desktop vs QuickBooks Online; and it’s really beginning to bug the heck out of me.

Let’s start at the top, with Intuit.

If you visit the Intuit QuickBooks website at what you see advertised is the QuickBooks Online version and unless scroll all the way to the bottom of that page and look under the Products column, you don’t see the desktop versions of QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, QuickBooks Accountant or even the QuickBooks for the Mac versions! Everything on that page points you to the “all-new QuickBooks” which is the QuickBooks Online product.

The same goes with Payroll, it’s almost impossible to find information on QuickBooks Basic, Enhanced or Assisted Payroll; all of which work with the desktop installation of QuickBooks.

Intuit is pushing and pointing everyone to using QuickBooks Online and Online Payroll; sort of making it seem like it’s the only game in town. As a result, most Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors are also pushing their clients toward QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online Payroll.

Everyone wants to move to the “cloud”; get rid of their own in-house servers, the need to hire an outside IT company, be able to access their accounting data from wherever they are, with whatever device they happen to have – or, if you are a ProAdvisor or other accounting professional it means that it’s so much easier to access client data.

Anytime, anywhere access is the wave of the future and everyone is in a rush to get there and if you aren’t in a rush – well you are being pushed, in my opinion. And sometimes you are being pushed even though you are losing functionality by leaving the desktop version.

If you are a contractor, I highly recommend AVOIDING QuickBooks Online – especially if you want decent job costing reports, rely on the ability to create a Progress Invoice from an Estimate and want/need detailed payroll job costing. Here is a link to a comparison chart of features – so that you can make an informed decision when someone starts to “push” you toward using QuickBooks Online and leaving your desktop version behind.