There’s no doubt that QuickBooks is a great accounting system used by over three million subscribers. After all, it is the Number One selling accounting product in the US. However, not everyone who uses QuickBooks loves it; in fact, I often hear from my clients that they actually hate it. However, many QuickBooks users feel that they are “stuck” with it not realizing that there is a great alternative in Zoho Books. Not sure if you are ready to switch? Here are a few things to consider:
- QuickBooks has become very expensive. The most basic edition starts at $25/month and can go as high as $379/month if you need all the bells and whistles that come with the Enterprise edition. In contrast, you pay absolutely nothing for the basic version of Zoho Books; the Premium version is $60 a month or free (yes, I said free) with Zoho One for a mere $480 for the year.
- The QuickBooks pricing structure has become extremely complicated. There are three basic forms of QuickBooks (desktop, online and “enterprise) and each carries a number of levels.
- There are several things that QuickBooks just can’t do. QuickBooks comes up short if you need to track inventory by serial numbers, manage multiple warehouses, or use a bar code scanner. You’ll also have to use a spreadsheet if you need to track subscription income or even pay commissions.
- You’re doing double entry. Not only is manual data entry time-consuming, but it also leads to mistakes. Consider this if you are entering information into your CRM product, your quoting software and QuickBooks.
- You don’t have an accurate pipeline. Forecasting and Budgeting are important elements for most businesses. QuickBooks reporting is extremely limited and does not provide you with an actual pipeline. And, because there is no pipeline in QuickBooks, it’s impossible to make accurate forecasts or properly evaluate your sales staff.
- You might be in big trouble if faced with an Audit. Employees can easily change existing invoices, payments and other transactions in QuickBooks without leaving an audit trail. Zoho Books requires comments and notes the user and time when a change is made.
- Your employees do not have access to real time information. This means your staff might be extending support to customers with expired service contracts, asking for a payment that has already been received or quoting products that no longer exist in inventory. By connecting Zoho Books to Zoho CRM your sales team can view this information in real time even if they don’t have access to Zoho Books.
- Customizations are expensive – or impossible. If QuickBooks does not work exactly as you need it to, you’ll have to figure out a “workaround” or purchase an addon product. By contrast, if your company requires special customization there is an abundance of Zoho programmers with the API skills necessary to complete your project.
Switching from QuickBooks to Zoho Books will allow your company to increase efficiency, simplify processes and boost productivity. Need help converting from QuickBooks to Zoho Books? Please reach out to the Zoho Books Consultants at Tech Benders!
