 Choosing the right QuickBooks subscription Are you thinking of signing up with QuickBooks Online but are having a tough time deciding which plan is right for you? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we are going to compare the types of plans that QuickBooks Online has to offer. The great thing about QuickBooks Online is that it operates through your web browser. There is no software to install and getting started only takes a few minutes. QuickBooks Online uses cloud-based software which means that you can work from anywhere on the go. You can use QuickBooks on your PC, Mac, iPad or phone. Now let’s look at which subscription is right for you.  Comparing QuickBooks Online subscriptions Types of QuickBooks subscriptionsQuickBooks Online offers 5 types of subscriptions which are billed monthly. There are no contracts or commitments, and you can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your subscription at any time. The five types of plans to choose from are:
Now let’s dive into the features among the plans. QuickBooks Self Employed The least expensive QuickBooks plan is Self Employed which costs $15 per month. It may be a good starting point if you are a freelancer that strictly uses cash accounting.
QuickBooks Simple Start The next plan up is Simple Start. At $25 a month, Simple Start is great for new businesses just starting out. It’s also great for service-based business requiring accounts receivable, payroll, sales taxes, and financial reporting. Simple Start offers:
QuickBooks Essentials One step up from Simple Start is Essentials at $50 per month. You get all the benefits from Simple Start plus more. Why might you need to upgrade to essentials? Essentials allows for:
One of the features I love about essentials is recurring transactions. If you are a business such as a lawn service that invoices monthly, recurring invoicing will allow you to automatically send invoices via email to your customers. It’s a huge time saver. Imagine individually creating 100 invoices every month by hand. Recurring invoicing can save you hours of work each month. QuickBooks PlusAfter essentials comes the Plus plan for $80 per month. Why might you need plus? For me, the two biggest benefits of the Plus plan are:
If you need to track inventory, plus is the plan you want. Plus also allows you to create budgets and allows for advanced reporting such as the ability to track profitability by class or location. Plus allows all the features of Essentials as well as:
QuickBooks Advanced The highest tier plan in QuickBooks Online is the Advanced plan at $180 per month. If you are a growing business, this may be the plan for you. Advanced allows for:
Conclusion Below is a detailed spreadsheet comparing each QuickBooks Online subscription.  QuickBooks Online plan comparison I hope you found this article helpful when deciding which QuickBooks Online plan to choose from. If you have any additional questions or comments, feel free to contact us here!
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 Class and location tracking in QuickBooks Online. Class and Location TrackingAre you a business with multiple locations or storefronts? Or perhaps your company has different divisions or product lines? Wouldn’t it be nice to see which store is most profitable? Or which product line is generating the most sales? In this article, we will discuss how to track profitability using locations and classes using QuickBooks Online. Why would you want to use location or class tracking? QuickBooks Online lets you track the income, expenses, and net profit of different segments of your company such as storefronts, product lines, departments, geographic locations, or projects. Class tracking and location tracking are two QuickBooks features that allow you to do this. For example, if you are a construction company, class tracking can allow you to track both residential and commercial operations. Or track each job individually.  QuickBooks Online class tracking Or if you own multiple retail stores or restaurants, location tracking can help you track the profitability of each.  QuickBooks Online class and location tracking Which QuickBooks Online subscription will you need to track classes or locations? Not all QuickBooks subscriptions support class and location tracking. Class and location tracking are only available with QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced subscriptions. You may need to upgrade your plan if you are currently using Simple Start or Essentials. How to enable and setup class tracking To enable class tracking:
 Class tracking "one to each row in transaction"  Class tracking "entire transaction" Once enabled, to add classes:
How to enable and setup location tracking To turn on locations:
To add a location:
Once class tracking and location tracking are turned on and set up, you will be able to assign them to transactions such as invoices and expenses. When to use location vs class tracking?If you are having trouble deciding between location and class tracking, consider the following: If you need to put more than one category on a transaction, use class tracking. Location tracking only allows you to assign one location per transaction, whereas class tracking allows you to assign a different class for each line item.  QuickBooks Online location and class tracking The ability to add classes to each line item is especially important if you are creating expenses that need to be broken out. For example, let’s say you own two retail stores, but purchase supplies for both stores on one expense transaction. Location tracking won’t let you assign each line item a location, but class tracking will. If you need to run a balance sheet by category report, use location tracking. If you want to be reminded to categorize a transaction, use class tracking. Location reminders are not available. You may decide that using both locations and classes is the sweet spot. For example, if you have two retail stores, you can assign each storefront a location, then setup up classes for your different product lines. This would allow you to run a profit and loss report by location to see the profitability of each store. It would also allow you to run profit and loss by class report to see how each product line is performing from both locations. Running Reports with classes and locations
 Profit and loss by class report
 Profit and loss by location report There are two ways to run these reports. You can either run them directly from the reports page, or click display columns by “class” or “location” on a standard profit and loss report.  Run profit and loss by class directly from the reports page  Filter by "display columns by"
 Balance sheet by class and location report Transactions that can be used with class tracking Remember that you can assign classes to each line item of a transaction. QuickBooks allows you to assign a class to the following transactions:
Transactions that don’t support location fields On the other hand, location related transactions have some limitations. The following transaction types don’t support a Location field:
Conclusion In summary, class and location tracking are great ways to gain better financial insights into how your business is performing.
If you have any further questions or are having trouble which feature to use, please contact us here. |
AuthorDaniel is a CFP® with over 15 years of accounting, tax, and financial planning experience. 
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