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Can’t seem to decide between Quickbooks and Quicken for your business accounting needs? Both of these Intuit-owned products offer a versatile and effective business management solution for business owners. Whether you own a small, medium or large-size business, you can’t go wrong with either Quickbooks or Quicken.  However, there are some subtle nuances between the two that owners need to be aware of.  Taking the time to identify the needs of your business and pairing it with the right accounting software will save you time and money in the long run.

Transaction Detail

Quickbooks offers a greater amount of freedom when creating transaction details. Let’s face it, not all transactions are ‘normal,’ and if you need to remember something about a sale or transaction, you can include it in the memo field. Having a larger area for transaction detail means you can include specifics like person/organization, payment method, etc. This may seem like a small and relatively insignificant feature, but it’s a huge help when trying to perform audits in the future.

Inventory

Unfortunately, there’s no inventory method available in Quicken. If you run or manage a product-based business, you’ll need some form of management system to keep track of inventory; otherwise, you’ll have to do it manually (never a good idea!). The good news is that Quickbooks does in fact offer inventory management. All versions of Quickbooks come standard with inventory management, allowing retail stores and product-based business to automatically keep track of their inventory. Each time a product is sold, Quickbooks automatically deducts it from your account. This is helpful for the obvious reason of maintaining a steady inventory of products, but it goes one step further by notifying you when your supply is running low.

Payroll

We really can’t talk about the differences between Quickbooks and Quicken without mentioning payroll. Assuming you run a business with other employees and not a one-person S-Corp or LLC, you’ll need to a payroll system in place to pay your workers. Quickbooks makes the process of paying your employees a breeze thanks to its integrated payroll system. I hate to say it, but there’s no payroll system currently offered with Quicken, which is just one more reason why so many business owners prefer Quickbooks.

Simplicity

The one area where Quicken shines over Quickbooks. If you’re looking for a simple, out-of-the-box accounting solution for your business, Quicken might be the best choice. Quickbooks is slightly more technical and requires a greater amount of time to learn. However, learning Quickbooks will prove to be well worth it in the long run.