QuickBooks Payroll allows you to pay your employees by checks or direct deposits, e-file and e-pay taxes, print and e-file W-2 Forms at year-end, and more. Head to our detailed QuickBooks Payroll review to see if it fits the bill. The QuickBooks Desktop mobile app is very limited as it only allows you to capture expense receipts and track business mileage. If you want to perform bookkeeping from anywhere, we strongly recommend QuickBooks Online’s mobile app.

Once installed, your accounting data will only be accessible on one of these devices, making it difficult to work on the go. But local installation means more control over your data, who has access, and overall general security of your business information. While the two iterations are different in some aspects, they’re essentially the same product, and the differences between them aren’t as glaring as they are with other accounting software solutions. The two iterations of QuickBooks’ accounting software shine in different areas. Whereas one is completely online and cloud-based, the other operates locally on your computer.

Software type

With QuickBooks Desktop, you must make an Accountant’s Copy of your data file and send it to your ProAdvisor. The copy will allow you to continue to work on transactions in the current period while your accountant makes adjustments to past periods. It’s an acceptable system but isn’t nearly as convenient as sharing your books through QuickBooks Online. While QuickBooks Online and Desktop have their strengths and weaknesses, they ultimately the difference between accounts payable vs accounts receivable balance out—which makes them tied in terms of overall features.

Payroll: Tie

Features include mileage tracking, basic reporting, income and expense tracking, capture and organize receipts and estimation of quarterly taxes. Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Run payroll on any device with taxes, compliance & reporting built-in. This easy-to-use and feature-rich software is ideal if you have no bookkeeping experience and want top-notch customer support. Granted, you don’t have to be an accountant to learn QuickBooks Desktop either, but if you are new to accounting, you will need a lot of time to learn the program.

Below we provide a detailed comparison across each feature, where we also determine a winner for each category. A new and improved migration process gives you even more ways to move online. Move from any version of QuickBooks Desktop, and only migrate the data that matters most to you. You can use either QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop, but not both.

QuickBooks Online vs. Desktop pricing

The Desktop Premier edition escalates to 150+ reports, including industry-specific reports for general contractors, manufacturers and wholesalers, nonprofits, and retailers. QuickBooks Desktop is an annual subscription, starting at $549.99 per year, which may be cost-prohibitive for small businesses or cash-strapped startups. While the Desktop version has app integrations, it doesn’t have near as many as the Online version. There are over 200 options instead of the 650-plus to its cloud counterpart.

1. While QuickBooks Online and Desktop have their strengths and weaknesses, they ultimately balance out—which makes them tied in terms of overall features.
2. The software must also have a mobile app to enable users to perform accounting tasks even when away from their laptops or desktops.
3. Each user has their own login credentials, which can be customized to limit access to sensitive information.
4. It’s designed to foster collaboration between multiple users, facilitating multi-user access to accounting data.

I spent time in both the online and desktop versions of QuickBooks. QuickBooks Desktop has a more dated user interface than some cloud-based products and requires prior accounting knowledge to get the most out of the product. We at the MarketWatch Guides team spent over 100 hours researching and testing 15 accounting software providers. We looked at all-in-one tools, such as QuickBooks, as well as specific tools for mileage tracking and expense management. During our extensive research of the business accounting industry where we interviewed financial experts and surveyed accounting software users, QuickBooks came up often as a widely used solution.