What Is QuickBooks and How Can It Help My Business?

If you ask any small business owner about their pain points, chances are they’ll include cash flow and actually managing that cash flow. Accounting is one of the most difficult parts of business ownership, as you must keep close track of income and expenses as well as pay your employees (and yourself).

If you want to simplify the accounting process, you should consider business accounting software, like Quickbooks. What is QuickBooks? Read on to learn more about how it can help your business.

What Is QuickBooks?

Put simply, QuickBooks is accounting software for small businesses. However, it has tons of features that you can use, different versions depending on your needs, and a web-based platform that allows you to try it free for 30 days.

Some of the things that you can use QuickBooks for include:

• Invoicing
• Tracking expenses and income
• Printing financial statements
• Monitoring inventory
• Employee payroll
• Tracking mileage
• Organizing receipts
• Simplifying taxes
• Accepting online payments from customers

Essentially, QuickBooks can handle all of the accounting tasks that are the most commonly cited pain points for small business owners.

What Are the Benefits of Using QuickBooks?

There are a number of benefits for small and medium-sized businesses when it comes to QuickBooks. One of the best things about QuickBooks is that you can test all of the features out before you make a decision on purchasing.

Range of Features

Even the most basic QuickBooks version offers most, if not all, the features your small business will need, especially if you are a start-up or are a young business. Once your business grows, you can add more features or upgrade to one of the higher-level versions to access features that a growing business might need, such as inventory management.

One of the best features of QuickBooks is the ability to run employee payroll and direct deposit their paychecks. Doing payroll manually can take up a huge chunk of your time and you also run the risk of calculating paychecks incorrectly, which can have significant ramifications.

Affordability

You can choose from several different options based on your business needs and your budget. If you opt for QuickBooks online, using the cloud to store your information, your prices could be lower than $15/month. As your business grows and you need more features, upgrade to a QuickBooks version with more features or spring for the desktop QuickBooks version.

Once you choose your plan, you can add payroll if you need it, and QuickBooks also offers a one-time bookkeeping setup session, where a certified bookkeeper can walk you through setting up your QuickBooks account.

Commonly Used Among Accountants and Bookkeepers

If you are going to use outside financial professionals for taxes or bookkeeping (which is a smart decision if you’re not a bookkeeper or tax expert) it’s good to use a system that is popular and widely used among other financial pros. QuickBooks meets that need. It’s a popular program used among accountants, so you can rest easy knowing they are familiar with your accounting software and won’t make mistakes due to a lack of familiarity with it.

Ready to Take Your Business to the Next Level?

Now that you know a little more about the answer to “what is QuickBooks?” you can start thinking about taking your business financials to the next level. With accounting software, you can simplify business accounting.

Once you get that in order, it may be time to think about outsourcing your bookkeeping needs to the pros. Contact us at Sterling Accounting to learn more about how we can help your business.