Should You Use Quicken or Quickbooks for your Small Business?

This is the question I’ve been googling all weekend long.  I really didn’t want to buy full blown quickbooks for the new business venture I’ve started.  I knew that I needed to keep track of accounting somehow if I was going to do this the right way though.  I knew that I didn’t need the massive inventory and other super features of Quickbooks, but was Quicken Home & Business going to be enough to fit my needs?

After much research I bit the bullet and purchased Quicken Home & Business 2010 from Amazon.  I purchased the download version so I could get going right away.  I immediately started to play with it and set up the invoices for work I had already done last week (I’ve already had several clients after having just “opened my doors” last week!)

Setting it up was very easy, and I was able to figure out how to create invoices and add customers without an issue.  I added my bank accounts without too much of an issue either.  I had a slight problem adding my business bank account, but it apparently had to do with my username.  I was even able to add my PayPal account!  I was really excited about that.  The next thing I did was enter all of my invoice “items”  I could NOT find where to do this for the life of me.  So I ended up opening a new invoice and added them from that invoice and then didn’t save the invoice.  I later found its location though under “view all invoice items”.  I found it though by accident while I was looking for something else.

The main issue I found, which looks like it may end up being a huge pain is the fact that I cannot manually match a downloaded transaction in my checking account to an invoice and mark it as paying that particular invoice.  I really don’t understand the logic behind ignoring this functionality.  It seems like something that any business owner would like to do.  I had to set up a separate “cash” account so that I could deposit all my invoice payments in there, and then try and match them with downloaded transactions by transferring the money.  VERY horrible workaround.

I was also able to set up my budget, and I’m really liking the way the budget works.  Nice graphical layout letting me know exactly how much I’ve spent in the different categories.  It did take me a bit longer to find the budget tool though too… although it shouldn’t have since it was under “planning” …. {face palm}.  Now I’m busy entering all of my budget categories, and I can’t wait to be the bestest little accountant that I can buy.  🙂

So all in all, I’m VERY happy with my desicion to go with Quicken over Quickbooks.  Being a one person service business, it’s got everything I need it to have.  If you have any inventory at all though, you need to get Quickbooks.  So look no further (like I did) and make the leap today to get control of your finances!

*Disclosure – Intuit and Quicken have paid me squat for this post, and didn’t even give me the software for free… jerks… 🙂  As always, if you are FROM intuit and would like to compensate me for my post, or give me something fun like free Quicken updates for life, go right ahead.  I won’t stop you.

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