Good morning and welcome to another episode of always up to date. I’m Denise and this is yai. And we are co-owners of a always bookkeeping here in Edmonton. So today our topic is, um, the difference between QuickBooks online and QuickBooks desktop. So, uh, we’re gonna look at some software today and just kind of discuss what the differences are and which one is better or worse or ah, look at that. So our quote today is from Warren buffet, who is an all time great investor. Uh, and his quote is accounting is the language of business. And our quote, again, 50% of all businesses are out of business in five years and 29% of these failed businesses will cite that they’ve run out of cash. Um, so we, uh, look at business owners, we have lots of business owners that come to us and they’re trying to decide if they should use QuickBooks desktop or QuickBooks online and just want to know what the difference is between the two of them with Edmonton Bookkeeping.

So we’re going to try to share with you a little bit about the differences between QuickBooks online and QuickBooks desktop. Um, so first of all, y’all wait, um, should businesses be using accounting software? Um, I don’t think so. There are some businesses that are, um, this scale is a little too, um, too small for them to have any accounting software that they’re fault that they follow. Um, it is a good thing to have or a good tool to have so you can know where you’re at. But, um, especially in Alberta, we have a lot of, uh, professional corporations that don’t necessarily have to track, um, what the, how they’ve been doing every month, you know, cause um, some of them, some of these professionals are kind of just like, eh, a business for tax purposes, right? So it’s one of those things that, um, you don’t necessarily have to have, but it’s just a good tool to have if you want to track your progress with Edmonton Bookkeeping.

And I think if you have a lot of transactions going in and out of the bank, yeah. Um, it’s probably better to have the accounting software and have it in there. It’s a lot easier for your accountant at year end. Um, if you don’t have the accounting software, then they’re going to have to put everything into the, uh, like they’re gonna have to do the Edmonton Bookkeeping for you. So I would suggest either having an accounting software that you can put in or hiring an account or a Edmonton Bookkeeping service that can do it for you, um, on monthly basis or like we do it biweekly and get you that information so that you can kind of see it. Then when you go for your year end and you take it to your accountant, it’s all done and chances are probably good that, you know, if you’re doing it or your bookkeeper is doing it on a regular basis, you’re going to get it more accurate than your accountant does it at year end because they only see it once a year.

And a main consideration is payroll. You want to have an accounting software if you have payroll done. Yes, they do have a pair of payroll calculation online, but it does say, and it’s not as um, efficient and accurate when you have to track the year to add a year to date. Um, payroll items. So it’s one of those half and it’s, if you have to do a lot of adjustments, it’s just not worth it. Just get an accounting software. Yeah, that’s right. Especially when you’re doing your T four, is that the year end? So is the software brand the most important factor in getting accurate numbers? No, not necessarily. Again, it’s um, sometimes you don’t even need an accounting software to, uh, if you have a very small business or if you’re a proprietor with this and need to track his supplies and, um, it’s mostly served as businesses too that they don’t really need it with Edmonton Bookkeeping!

Right. So you don’t have to have an accounting software. If you have a good tracking system that you have in place, then keep to that. Um, if it’s becoming too much for you to handle, then um, then definitely get an accounting software and the Brad isn’t an important thing. Um, you could do Sage 50, um, here we just use QuickBooks online and QuickBooks desktop because first of all, first of all, we are certified quick book users. Second of all, we find it more user friendly. Um, there are, um, a lot of stuff in QuickBooks that, uh, for some of the schools are not agreeable with. Yeah. Cause, um, I know most schools teach, um, Sage 50 or simply accounting just because of the fact that you can delete stuff off of QuickBooks, but if you have a good audit log, um, that shouldn’t be a problem. And, um, again, if you’re a small business, it shouldn’t be, um, that much of a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I think that really answered our next question, but, uh, if the brand is not important, why do you recommend QuickBooks? [inaudible]

yeah, so QuickBooks has, um, QuickBooks has a lot more things that you can do to, uh, make it more efficient for your business, especially QuickBooks online. They’ve been developing it for a while. And, um, again, there’s, there are some, uh, functions in QuickBooks desktop that are more, um, established compared to QuickBooks online and so forth. And Sage and some other accounting softwares. They do have that option too. But QuickBooks is some, uh, we find that they’re a lot more user friendly specialty for business owners. We just do their own Edmonton Bookkeeping, it’s very easy to use and there’s a lot of tutorials that they actually, um, do for quick books, um, and even events that they do, um, for you to learn it even better. So for that reason, um, we normally recommend QuickBooks. Yeah. So QuickBooks online has been around since 2001. Uh, was it always good? Uh, no. [inaudible].

Yeah, so QuickBooks online, um, well I, I guess it’s been around since 2001, but it’s still fairly new, uh, compared to the, uh, um, to QuickBooks desktop. So there are still a lot of, um, improvements that they’ve been doing. Back feeds is a new thing for them. Um, the payroll is a new thing for them. I believe they were, they bought, they were bought, sorry, they were bought by a wage point or they bought Wagepoint for payroll. So, um, it’s one of those new things that they’re trying to integrate. Um, there’s a lot of, um, payroll systems and, um, parallel accounting softwares that integrate with, uh, QuickBooks online. So it is fairly new. So, even if it has been there for 2001, they’re still developing the product. Um, so there is still a lot of steps that you have to um, kind of get around just to get the, the function that you need when you’re switching from QuickBooks desktop to QuickBooks online.

Yeah. Uh, so yo use the QuickBooks desktop version or the online version better for data entry. Um, in my opinion, if you’re going towards the automated system, it’s quite what’s online that it’s going to give you that option. They do have that, the download function for some of your bank to um, download it as a cued BD file or something like a quick QuickBooks compatible, um, transaction type of a file that you can just upload to QuickBooks desktop. But sometimes they don’t usually work out as opposed to QuickBooks online where you can use your online log in just so you can, um, download the transactions automatically. So for that reason, I, we do recommend QuickBooks online and for the service that we do, um, it’s just better for us. Did you QuickBooks online so the owners can have their own, um, credentials without us having to, uh, login for them and stuff like that.

Yeah. So why does data entry becoming less important? Again, we are gearing towards the automated system these days. So more bookkeepers are using the automated system where you just log into your bank account. It automatically downloads the transaction for you. Um, QuickBooks online specialty, you can create rules for, um, repeating transactions or recurring transactions, um, so that it will get automatically accepted as opposed to you, um, kind of doing data entry per transaction. It’s becoming more efficient. Uh, and again, this is very important, again for the Edmonton Bookkeeping industry that, that, that you know, that you’re a bookkeeper are more, um, equip to do the reports that you need to make the decisions as opposed to just simple data entry. Right? Um, you can do the data entry yourself, but, um, uh, an actual, uh, or a good bookkeeper would know how to interpret into, uh, sorry.

Um, yeah. So to interpret those, um, those trends, uh, those transactions into a good report that can help you make decisions. Yeah, I think too, there’s a lot more apps out there that are, um, can be integrated into the software. Yeah. Like your, your, um, employee time sheets. Um, and they just get downloaded, especially QuickBooks online, we know that they get downloaded and so you don’t have to enter your employee time all the time. You just like manually enter it. You don’t have to, it’s already in there, so you just have to check it over to make sure that it matches what your time sheets see. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there’s, there’s lots of other ones as well, the that just integrate right into it. So you don’t have to do that manual data entry. Yeah. So are there significant improvements being made in both platforms?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean like other products they renew, do, renew it every year. Um, depending on the trends, they want to make it as, as easier for, uh, as easy, uh, for all the business owners. Right. So again, for example, QuickBooks has been developing their, uh, QuickBooks online has been developing their payroll system to become more efficient. Um, and again, using a wage point, I think as one of the things that, uh, help them to do it, um, quite well. Uh, the bank feeds as well, their, they always developed that. Um, excuse me. The, um, the ability to enter transactions from your phone, from, uh, using QuickBooks online. It’s very convenient for all the business owners, especially if you want to create a, um, a, a receipt bank or something like that. You don’t necessarily have to have another, um, software for it. Now, QuickBooks online are able to, um, give you the option to take a photo of your receipt and attach it to the actual transaction that you recorded in QuickBooks online and not used Edmonton Bookkeeping.

That itself is a huge, huge, uh, convenience factor for a lot of business owners who don’t necessarily need to be, um, at their office all the time. Yeah, yeah. Yup. So what’s it like to share or access QuickBooks desktop files in multiple locations? That becomes very challenging. QuickBooks, as the name suggests, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s, it lives in your desktop, so you always have to back it up or at least have a shared, uh, cloud system that you use to be able to share it with other people or take the data somewhere else. Um, and there could be a lot of errors that happen between those, right. Because you could be working on a different computer for the same file and in another, uh, and another person will work on it, uh, at the same time, but in a different location in the backup won’t necessarily a riff like boat changes that both person made.

So, so that it’s something that could be a date. Uh, there’s a lot of elimination into data that could happen once we’re done happens. Yeah. Sometimes I forget to restore the backup to [inaudible] then you’re working away wondering why it’s not matching when somebody else did, when you didn’t restore the information that they added to your, your file. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, so how does ease of sharing allow business owners access to more sophistication? Yeah, I, uh, again, it comes back to that, uh, the sophistication of the data. If a lot of data has been, um, eliminated because of, um, this is something that you have in place, then, um, it doesn’t reflect the reports that you want to meet the decision out of. Right. And sometimes you don’t, um, figure out this report until later after you meet the physician already, especially if you’re doing a lot of post-dated checks and, um, they don’t necessarily clear your back yet with out Edmonton Bookkeeping!

So you, um, you depend very, very heavily on the cash. Um, the cash balance on your, uh, accounting software, then that becomes a problem, right? Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So why are web based programs generally more cost and time effective? Um, cost and time effective, uh, time is costs first of all. So if you have access to your accounting data anywhere, um, like a QuickBooks online, if you have it in your phone or, um, you can log in on another computer somewhere else to access data, then it becomes very efficient. Um, for you as a business owner, uh, to gather information and it’s cost effect, uh, it’s cost effective because you spend less time trying to fix the error and less time trying to find out what happened. Right? So I think web based programs, uh, give us that, um, uh, option and also again, the bank feeds the bank feeds are, are very helpful when it’s a, when it comes to saving your time because it automatically downloads all the transaction and basically do the data entry for you. So less time spent on that will become, um, very, uh, it becomes an advantage for you as a business that wants to re that values your time. Yeah. Um, so I think that’s all the questions we have for today. Um, I hope you guys find it informative. Um, if you have any ideas that you want us to talk about these, comment them down below, please click like and subscribe to our videos. If you’re fine. If you like our episodes and we’ll see you guys next time on, always up to date with Edmonton Bookkeeping!