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QuickBooks is an accounting information system or program designed to help business owners track their daily transactions processes and grasp financial fundamentals of their company.

Knowing where the business is heading is essential for a successful venture. Business owners can use online QuickBooks for convenient remote access or rely on an offline QuickBooks accounting software. This article highlights the pros and cons of using QuickBooks.

Pros:

1. Secure data: It ensures your company files are securely stored in the Intuit servers. Each company file data is secured with the admin password and all users in the system are required to login into the company files with their username and passwords.

2. Automated transactions: It allows you to automatically send invoices, customer statements, receipts and generate reports or send reports automatically. It is essential for the transaction processing system.

3. Sync data or files: The app allows you to sync your account with your iPad or iPhone device and have remote access to your business.

4. User-friendly interface: It has a user-friendly interface which is simple to use and easy to navigate through various GUI features.

5. Automated backup: QuickBooks allows you to automatically backup your data and in cases of a disaster, you can easily recover your company’s database.

6. Built-in tutorials: QuickBooks provides users will built-in tutorial and guidance tools to enable them to understand various business strategies or how to carry out a certain transaction.

7. Shared access: It allows the sharing of data and files by the employees in various departments. Multiple employees can access a single file simultaneously.

8. Reporting functionality: It enables users to generate reports inform of charts or graphs and access the current state of the business as at a given time. The report tools include; financing and accounting, accounts receivables, account payables, and sales reports among others.

9. Help manage tax: It is integrated with tax system making it easy to monitor income and file the tax. You will not worry about the accuracy of your tax report or hiring professional tax personnel. This saves you a lot.

10. Increase efficiency: There are a lot of integrated tools that make your accounting tasks easier. It saves a lot of time and improves the employee’s performance.

Cons:

1. No industry specific features: QuickBooks lacks industry and business specific features like the barcode scanning and e-commerce.

2. Expensive: The cost of purchasing the software and acquiring the license to use is very high. You’re required to renew the license at an added cost after a certain period of time.

3. No direct support: It is not easy to get direct professional help from customer care services. It may take hours or days before you get any professional assistance.

4. A restricted number of users: QuickBooks has restricted the number of users per single software licensing. Licensing a large organization with many people can be very expensive.

5. Inventory management: QuickBooks may not meet the needs of robust inventory management making it difficult to easily manage your inventory.

6. Lackluster Audit trail: Although it can help an accountant do an audit trail, it can create a loophole for changing financial data without any documentation.

7. No payroll: The standard QuickBooks software does not offer payroll services. If you need payroll, you will have to pay the additional monthly cost for the QuickBooks online.

8. Internet connection: If your internet is slow or down, you can’t access QuickBooks online services.

9. No project management features: If you’re a project manager, you need third-party apps to integrate with QuickBooks online for you to record the projects.

10. Not for beginners: Although it has a friendly interface, there is a definite learning curve and it may take a lot of time and patient to master. It takes time to understand various accounting jargons or terms and perform complex accounting task.