Invoices created in Quicken can be sent out via email from within the program, but. Launch Quicken and create or open the invoice you want to save as a PDF.
Stacy Kildal is owner/operator of Kildal Services LLC—an accounting and technology consulting company that specializes in all things QuickBooks. From 2012-2017, Stacy has been named one of CPA Practice Advisor’s Most Powerful Women In Accounting. Stacy is one of the three hosts for the QB Show and has also been featured frequently on Intuit’s Accountant Blog, Community 'Ask the Expert' forums, at various Intuit Academy To Go podcasts, as well as hosting a number of Intuit Small Business Online Town Hall sessions. She is a big fan of working mobile and has been recognized by Intuit as being an expert on QuickBooks Online, having written Intuit’s original courses for the US, Singapore and Canadian versions. QuickBooks: The Main Difference The Quicken vs. QuickBooks debate is much easier to understand if you know this main difference: Quicken is primarily designed for personal finances, whereas QuickBooks is designed specifically for business finances. Sometimes it feels like the Quicken vs.
QuickBooks battle has been raging forever But let’s put an end to it. Just a couple things you should know before we dive in: First, I’ve only ever used Quicken to open it up and convert to, and these days, I’m not even opening it. I’m getting the Quicken file from my client, converting to QuickBooks desktop, then converting that to. Second, the “QuickBooks” part of this “Quicken vs QuickBooks” article is QuickBooks Online, and the “Quicken” part is looking at Quicken Home & Business. QuickBooks: What type of business do you have? (QBO) is designed to track business transactions: that’s its sole purpose.
Quicken Home & Business (QHB) is designed to do personal and business—it’s even right there in the name. As a bookkeeper, I’m not a fan of tracking both in the same place.
If you’re a sole proprietor, it’s a best practice to keep all the transactions distinct: separate bank accounts and credit card accounts. Even if the credit card is in your personal name, pick one to keep just for business.
It makes it easier to make decisions about the direction of the business, easier to move from Sole Prop to LLC, easier for bookkeepers and tax preparers to do our jobs. However, if you want to use one application to track your personal and business finances, QHB does a great job of managing personal finances, and I prefer the way it handles investment accounts.
My recommendation here: If you must have them in one place, or want to track personal and just have a very small amount of business transactions to manage, use QHB. QBO just doesn’t do a good job when managing personal and business at the same time. QuickBooks: Accounting Features Both QBO and QHB allow you track money in, money out. Both allow you balance/reconcile your bank and credit card accounts, create invoices, enter bills, create reports, and track sales tax. They both also offer the ability to connect to financial institutions, so you can download transactions and bring them into the programs. With QBO, you have Bank Feed Rules that let you designate how bank feed transactions are managed, even telling QBO to automatically enter them if they meet certain criteria.
As I mentioned above, QHB does a much better job of managing investment accounts and mutual funds, and can help estimate capital gains. It also has features that assist with retirement planning. Great for personal finances!
QBO offers much more for the business user, including purchase orders and inventory, multi-users, time tracking, payroll, and true double-sided accounting in the form of journal entries. The automation options are fantastic: with QuickBooks Payments, you can send invoices and get paid online, as well as create recurring Sales Receipts that let you automatically charge a customer’s card, with appropriate written authorization. My recommendation here: Use QBO if you want to use products and/or services, need to manage inventory, have time tracking needs, want help with payroll, or require Purchase Orders. The online payments are life-changing. QuickBooks: Interface and Access In regards to interface, because QBO is specifically for business, the interface is much simpler. QHB may be more difficult to navigate than QBO, but only because it’s designed to track personal and business finances. I find both really easy to learn—it’s just a matter of clicking to find what you need.
As far as access: this one is easy for me. QHB is a desktop product, with a mobile app to which it will sync. QBO is a true online product, 100% in the cloud. This means that with QHB, a user will have to make sure that the computer on which it is installed is always connected to the internet in order for it to sync (not that big of an issue these days, right?), and that there’s always the risk of sync errors. It also means that users can only access it from that one computer or from their mobile device.
With QBO, because it’s a online product, users aren’t tied to one computer. They can access from any computer, at any time, as long as there’s an internet connection. It means they don’t have to worry about reinstalling or moving a file if they get a new computer. It’s a monthly subscription, so there’s no upgrading—as long as new features are included in the subscription level they’re paying for, a user will get them.
There also isn’t any sync: a user can add a transaction on mobile and it’s immediately available to view from any other device: Mac, Windows, Chromebook, iPad, Apple Watch or Android. My recommendation here: QBO: it’s always on, anywhere, with any platform access. QuickBooks: The Bottom Line My summary for Quicken vs. If you need to track personal finances and are looking to manage investment accounts, mutual funds, and retirement planning, and you have a side business that produces a handful of business transactions each month, go with Quicken Home & Business. If you have a business that you’re working in full time—or plan on working in full time—and want it grow, then go with QuickBooks Online which you can explore and purchase.
Stacy Kildal is owner/operator of Kildal Services LLC—an accounting and technology consulting company that specializes in all things QuickBooks. From 2012-2017, Stacy has been named one of CPA Practice Advisor’s Most Powerful Women In Accounting.
Stacy is one of the three hosts for the QB Show and has also been featured frequently on Intuit’s Accountant Blog, Community 'Ask the Expert' forums, at various Intuit Academy To Go podcasts, as well as hosting a number of Intuit Small Business Online Town Hall sessions. She is a big fan of working mobile and has been recognized by Intuit as being an expert on QuickBooks Online, having written Intuit’s original courses for the US, Singapore and Canadian versions.
Converting Quicken for Windows files Overview The following components of your Quicken for Windows data file can be converted to QIF: – Account types that exist in both Quicken for Windows and Quicken for Mac. – Banking transactions. – Most investment transactions. – Categories, classes, and securities contained within the exported transactions. The following components of your Quicken for Windows data file that cannot be converted to QIF: – Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) transactions – Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) transactions – Quicken for Windows business accounts: Invoices Business bills – Loan amortization schedules – Online banking information such as account setup information, Online Payees, and online payment instructions – Scheduled Transactions – QuickFill (memorized) Transactions – Saved or memorized reports – Security price history – Tax status of Investment accounts – Certain types of investment transactions. Converting your file is a 3-part process.
First you must prepare the Quicken for Windows files, then create QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) files, and finally create a new file on the Mac and import the QIF files. Prepare the Quicken for Windows files Account names and category names can be no more than 15 characters long. To shorten longer names: – Select the Tools menu and select Account List. – Click the Options button and select View hidden accounts. – Click the Manage Accounts tab and clear all Hide in Quicken checkboxes.
– For each account whose name has more than 15 characters: Right-click the account and select Edit. Enter a name no more than 15 characters long, and then click OK. – Select the Tools menu and select Category List. – For each account whose name has more than 15 characters: Select the category name and select Edit. Enter a name no more than 15 characters long, and then click OK. – Names of securities cannot contain special characters and ticker symbols must be all uppercase letters: Select the Investing menu and select Security List. For each security name that contains a character such as!, @, #, $,%, ^, &, or.: Right-click the security name and select Edit.
Change the name so it does not contain those characters. For each ticker symbol that is not all uppercase: Right click the ticker symbol and select Edit. Change the symbol to all uppercase letters, such as AAPL, and then click OK. – Accept all downloaded transactions to the account register or list. A red flag next to the name of an account indicates the account has a pending action, such as a downloaded transaction to be accepted. – Click the Downloaded Transactions tab at the bottom of the window to accept the transactions into the register.
Important: Any downloaded transactions not accepted will be lost during the conversion. – Cancel any repeating online payments and pending online payments. Create QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) Files – Use Quicken for Windows to open the data file. – Select the File menu and select Export QIF File.
– On the QIF Export window, click Browse. – Enter the file name Quicken Export.QIF, navigate to where you want to store the file, and click OK. Make a note of the location. – Complete the remainder of the QIF Export window Click the Quicken Account to Export from drop-down arrow choose “All Accounts” (scroll up in the list of accounts). In the Include Transactions in Dates fields, leave the default dates. In the Include in Export area, select Transactions, Category List, Account List and Security Lists.
Click OK to create the QIF file at the location you selected in step 4. On the QIF Export window, select the checkbox corresponding to the item in the file name.
Save all files in the same location. – Insert a CD or DVD into your CD-ROM or DVD drive or attach a removable drive. (Be sure the CD, DVD, or removable media you are using is compatible with both the Windows computer and the Mac.) – Copy your exported QIF file(s) from Quicken to the CD/DVD/Removable Drive. – Eject the CD/DVD/Removable Drive from your PC – Connect/Insert the CD/DVD/Removable Drive to your Mac.