Small business payroll platform
4.2/5 (3333 reviews)QuickBooks Payroll is a complete payroll management platform for small businesses that provides companies with complete control over their employee salary calculations and labor hours. The payroll solution incorporates an internal calculator which automatically assesses tax returns based on the amount of employee hours entered.
QuickBooks Payroll lets users enter the salaries and hours of employees, then allocates staff wages to their linked accounts. Full tax reports can also be viewed and return payments are automatically calculated and can be processed within a matter of seconds. Tax returns can be managed based on geographical location to abide by state employment laws.
All data entered into QuickBooks Payroll is completely transparent and users can view real-time reports which can be exported to Excel spreadsheets. The complete backend dashboard is optimised for mobile devices giving users the ability to control payroll operations whilst out of office. Once logged in, QuickBooks Payroll lets users add, edit and execute payment tasks, and generates notifications for important updates.
Pros
Aside from keeping things in order, it allows someone with no accounting experience to do the basic bookkeeping activities, produce reports, and keep up with the finances. I like that it will connect with the bank and download activities! Best of all, it will print checks!
Cons
Connection with the bank can be flakey, depending on the bank. You have to watch the activity because QB does not tell you if there are problems. It should provide an option to warn you when it could not contact the bank overnight. Also, it is very difficult to use the check lineup processes. For some reason, I cannot get the check printing to line up properly and the tools they give do not work well.
The freedom that QBO provides you is amazing. I recently moved to BC from Ontario and was able to keep my job because our firm uses QBO. If we had been on desktop for our clients, I would't have been able to keep my job and would have had to find work elsewhere. My boss is about to work remotely from her cottage for the month of August because she CAN! How many people do you know can say that?
Pros
I find QBO to be super user friendly. I love that they have a training program so you can become basic and advanced certified. We make everyone in the office do the certification program, but nothing beats user experience. QBO is the first cloud-based accounting software I was introduced to, and I find it fabulous. I even recommended it to my parents for their business instead of their custom desktop-based software and they are going to move to it at the end of August.
Cons
Sometimes the banking feeds have a hard time staying connected which can be very frustrating. It's not Quickbook's fault for this - it's the banks. But it is still frustrating at times when you lose a connection and have to call up your client to re-enter their details. Thank goodness for screen-sharing!
Their customer support has lovely people, but they are not always knowledge in the ways they should be. A lot of the times, we already know the issue that we are experiencing and need to speak to someone high-level to be able to resolve the issue. There should be an advanced call center to be able to speak to extememly well-versed people that know QBO in and out.
Overall, the software should be and is quite capable, however, it seems the staff need more resources/training to troubleshoot issues and the pay period settings need to be more customizable.
Pros
Quickbooks is the most well-known accounting software on the planet. It's slick, the software is implemented and developed well with no bugs in my experience, and the capability fits any size business via their subscription plans. This was very much needed for me as a small business owner and it's been a great step up from what I was previously doing.
Cons
Here's the cons: When setting up an employee the software gave me a notification and wouldn't allow me to go further once I selected that I had paid the employee previously and would be paying back taxes on them myself rather than charging those to the employee payroll. The notification wanted me to contact Quickbooks for "special handling". The problem is that the QB staff didn't seem to know what or why it was doing that and in the end basically I just had to bypass that whole question altogether to get the employee in the system and I'll have to figure out the previous taxes come tax time. This was like a 2 week process of asking QB repeatedly about this issue.
The last con is the software's insistence to have me running payroll on the same day as the end of the pay period. I've never worked anywhere that did this and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering you don't have the hours for that last day yet. But nonetheless, I cannot find any option to change this and I end up waiting a week later, then running payroll, but the software ends up changing the pay date to the previous pay date after a couple of days, so my records are off. This has been the single most frustrating part of the software and nobody seems to know how to modify this particular aspect of it.
Overall, QBO is wonderful software for bookkeepers, accountants, and small business owners. It is arguably the most powerful and robust software on the market, and is priced fairly well. Its integrations with other pieces of software and/or websites that small business owners use is second-to-none, and I am glad Intuit continues to work on that area. I would only say that support's knowledge of their own product is incredibly limited in my experience, and they need to stick by their pricing instead of releasing a few new features every year that have marginal actual use and claiming they need to raise prices because of them.
Pros
I love QBO - their software just works! I own a bookkeeping firm and nearly all of our clients use QBO. Nearly all bookkeeping activities can be completed, including accounts payable/receivable, financial statements, journal entries, bank reconciliations, sales tax, and even payroll. I find our clients want us to use QBO and they are eager to learn it. Along those lines, it is an easy piece of software to teach someone how to use, but still packs many robust features.
Cons
Two items:
1) The Intuit QBO customer service needs work, and lots of it. I have only web-chatted with them on three occasions, and on all three occasions, I solved the problem myself before the support agent could find a solution. A company as big as Intuit should know that their support agents need to be MORE knowledgeable than the end-user. In my experience, this is rarely the case. Possibly more training is necessary?
2) Intuit keeps raising monthly subscription prices on their QBO products. In using them for just about five years now, I have gone through five price increases/changes for their QBO Essentials and QBO Plus products, and an additional two on Intuit/Quickbooks Payroll (their payroll increases actually caused me to switch to another provider). Watch your e-mail for notifications diligently.
The online version is a decent product but I am sure there are other online accounting software packages that provide the same or much more. Dealing with the online accountant customer service department is a total waste of time. Their management team seems to be concerned with their numbers more than customer appreciation. Terrrrrible! My advice: "Buyer beware!"
Pros
The ability to assign classes in creating rules for the electronic bank transaction imports. The desktop version does not offer that function. It's sad because I know that if the QuickBooks Online software code writers can create that functionality in the online version, then they certainly should be able to create that functionality for the desktop versions which most subscribers have been using for decades now.
Cons
The unexpected price hikes on your account without formal notification or fair warning. Quickbooks has probably been the worst software vendor in that they always find a way to raise your rates by using creative and deceptive means such as switching online account holders and their client accounts to the Advanced Online version as a trial run without the account holders authorization. They leave the burden on the account holder to cancel the Advanced version trail for each of their online client accounts, which most account holders are not even aware that their clients have been switched. Terrrrrible! I'm sure there are laws that prohibit this type of deceptive behavior. Currently I am switching most of my clients back to the desktop versions until I can find an alternative Accounting software that my clients and I can appreciate.
Payroll only:
Self Service Payroll: $17.50/month for the first three months ($35/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
Full Service Payroll: $40/month for the first three months ($80/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
Payroll with QuickBooks Simple Start:
Self Service Payroll: $27/month for the first three months ($55/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
Full Service Payroll: $50/month for the first three months ($100/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
• QuickBooks Payroll fully automates tax calculations for employee paychecks, and monitors local, state, and federal taxes for updates.
• The online employee portal allows employees to view their W-2s and pay stubs at any time.
• Self-service payroll lets users prepare and file their own tax forms, and QuickBooks Payroll also offers a full service option which provides US-based support for state and federal forms and payments.
• Payroll can be run as many times as required with no extra fees, and users can create additional checks and bonuses outside of regularly scheduled payroll.
• Native iOS and Android mobile apps allow users to create paychecks, electronically pay taxes and file forms, pay workers, receive reminders, view paycheck histories, and more from anywhere.
Below are some frequently asked questions for QuickBooks Payroll.
QuickBooks Payroll offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: US$35,00/month
Pricing model: Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Payroll only:
Self Service Payroll: $17.50/month for the first three months ($35/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
Full Service Payroll: $40/month for the first three months ($80/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
Payroll with QuickBooks Simple Start:
Self Service Payroll: $27/month for the first three months ($55/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
Full Service Payroll: $50/month for the first three months ($100/month thereafter) + $4/employee/month.
QuickBooks Payroll offers the following features:
QuickBooks Payroll has the following typical customers:
Non Profit, Small Business
QuickBooks Payroll supports the following languages:
English
QuickBooks Payroll has the following pricing plans:
Subscription
QuickBooks Payroll supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone, iPad
QuickBooks Payroll integrates with the following applications:
Aladtec, Beekeeper, GoCo, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, Sage People, xTuple
QuickBooks Payroll offers the following support options:
FAQs, Forum, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support
QBO is the only one with the complete package that includes the ability to write and track checks. Since my business is simple, I need a lighter, "for dummies" mode that could remove a lot of clutter when it is not necessary. As a consignment business, I use software that is specific to the industry. It keeps all of the data I need to meet regulations. For QBO, a payment is a simple transaction. I wish the system could be lighter and less cluttered.