QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: Which Is Best for Your Business?

Overall, we’ve found that QuickBooks is a better accounting platform than FreshBooks. Although there are minimal differences in each provider’s invoicing and tax tools, QuickBooks has a slight edge in these categories – plus, it far outperforms FreshBooks when it comes to reporting and financial forecasting tools.

This makes QuickBooks a better option for individuals or businesses that want an accounting software that can help them effectively plan out their financial future.

This isn’t to say FreshBooks isn’t a good option. FreshBooks is easier to use than QuickBooks, and offers a time tracking tool – a feature that’s noticeably absent from QuickBooks’ kit. This makes FreshBooks a better option for businesses or sole traders that are new to accounting, and need a basic accounting tool to help them with bookkeeping.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: At a Glance

Here’s what you need to know about QuickBooks and FreshBooks:

• Accounting features: QuickBooks offers more advanced accounting features than FreshBooks, especially when it comes to reporting and forecasting tools. That said, it’s easier to apply tax to products with FreshBooks – not to mention it offers a time tracking tool, which QuickBooks is missing.
• Ease of use: FreshBooks is easier to use than QuickBooks, mainly because it allows users to edit settings directly from the page they’re working on. QuickBooks requires users to preset a lot of features in a separate page.
• Pricing: QuickBooks has a cheaper starting price than FreshBooks, but more expensive top-tier plans, and both providers have hidden add-on costs, making them quite evenly matched when it comes to price.
• Customer support: Both providers offer similar levels of customer support, with phone lines, and live chat open even on weekends.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: Accounting Features

Winner: QuickBooks

Overall, QuickBooks offers better accounting tools than FreshBooks. When it comes to invoicing and expense management, QuickBooks has a slight edge over FreshBooks – although, the two platforms offer similar tax tools. We see the biggest difference emerge when looking at each platform’s reporting and forecasting tools, since QuickBooks offers far more advanced tools.

Let’s take a closer look at different features:

Invoicing and quoting: QuickBooks is slightly better

QuickBooks and FreshBooks offer similar invoicing and quoting tools, but QuickBooks has a slight edge over FreshBooks, since it provides multi-currency invoicing, while FreshBooks doesn’t. That said, multi-currency is only supported by QuickBooks’ £33 per month Essentials plan and not by the two cheaper plans.

This is pretty much the only restriction QuickBooks applies to quotes and invoices, since users can access an unlimited number of quotes, invoices, and clients from the cheapest £10 per month Sole Trader plan.

FreshBooks, on the other hand, restricts the number of clients you can send them to to 5 on the £15 per month Lite plan, and 50 on the £25 per month Plus plan. You have to be on the £35 per month Premium plan to be restriction-free.

Other than those differences, both providers offer easy-to-use quote and invoicing tools. The layout is clear, and quotes can easily be turned into invoices with the click of a button. We particularly appreciated that QuickBooks gave us an invoice preview before we sent it to a client, while we liked the fact that we could edit invoice settings directly from the invoice creation page on FreshBooks.

Other features QuickBooks and FreshBooks share include:

• Creating and sending invoices and quotes to clients directly from the platform
• The ability to automate sending and create payment reminders for clients
• Seeing when clients have viewed invoices
• Facilitating payments by integrating with banks and payment processors, and creating payment links for clients or offering BACS transfers

Expense management: QuickBooks is more accurate

QuickBooks and FreshBooks have similar expense management tools. However, we found QuickBooks to be more efficient and more accurate in this area.

That’s because, on top of manual expense entry, QuickBooks offers automatic expense categorisation based on bank feeds or receipt data capture. We found the categorisations to be highly accurate, especially with transactions coming from bank feeds.

FreshBooks, on the other hand, although it can import expenses from bank feeds, doesn’t automatically categorise them. It does, however, have a receipt data capture tool, but we found inaccuracies when testing.

Unlike FreshBooks, QuickBooks also doesn’t charge extra for other users, such as employees, using the software to submit expense claims. The number of users allowed on each plan increases with plan price, going up to 25 users on the £115 per month Advanced plan.

FreshBooks’ plans, on the other hand, are all for one user, with additional users costing £8 each.

For more information, read our guide to tracking business expenses.

Tax preparation: It’s a tie

QuickBooks and FreshBooks are tied when it comes to their tools to help with tax preparation, since both have different strengths and weaknesses.

Both platforms can calculate and deduct VAT, and are part of the Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative, meaning businesses can file VAT returns to HMRC via an online portal. That said, QuickBooks’ £10 per month starting plan doesn’t support VAT. For VAT calculations and returns, users need the £16 per month plan, whereas they can get VAT support from £15 per month with FreshBooks.

Additionally, during testing, we found it much harder to apply tax to sales on QuickBooks than we did on FreshBooks. Tax rules have to be set up in advance on a separate settings page with QuickBooks, whereas you get access to preset tax calculations with FreshBooks.

However, QuickBooks supports more types of tax than FreshBooks. From the £16 per month QuickBooks Simple Start plan, users get access to VAT, income tax, and CIS (Construction Industry Scheme) management, and returns. FreshBooks doesn’t support CIS on any of its plans, which makes QuickBooks a better option for those in the construction industry.

Reporting and financial forecasting: QuickBooks offers more advanced tools

QuickBooks offers more advanced reporting and analysis tools than FreshBooks. This is mainly because QuickBooks offers two features that FreshBooks doesn’t: custom reporting, and budgeting and forecasting tools.

With QuickBooks, users can not only generate custom reports from scratch, but also modify existing report templates. This allows businesses to isolate metrics such as equity or assets into separate reports, instead of seeing them lumped together in the balance sheet, as would be the case on FreshBooks.

QuickBooks has a great data dashboard that summarises key data into easily interpretable graphs.

While FreshBooks also has this tool, its data dashboard isn’t as comprehensive as QuickBooks.

What sets FreshBooks back the most in this category is the fact that it doesn’t offer any tools to help businesses plan and predict their financial future.

QuickBooks, on the other hand, offers a plethora of tools to help businesses plan and budget. These include a cashflow prediction tool (available from the cheapest plan), budget setting for departments, projects, and accounts, the ability to track upcoming monthly bills and expenses, and an add-on tool that lets businesses generate “what if” scenarios.

For tips on managing finances, read our guide on how to improve cashflow.

Time tracking: FreshBooks offers this while QuickBooks doesn’t

One of QuickBooks’ major downsides is that it’s one of the few accounting platforms we’ve tested and researched that doesn’t offer a time tracking tool. This tool is useful for businesses or accountants looking to turn projects into billable hours, and it’s included as standard with most accounting software.

However, with QuickBooks, you have to pay extra for its QuickBooks Time add-on, which costs between £16 and £30 per month (base fee), plus £6 to £8 per user. This is expensive, although QuickBooks Time comes with more than just time tracking, acting as an employee time and attendance and shift management system.

If you just need a traditional time tracking tool, you can get one at no extra charge on all FreshBooks plans. FreshBooks time tracking tool accurately tracked the time we spent working during our testing, however, it can’t measure time spent on each task if you’re doing several different tasks in a given tracked period.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: Ease of Use

Winner: FreshBooks

FreshBooks is easier to use than QuickBooks overall, which means it’s a better choice for those unfamiliar with accounting software, such as the self-employed or new businesses.

So what made FreshBooks easy to use? For one, its main menu was very clearly signposted, and we found its invoicing and quote tools very intuitive. This was mainly because quotes could be turned into invoices at the click of a button, and settings, such as payment reminders and currency, could be edited directly from the invoice or bill, with no need to go to a separate page.

The only real issue we had with FreshBooks is when trying to send messages to clients. There’s no clear way to send them an email besides through existing invoices and quotes, which was frustrating when trying to create tailored messages.

With QuickBooks, although the process of creating quotes and converting them to invoices was relatively straightforward, we felt certain steps were unnecessarily complicated.

For example, adding tax to a sale was a bit of a minefield, since there was no obvious way to do this from the invoice we were working on. We had to go into a separate settings page to this, and the help centre didn’t offer instructions to help us along. We had the same issue when it came to setting up payment reminders for clients.

That said, we found the overall layout of QuickBooks’ menu quite clear, and we liked that we could customise it by adding tabs that linked to most used tools. Its excellent data dashboard which summarises key metrics in easy to interpret graphs was another highlight.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: Pricing

Winner: It’s a tie

QuickBooks has a lower starting price than FreshBooks, with plans starting at £10 per month compared to FreshBooks’ £15 per month. However, QuickBooks’ average price is higher than FreshBooks’, largely due to its expensive top-tier plans.

Additionally, both providers come with hidden costs that can increase the overall price businesses will pay. These factors make them quite evenly matched when it comes to pricing.

Here’s a summary of QuickBooks pricing plans:

QuickBooks is currently offering a deal where businesses can get their first six months for a massively reduced price. There is a deadline, but as far as we can tell this is a permanent deal, and the deadline gets updated.

Here’s a summary of FreshBooks pricing plans:

Which provider is better value for money depends on user needs:

• Sole traders or landlords that aren’t VAT registered: QuickBooks is better value for money, since its starter plan costs £5 per month less than FreshBooks’.
• Newly registered sole traders or businesses that are VAT registered: FreshBooks is better value for money, since it’s £15 starter plan costs £1 less per month than QuickBooks’ £16 per month Simple Start plan (the lowest price at which you can get VAT support). It’s also much easier to apply tax to products on FreshBooks than it is on QuickBooks.
• Businesses focused on growth: QuickBooks is better value for money than FreshBooks. Even though its top tier plans are more expensive than FreshBooks’, they come with powerful reporting, analytic, and organisation tools that can accommodate growing businesses.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: Customer Support

Winner: It’s a tie

Both QuickBooks and FreshBooks offer users several customer support channels, and have quite generous operating hours for live support.

FreshBooks has a phone line that customers can dial, a support email, and a support live chat. The support team also operates from 1 pm to 12 am seven days a week, so they can be contacted outside of typical 9 to 5 hours.

QuickBooks also has a phone line, but customers don’t have a number they can call directly. Instead, they have to put in a request to receive a call. Phone agents operate between 8 am and 7 pm, Monday to Friday.

To get instant live support, QuickBooks customers can use live chat, with support agents available between 8 am and 10 pm Monday to Friday, and 8 am to 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Unlike FreshBooks, there’s no support email.

When it comes to self-help, both providers offer relatively well-stocked knowledge centres with up-to-date articles. FreshBooks, however, doesn’t offer forums where users can share tips, whereas QuickBooks does. Forums can be useful for filling gaps in the self-help guides.

Overall, both providers offer a good support network to users, with gaps in different places, making them quite evenly matched in this category.

Alternatives to Consider

If you think neither QuickBooks nor FreshBooks is right for you, here are some alternative accounting software platforms to consider:

• Zoho Books: If you like QuickBooks’ powerful reporting tools, but want a platform that’s easy to use like FreshBooks, Zoho Books should be your go-to.
• Xero: If you like QuickBooks advanced reporting tools, but want even more detail when it comes to tracking products, services, and clients, we recommend Xero.
• Sage: If you’re looking for a modern-looking accounting tool that can help you create branded invoices, and want to pair accounting with a payroll and HR ecosystem, we recommend Sage.
• FreeAgent: If you’re looking for a highly affordable accounting software tool that’s easy to use and still comes with an excellent set of accounting tools, FreeAgent is your answer.
• Clear Books: If you need an accounting tool that can support a wide variety of different ax types, and offers a lot of guidance come tax time, we recommend Clear Books.

For more comparisons, check out our Xero vs FreshBooks review.