Quicken vs Quickbooks! Which do you prefer

KDJ21

I'm just wondering out there in the community if there is a consensus of small business owners or those who have set up LLCs or sCorps if they are using Quicken for their business matters or if they are using Quickbooks and how does one compare with the other for their needs? Honestly I tried using Quickbooks but it was WAY too confusing for me, too expensive, and very limited help/support. Its one of the main reasons I went to Quicken for all of my business and personal needs.

So, what do you think???

Jim_Harman

It depends on the nature and complexity of your business.

Quicken Home & Business is a good choice if you are a sole proprietor. It also has some features for managing rental properties, and It also lets you manage your business and personal finances all in one place.

If your business is more complex you might consider other options.

There are some good comparison reviews online.

Tom Young

"I'm just wondering out there in the community if there is a consensus of small business owners or those who have set up LLCs or sCorps if they are using Quicken for their business matters or if they are using Quickbooks."

If the LLC is for a sole proprietor/independent contractor situation and for tax reporting you are using Schedule C, then generally Quicken H&B will work fine as long as you don't need to keep track of inventory.  In this situation there's no separate "business entity" to keep track of - the IRS treats the LLC as a "disregarded entity" - so ALL the money, assets, liabilities and transactions of the business are considered to be "yours."  So keeping the business and your other personal financial transactions within one Quicken file is perfectly OK.

If the LLC elects to report as a partnership or as an S-Corp then I'd probably say use Quickbooks in that situation.  Quicken has no "shareholder/equity" accounts that you can access and you certainly need access to those accounts if there's more than one owner/partner involved.  In the very simplest case where there's only one owner/partner you might be able to use Quicken but you'd very definitely want to keep the business activities in a separate Quicken file.