FreshBooks vs QuickBooks: Compared by Experts 2025

22 Aug FreshBooks vs QuickBooks: Compared by Experts 2025

FreshBooks project management tool improves team collaboration and project tracking. It provides centralized file storage, project discussions, and real-time chat for team members, contractors, and clients. This ensures all project-related communications are organized in one convenient location. FreshBooks allows you to track billable business expenses, create markups, and use them on client invoices. It also supports multi-currency expenses, recurring expenses, and secure receipt storage on the cloud.

This helps workflows move smoothly and prevents users from having to constantly toggle between two programs when working. By customizing fields, QuickBooks allows business owners to track what they want in a way that makes sense for their business. For business owners working with an accountant, this keeps both parties synced to data that is meaningful to operations.

FreshBooks or QuickBooks: Which Option Is Best?

We also appreciate that the add-on “Advanced Payments” feature turns the platform into a virtual terminal. You can store credit card information for recurring payments or subscriptions. This function costs $20 per month and charges 3.5% plus 30 cents per credit card transaction. Intuit QuickBooks Online is our choice for any small or medium-sized business that needs reasonably priced accounting software with potent features that can scale as your company grows. Its four plans are designed to meet the needs of a range of businesses at affordable prices. However businesses with products and inventory, or businesses with more advanced accounting needs are likely to find QuickBooks offers more robust solutions.

• That said, the bonus features that come with QuickBooks Time, such as geofencing and shift scheduling, are more advanced.
• We found FreshBooks’ online customer support resources to be excellent.
• FreshBooks generates and downloads mileage reports directly from the app to stay organized and compliant with tax regulations.
• Apart from offering traditional double-entry accounting and reporting features, FreshBooks excels at streamlined invoice generation.
• If your clients also use QuickBooks — and that’s likely — you can easily find them through this network.
• Every FreshBooks plan allows you to track time both live and retroactively and bill clients for accrued time.

The two freshbooks vs quickbooks accounting software platforms are roughly tied within this category. FreshBooks gains extra points for ease of use and advanced features like late fees, deposits, and retainers. QuickBooks and FreshBooks both include invoicing capabilities for their customers. If your business requires managing complex projects, you should leverage leading project management software instead of the built-in software offered by accounting software.

However, Zoho Books is our top accounting software for microbusinesses, Read our Zoho Books review to learn why. We also like that FreshBooks charges lower base prices than most other accounting software platforms do for noncustomized plans. That makes the service a reliable choice for small teams more intent on saving money than spending more to get extra value. No matter your financial situation, you can count on FreshBooks to meet many of your most important accounting needs. Its intuitive interface and helpful guides make it easy to navigate, even if you have no prior accounting knowledge.

QuickBooks takes the cake for its ability to customize the system based on users’ preferences. Where FreshBooks allows customization of invoices, QuickBooks allows invoice customization along with the ability to customize users’ roles and workflows. QuickBooks offers specialized tutorials to help users make the changes that work for them. Both FreshBooks and QuickBooks are popular accounting software programs because they meet the needs of a wide range of clients. Let’s dive into the specifics of the two to see where each software shines.

FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks Online Compared

• FreshBooks gains extra points for ease of use and advanced features like late fees, deposits, and retainers.
• FreshBooks has robust project management features that are ideal for service-based businesses.
• Your subscription price won’t change if you use the free trial — in fact, no matter what, you pay discounted monthly prices for your first year.
• QuickBooks, on the other hand, is more equipped to meet the accounting needs of larger businesses.

FreshBooks also offers a yearly (rather than month-to-month) payment option, which saves you an additional 10%. QuickBooks offers hundreds more integrations than FreshBooks, so you can rest assured you’ll almost certainly be able to keep working with the business software you already know and love. We also found it especially useful that QuickBooks integrates with multiple POS solutions as well as other products in the Intuit family. That said, FreshBooks has one advantage over QuickBooks thanks to its standard time-tracking feature. QuickBooks does offer a separate product integration (see our QuickBooks Time review), but it will cost you extra every month. Keep in mind that the limited number of billable clients in FreshBooks’ two cheapest plans could be a disadvantage for some businesses.

Expense Tracking: Keeping Tabs on Business Costs

In some cases, we earn commissions when sales are made through our referrals. These financial relationships support our content but do not dictate our recommendations. Our editorial team independently evaluates products based on thousands of hours of research. All your bank and credit card transactions automatically sync to QuickBooks, making it easy to track your income and expenses.

It also offers fewer (and more expensive) discounts than FreshBooks does. For instance, with QuickBooks, you can choose to get 50% off for your first three months or you can waive the discount and try QuickBooks free for 30 days. This lets your accountant get the data they need while keeping control of your own books. Zoho Invoice, Wave, Harvest, and Invoice2go are good invoicing software, in addition to QuickBooks and FreshBooks.

Previously, she was an editor at Fundera, where she developed service-driven content on topics such as business lending, software and insurance. She has also held editing roles at LearnVest, a personal finance startup, and its parent company, Northwestern Mutual. Rather than manually create an invoice every single time, FreshBooks pulls the necessary data from your contacts and creates a template for quick and easy processing. While it is automated, the user never loses the ability to control the process.

FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks Online: Integration with Other Software

While both software solutions offer features like mileage tracking, inventory management and reporting, QuickBooks’ capabilities typically exceed those of FreshBooks. NetSuite’s accounting software is one aspect of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) program. Users can integrate accounting with payroll, human resources (HR), CRM services and e-commerce sales. NetSuite is a good option for those businesses looking to scale and grow, customizing services as needed.

All plans include stellar automated bookkeeping functionality, unlimited invoicing and useful reporting. However, we think QuickBooks’ business banking, available with every plan, really sets it apart. Meanwhile, the vendor’s higher plans allow you to add more users and expand functionality to make the platform even more comprehensive. FreshBooks has four affordable plans value-packed with features to help you send invoices, accept payments and keep on top of your finances. Freelancers, startups and other small businesses will love being able to create unlimited invoices, generate estimates and track time for a bargain.

QuickBooks also has invoicing capabilities, including recurring invoicing. The customizable invoice design selection available through QuickBooks is more robust and allows for more personalization. That being said, some users do report that the QuickBooks interface is less user-friendly and harder to navigate, especially in the beginning. It’s worth noting that FreshBooks puts a limit on how many clients you can bill with each of its plans. So, if you need to use your FreshBooks account to invoice more than five different clients, you’ll likely have to pay for a higher level of membership.

How QuickBooks Online

FreshBooks Payroll includes automatic tax filings, W-2s, 1099s, unlimited payroll runs, and direct deposits, all within your FreshBooks account for an all-in-one solution. Zoho Books is the accounting software provided by the office suite platform Zoho. It’s an easy-to-use platform that naturally integrates with other Zoho programs.

The layout and simple design ensure that you can find what you need quickly and efficiently. Easily run and export reports, including profit and loss, expenses, and balance sheets. Customize your reports to make them more specific to the needs of your business. Below, we break down the key differences in features, benefits, and pricing to help you choose the platform that best suits your business needs and budget. Robust invoicing features are crucial to help steady a small business’s cash flow. Whichever platform you choose, FreshBooks and QuickBooks both integrate with Zapier, so you can keep all of your business’s tools communicating seamlessly.

Entrepreneurs may find you can replace QuickBooks with FreshBooks if it can meet your accounting needs. For small business owners, freelancers and independent contractors who don’t use more advanced QuickBooks features, this can be a simpler alternative. Invoices and expenses show you at a glance a chart of invoices (paid and unpaid) measured against monthly expenses.

For users with more than 2,000 clients, they recommend adding a firm to your account or consolidating clients. ReportingWhen it comes to reporting, QuickBooks lets you drill deeper with transaction tracking tags that you can use to separate results by job type or event, for example. The Plus and Advanced plans go a step further with class and location tags that you can use to see how different areas of your business are doing. And unlike FreshBooks, it includes double-entry accounting reports (like a general ledger and chart of accounts) in all plans.