Quicken & QuickBooks Differences
Quicken and QuickBooks are accounting software programs from Intuit. Although both applications are used for accounting, QuickBooks is not an expanded or improved version of Quicken. Quicken is a personal finance application, while QuickBooks is a small-business double-entry accounting program. PC Magazine considers QuickBooks to be "the best small business accounting product available today." For a personal financial application, many consider Quicken as the "only" choice since Microsoft Money was discontinued.
Other People Are Reading
-
Target Audience
-
Quicken is used by many home users to manage their finances. Intuit developed two products rather than adding features to its original Quicken application. Quicken is for the individual user who wants to track personal finances. This is the product to use to track your income, expenses and investments. According to Intuit, Quicken 2011 interfaces with more than 12,000 banks, financial institutions and brokerages, including PayPal. If you own a small business and have employees and inventory or collect sales tax, you'll need QuickBooks--Quicken does not support these features.
Scalability
-
Quicken can be used by individual users only. QuickBooks, on the other hand, can be used by multiple users. The online version supports up to 25 users and an accountant. Most of the desktop versions support up to five users. QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions supports up to 30 users.
-
Security
-
Keep your financial data secure by using a password. QuickBooks contains a security feature that allows you to share some of your business' financial data with your bookkeeper while keeping certain information private and secure. You can set up multiple permission levels in QuickBooks so that you can provide access to only the data your user needs. QuickBooks offers some standard levels from which to choose or you can customize permissions. For example, you can set up accounts that only allow access to reports or time entry. Quicken, on the other hand, has only two built-in levels. You can set a password for the entire data file and another password for transactions that occurred before a specific date.
Savings and Investing
-
Use Quicken to create and track your savings plans. Both QuickBooks and Quicken will help you create a budget and track your progress against it. However, only Quicken will help you develop a custom debt-reduction plan. It will even show you what you need to pay each month to eliminate your debt. Quicken also will show you what you need to save to reach your retirement goals. You can also create savings plans for college, a house or other large purchase. QuickBooks will only keep track of the amounts credited or debited from your savings accounts.
-
References
- PC Magazine; QuickBooks Premier Edition 2011; Kathy Yakal; Oct. 1, 2010
- Quicken; Quicken Deluxe 2011; 2011
- Intuit; Compare QuickBooks Products; 2011
- Stephen L Nelson; Quicken vs. QuickBooks; 2010
- Intuit; Multiple Permission Levels---How It Works; 2011
- Quicken; How To Add, Change or Remove a Quicken Data File Password; 2011
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images Martin Poole/Stockbyte/Getty Images Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images
