QuickBooks Pro vs QuickBooks Premier – A Complete Guide

If you are planning to bring some changes in your accounting firm or aiming to expand your business, then managing your finances, tracking daily transactions, and planning your reports would be of utmost importance. However, to accomplish these tasks, adopting the right business tools or software is essential.

Software such as QuickBooks is one of the ideal tools for your accounting needs. QuickBooks is an accounting software developed by Intuit, geared towards small and medium-sized businesses that offer on-premises accounting applications and cloud-based versions.

However, because of the different versions of QuickBooks, accounting professionals and businesses are often confused as to what to choose.

So, let’s compare two of the most commonly-used QuickBooks versions, Pro and Premier to have the dilemma solved.

QuickBooks Pro

QuickBooks Pro is one of Intuit’s major accounting products. It caters up to 3 users and businesses with minimal inventory.

Since its inception, the product has continued to keep up with the evolving technology and streamline the essential accounting functions for small business owners.

Features:

• Track sales and create invoices: It is suitable for companies related to the service industry because they allow them to track sales and create invoices. Also, the invoices can be customized and printed or emailed to customers.
• Bill Tracker: On the Bill Tracker dashboard, you can see the unpaid bills, purchase orders, and many more.
• Customer Snapshot: On the Customer Snapshot feature, you can get customer insights at a glance.
• Quotes: QuickBooks Pro enables you to send professional quotes and invoices right from your email account.
• Income Tracker: On the Income Tracker feature, you can follow up with your customers for the unpaid invoices.
• Data Import: You can easily import previous data from earlier versions of QuickBooks, Excel, or Quicken.
• Track the Expenses: This version allows accounting professionals to track their expenses and measure sales in different currencies.

Pricing:

This version of the QuickBooks has two pricing variants available:

1. QuickBooks Pro – The current QuickBooks Pro 2020 one-time purchase price is $299.95 per user.
2. QuickBooks Pro Plus– Priced at $299.95 per user, it comes with Annual Subscription, extra upgrades, and data backing features.

Recommended read : QuickBooks Desktop Pro: Review Features and Pricing in 2023

QuickBooks Premier

QuickBooks Premier offers more extensive features than Pro and caters up to 5 users. There are different variants of QuickBooks Premier, which are tailor-made to serve businesses within specific industries.

Features:

• Select an Industry-specific Edition: There are five industry-specific editions: nonprofit, manufacturing and wholesale, professional services, construction, and retail businesses.
• Create Purchase Orders: The information collected related to orders can be stored and sent to your supplier.
• Record Sales Order: With QB Premier, companies can track inventory, record sales orders, and create invoices.
• Balance Sheet Tracking: Companies can follow their balance sheets according to the location, department, and Profit Center.
• Change Unit of Measure: You can get multiple unit measurement options to buy and sell inventory.
• Inventory Assembly: The Inventory Assembly feature allows you to combine inventory pieces and labor to produce a new inventory item. With this, you can also track each item of inventory and non-inventory material used to create the products you are selling.
• Job Costing Center: This feature allows you to review time spent, income, and expenses for each job.

Here’s a glance at the QuickBooks Premier industry version features:

1. Nonprofit: It creates donor reporting and manages nonprofit workflows.
2. Manufacturing & Wholesale: Tracks profitability by product and manages sales order.
3. Professional Services: It offers expanded billing rate options, tracking of unbilled time and expenses, analysis of profit by client.
4. General Contractor: It offers Job estimates, Job costing, and Job profitability analysis.
5. General Business: It includes an advanced inventory management feature.

Pricing:

Like QuickBooks Pro, this Premier version also comes with two pricing options:

• QuickBooks Premier – The current QuickBooks Premier 2020 one-time purchase price is $499.95 per user.
• QuickBooks Premier Plus – Annual Subscription price is $499.95 per user.

QuickBooks Pro vs. Premier – A general comparison

• If we draw a general comparison, QuickBooks Premier satisfies the robust accounting needs, whereas QuickBooks Pro leaves you with the simple accounting features.
• If you have a business where you need on and off tracking your product availability, back orders, and sales orders for customers, Premier offers more here.
• For mid-sized businesses, the Premier option fits the bills because of the number of users it offers.
• QuickBooks Pro is a better choice if you are a service-based industry with limited access to resources and do not have significant expenses. You need not incur extra costs on purchase orders.
• QuickBooks Premier’s industry-specific features are more useful for product-based companies such as contractors and manufacturers. If you are a small-business owner, QuickBooks Pro should be the preferred choice for you.

Final Thoughts

QuickBooks Pro and Premier have diverse features to fulfill your accounting needs. You can save on a few bucks if you go with a Pro option. On the other hand, invest in the Premier upgraded features if you are looking in the growth perspective.

If you need help deciding which QuickBooks option is right for you or want to host your QuickBooks desktop on cloud, reach out to our Solutions Consultant at 855-270-6252.