QuickBooks Self-Employed Review 2021

QuickBooks Self-Employed is Intuit’s cloud-based accounting software for solopreneurs, freelancers, and sole proprietors. Its user-friendly interface and mobile accounting app are great for freelancers with no bookkeeping experience. Plus, its mileage and tax tracking help maximize tax deductions. But since the software lacks some freelance-friendly features (like invoice customization and project tracking), it’s hard to recommend to most freelancers, contractors, and sole proprietors.

QuickBooks Self-Employed starts at $15 a month ($180 a year). As with most QuickBooks plans, you can try Self-Employed free for 30 days or get your first three months at a reduced price—usually 50% off, but up to 70% during seasonal sales. Also as with most QuickBooks plans, QuickBooks Self-Employed is pricier than most of the competition, including Xero ($11 per month).

If you want a smidge more tax help, you can sign up for either the Self-Employed Tax Bundle plan ($25 per month) or the Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle plan ($35 per month). Intuit owns both QuickBooks and TurboTax, so both plans add TurboTax access to your existing Self-Employed features. The Live plan also gives you live tax support from QuickBooks accountants.

Okay, so what do those $15 to $35 a month get you? Honestly—and we hate to say this—not much. Along with mileage tracking and estimated quarterly taxes, QuickBooks Self-Employed includes invoicing, online payment acceptance, and receipt scanning. And that’s . . . about it. Compare that to a provider like Xero, which offers automated recurring invoicing, online payment acceptance, receipt scanning, inventory management, thorough reporting, purchase order generation, and much more for just $11, and you can see why we’re less than impressed.

The bundled plans get you a slight TurboTax discount, and you can use them to pay quarterly estimated taxes directly from your QuickBooks account. This saves you a little time and hassle at the end of the year, but neither of the TurboTax bundles include additional bookkeeping features. Unless you’re planning on using TurboTax’s tax software, we recommend sticking with the base $15-a-month plan.

We may have mentioned this a time or two, but QuickBooks Self-Employed’s tax features are where the software really soars. For instance, most other self-employment or small-business accounting software includes mileage tracking only with their pricier plans. Others, like FreshBooks and Xero, require you to download a separate tracking-specific app. QuickBooks doesn’t: tracking, bookkeeping, and invoicing are all available on the same app. And beyond automatically tracking your mileage, the app also generates IRS-friendly reports that simplify the reimbursement process.

QuickBooks Self-Employed also wins big for user friendliness. QuickBooks’ dashboard is easy for non-accountants to parse. The software’s learning curve is low enough that you should quickly get the hang of importing bank transactions and sending invoices. (QuickBooks’ video tutorials are a great resource for getting started.)

That user friendliness extends to the QuickBooks Self-Employed mobile accounting app. Like the QuickBooks Online app, the Self-Employed app does everything the cloud-based software does—and more, since mileage tracking requires the app.

Unfortunately, iOS users have a better experience with the app than Android users, who report frequent crashes and give the app an average of 3.7 stars out of 5.¹ Apple users, meanwhile, rate the app 4.7 out of 5 and rave about its clean interface and straightforward features.²

We have one main problem with QuickBooks Self-Employed, and it’s a big one: QuickBooks Self-Employed lacks the features to justify its above-average starting cost.

Meanwhile, Xero’s $11 plan for freelancers and sole proprietors includes inventory tracking, detailed reporting, customizable invoicing, sales tax tracking, customer database creation, and more. Zoho Books’ $15-a-month plan includes budgeting, customized invoicing, time tracking, project tracking, a client portal for quick quotes and invoicing, and more. In comparison, you can see why we’re underwhelmed with what QuickBooks offers.

Unfortunately, QuickBooks’ invoicing capabilities are particularly lacking—which is a huge issue for a freelance-focused product. You can send invoices, but you can’t customize them, set recurring invoices, or schedule automatic late payment reminders. You can’t log the hours spent on a project and transfer them over to the invoice for quick pricing. You can’t even send quotes or estimates or schedule automatic late fees. (FreshBooks costs the same starting price as QuickBooks Self-Employed but does all of the above invoicing tasks and more.)

All you can do with QuickBooks Self-Employed is send a bland invoice with online payment options, and you’ll pay $15 a month for the pleasure. If sending basic invoices is all you need, we can recommend plenty of cheaper options.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is currently beta testing a time-tracking feature, so hopefully the app gains a few more features as time goes on. As it currently stands, though, QuickBooks Self-Employed has way too few perks for the price.

No. QuickBooks Self-Employed starts at $15 per month. When you first sign up, you can choose between QuickBooks’ 30-day free trial or a three-month discount, usually between 50% and 70%.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is QuickBooks’ freelance-specific bookkeeping software. It starts at $15 a month and offers features like mileage tracking, basic invoicing, and receipt scanning. In contrast, QuickBooks Online was built for freelancers, sole proprietors, and small-business owners with employees. It has more expansive accounting features than QuickBooks Self-Employed, including report generation and business income tracking, and starts at $25 a month.

In general, we recommend QuickBooks Online over QuickBooks Self-Employed, even for freelancers. QuickBooks Online costs more, but it also offers more thorough invoicing and additional insight into your cash flow. It also connects to Shopify and automatically adds sales tax to your invoices, two crucial features for sole proprietors who sell products online.

Yes. QuickBooks Self-Employed was built specifically for freelancers, contract workers, and sole proprietors. However, if you want more accounting features, including sales tax tracking and cash flow management, QuickBooks Online might be a better fit.

If you have one or more employees, you’ll want QuickBooks Online Essential, Plus, or Advanced. Each of these plans allows you to add users so you can share your financial data with an accountant or other team members.

QuickBooks Desktop is QuickBooks’ desktop-based (rather than cloud-based) accounting software. Generally speaking, it has the same features as the more advanced QuickBooks Online plans. Notably, QuickBooks Desktop doesn’t have any freelance-specific plans. We don’t recommend freelancers, sole proprietors, or independent contractors sign up for QuickBooks Desktop.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is . . . fine. Its sleek interface, low learning curve, and helpful tax deductions appeal to freelancers who need just the basics. But QuickBooks Self-Employed lacks FreshBooks’ customized invoicing and Zoho Books’ client collaboration features—while costing as much or more than most alternatives. As a result, we don’t recommend QuickBooks Self-Employed to anyone who wants more than a bare-bones accounting and tax-tracking app.

Have you outgrown self-employment bookkeeping software? Check out our list of the best accounting software for small businesses.

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