QuickBooks vs Zoho Books Comparison 2023: Which Is Better?

Both QuickBooks and Zoho Books are powerful cloud accounting software options tailored to cater to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. But which one is the better choice for you?

In this comprehensive QuickBooks vs Zoho Books Comparison article, we'll put these two titans to the test, evaluating their features, pricing, integrations, and more, to help you make an informed decision on the best solution for your financial management needs.

So, buckle up and let's get started!

What is the difference between QuickBooks and Zoho Books?

The main difference between Zoho Books and QuickBooks is their target audience and focus on specific features. While both solutions cater to small and medium-sized businesses, Zoho Books is typically more popular among smaller businesses and startups, while QuickBooks is often preferred by businesses with more complex accounting needs.

Zoho Books is known for its user-friendly interface, free plan, and seamless integration with other Zoho products. It offers a range of features, including invoicing, expense tracking, and reporting. Additionally, Zoho Books is appreciated for its multi-currency support and strong customization capabilities.

On the other hand, QuickBooks has a broader range of features, catering to more advanced accounting requirements. Its robust payroll processing, extensive reporting options, and comprehensive tax support make it a popular choice for businesses with more complex financial management needs. QuickBooks also offers a wider range of third-party integrations, giving users the flexibility to connect with various apps and services.

We recommend reading our extensive Zoho Books review and QuickBooks review to learn about their features, pricing, and user experience. These reviews will provide you with a more in-depth understanding of each platform's strengths and weaknesses so that you make an informed decision about which one to choose.

QuickBooks vs Zoho Books comparison chart

We've prepared a simple QuickBooks vs Zoho Books comparison chart for you. This visual guide compares their features side by side to make it easier for you to identify the best accounting solution for your business needs.

QuickBooks vs Zoho Books pricing

Both Zoho Books and Quickbooks come with several subscription levels. Zoho Books has five paid plans that range between $15-$240 per month, and Quickbooks has four, ranging from $30 to $200. 

The good thing about Quickbooks is that it frequently offers a promotional 50% discount on all plans for the first three months. Depending on which plan you’re on, QuickBooks supports between 1 and 25 users, and Zoho supports between 1 and 15 users. 

Zoho also lets you expand your plan with different add-ons, such as additional users, advanced autoscans, and snail mail. QuickBooks charges additional fees for payroll and its live bookkeeping service.

Winner: 

Zoho Books plans might be more affordable for smaller businesses, like the Standard ($15/month) and the Professional ($40/month). Businesses with tighter budgets might find QuickBooks too expensive, especially if you start adding Payroll and live bookkeeping services. 
 

Zoho Books vs QuickBooks free versions

Unfortunately, QuickBooks doesn’t offer a free plan, only a 30-day trial. Keep in mind that if you use the free trial you won’t be eligible for the three-month discount on the pricing plans. 

Zoho Books has a generous free plan that’s great for businesses with up to $50,000 of revenue per year. It gives you access to all the basic capabilities of the software, including estimates, invoices, online payments, payment reminders, multi-lingual invoicing, expenses, mileage tracking, bank reconciliation, 1099 contractors, and more.

Winner: 

Zoho is the clear winner in this category. 
 

Customer support

QuickBooks doesn’t have email support, but you can use the 24/7 online chatbot for quick help. The chatbot will direct you to a relevant article or connect you to a human support team member. Phone support is only available as a callback option. 

To compare, Zoho Books has chat, phone, and email support. Users of the free plan have only access to email support. 

Winner: 

Zoho has the edge in this category, as it offers shorter wait times, swift responses to inquiries, and more knowledgeable agents.
 

Knowledgebase & learning

Zoho Books offers an array of learning resources on their website, such as blogs, product videos, FAQs, webinars, and help articles. Additionally, there’s an active forum where you can ask questions and assist fellow users. If you need help migrating to Zoho Books, you’ll find a detailed migration guide that provides step-by-step instructions for a seamless transition. 

Similarly, QuickBooks boasts an extensive knowledge base with help articles, video tutorials, blogs, setup guides, troubleshooting advice, and a community forum.

Winner: 

This round is a tie as both tools come with solid learning resources. 
 

QuickBooks or Zoho Books for ease of use?

Zoho Books is often considered more user-friendly, with a simpler interface and navigation, which makes it popular among smaller businesses and startups. QuickBooks Online, although it offers a wider range of features, may require a steeper learning curve due to its more complex accounting functionalities.

Winner: 

Both tools are generally easy to use, but Zoho Books is slightly easier to set up. 

Zoho Books vs QuickBooks features & functionality

Now that we covered the basics, let's compare Zoho Books vs QuickBooks in terms of key features and functionality to see which one stands out in each category.

QuickBooks online vs Zoho Books online

Both Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online are SaaS platforms that allow you to access and use them on any browser without the need for installation. This cloud-based approach provides flexibility and convenience, as you can manage your accounting tasks from any device with internet access. 

Additionally, both platforms offer mobile apps that let you manage your finances on the go. With the mobile apps, you can create and send invoices, track expenses, and get real-time insights into your financial data, all from the palm of your hand.

Winner: 

If we compare the online versions of Zoho Books vs QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books comes out as a winner as it has slightly better mobile app performance. While both platforms have apps for Android and Apple devices, Zoho Books also supports Windows tablets and devices, as well as the Kindle Fire.
 

Zoho vs QuickBooks desktop versions

QuickBooks has a desktop version of its software that you can download on your device. Plans start at $799 per year and you’ll get a comprehensive set of features, including advanced inventory management, job costing, and industry-specific editions. This is a good option for users who prefer local data storage over cloud-based solutions. 

Zoho Books has a desktop app for Windows, but not for Mac devices. The Windows app lets you send estimates and invoices, record expenses and bills, manage projects, and streamline your accounting.

Winner: 

QuickBooks has a slight edge here as it offers a desktop app for both Windows and Mac devices. 
 

Invoicing 

Zoho Books makes it simple to create and send customized invoices with your logo, fonts, and digital signatures. You can choose from 16 templates and charge customers in their currency. QuickBooks also offers easy invoice creation and customization, along with options to add clients, products, or services. 

Both platforms allow for messages, statements, and attachments on invoices, as well as automating recurring invoices and sending payment reminders. Customers can view and manage all their transactions from the client portal. 

Winner: 

We’ll yield this round to Zoho as it comes with 16 invoice templates, compared to QuickBooks that has only six. 
 

Integrations

Zoho Books integrates with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, other Zoho apps (e.g., Zoho Projects, Zoho CRM), and third-party apps like Slack, Zapier, Google Workspace, and Twilio. QuickBooks connects to over 650 popular business apps, including Stripe, Square, PayPal, Amazon Business Purchases, Method: CRM, and Gusto.

Winner: 

QuickBooks Online takes this round as it connects to 650+ apps, while Zoho connects to 30+. If you need more options for integrating with marketing tools, ecommerce platforms, and CRMs, go with QuickBooks. 

A note on QuickBooks Zoho Books integration

You can easily create a Zoho QuickBooks online integration via Zoho Flow, which is a platform made by Zoho that lets you connect various third-party apps and automate your workflows. You can create flows that trigger actions in one app based on events in another. 

Zapier is another popular integration platform that supports thousands of apps, including Zoho Books and QuickBooks. With Zapier, you can create Zaps (automated workflows) that connect your apps and automate tasks. 
 

Zoho Books or QuickBooks for online payments 

Zoho Books integrates with popular payment gateways like Paypal, Paypal Payments Pro, Paypal Payflow Pro, Stripe, Square, Authorize.Net, 2Checkout, Braintree, Forte, and Worldpay, allowing your customers to make payments directly from invoices. 

QuickBooks supports online payments through debit/credit cards, eCheck, Apple Pay, Venmo, and ACH. Both platforms offer features like automating recurring invoices, tracking invoice status, and sending payment reminders.

Winner: 

Zoho Books leads in this category as it has more payment gateway options. 
 

Expense tracking

Zoho Books allows tracking and categorizing expenses, converting them to invoices, and billing them to clients. You can attach receipts, automate recurring expenses, and track mileage using your smartphone. 

QuickBooks reviews and confirms expenses, suggests categories, and splits expenses. You can assign expenses to projects or customers, make them billable, and add photos of receipts using your phone.

Winner:  

This round is a tie as both Zoho and QuickBooks offer similar expense tracking features. 
 

Project management 

Zoho Books has simple project management tools that include time tracking functionality. Projects can have a name, description, customer, billing method, budget, and project tasks. You can also mark tasks as billable and convert them into invoices. You can log time for tasks in two ways: manually or by using a timer. 

The projects feature of QuickBooks Online lets you track project profitability by adding project income, expenses, and labor costs. You can access project-specific reports from a single dashboard and add old transactions to new or ongoing projects when necessary.

Winner: 

You can use both Zoho or QuickBooks to manage your projects. Zoho Books has a slight lead as it lets you create tasks, which is a feature QuickBooks Online doesn’t currently provide.
 

Bank reconciliation

Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online both come with a bank reconciliation feature. This process allows you to ensure that the transactions in your bank account match the transactions you've recorded in your online accounting software. 

The account reconciliation process is straightforward and user-friendly on both platforms. You can easily select the accounts you wish to reconcile and choose the reporting period. This period can be set to match a particular reporting period, such as a month or a quarter, or you can reconcile your accounts at the end of each month.

Winner: 

This round is a tie. 
 

Payroll 

Both QuickBooks and Zoho let you add payroll as an add-on service. QuickBooks has QuickBooks Payroll that offers three monthly plans, ranging from $45 to $125 per month. Zoho has Zoho Payroll that you can add to your plan for $19 per month. QuickBooks Payroll is available in all 50 states, while Zoho Payroll is available in 12. 

Winner:  

QuickBooks is the better option if you’re based in the US and need a Payroll service as it’s available in all 50 states. 
 

Taxes

Zoho Books has a comprehensive tax management system that lets you enable and manage sales tax, add, edit or delete taxes, create new tax groups, and add new tax exemptions or authorities. 

You can set up tax rates and create tax codes for products and services, and assign taxes to customers and suppliers. You can create customized tax reports that can be exported or printed for tax compliance purposes.

QuickBooks lets you track sales tax collected from customers and create sales tax reports. The Tax Preparation feature helps you prepare your taxes, while the Tax Reports feature provides you with various reports to help you understand your tax situation. 

You can also generate tax forms, such as W-2s and 1099s, directly within QuickBooks to simplify tax filing.

Winner: 

QuickBooks seems to have better tax preparation features than Zoho Books. It offers various tools and resources for preparing and filing taxes, including automatic tax calculation, tax form preparation, and e-filing.
 

Inventory management 

Zoho Books offers powerful inventory management capabilities to help you monitor inventory levels and identify fast-selling items. 

QuickBooks has a similar feature for inventory tracking, tracking the cost of goods, and receiving notifications for low inventory levels. QuickBooks also offers additional features such as creating purchase orders, managing vendors, and syncing inventory with third-party platforms like Amazon and Shopify.

Winner: 

QuickBooks has slightly better inventory management features such as low inventory alerts, reorder points, and stock tracking by location
.

Multi-currency support

Zoho Books allows you to create sales and purchase transactions in different currencies. You can choose from a list of default currencies in your organization or add a currency from the list of various currencies available worldwide. 

QuickBooks also has a multi-currency feature that lets you record transactions in foreign currencies. It allows you to properly track transactions, and exchange rate gains and losses, for customers, suppliers, or bank accounts that use a different currency than your local currency.

Winner: 

This round is a tie. 
 

Reporting 

Zoho Books lets you generate a wide range of reports, including Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement, as well as Sales by customer, item, and salesperson. You can also create customized reports and schedule reports to be automatically emails in your preferred format. 

QuickBooks also has customizable pre-created reports such as Profit and Loss, Sales, and Expenses, depending on the plan. You can view Sales and Expense reports by day, week, month, or year. 

Winner: 

We’ll give this round to QuickBooks as it comes with 80+ reports, compared to Zoho’s 50+ reports. 

Is QuickBooks better than Zoho Books? Our conclusion

Both QuickBooks and Zoho Books are robust accounting platforms, but your choice ultimately depends on your specific business requirements and priorities. Carefully assess your needs and compare the features of each platform to make an informed decision. Remember that the right accounting software can greatly impact your business's financial management and overall success.

Choose QuickBooks if:

• You're a small to medium-sized business in need of a user-friendly accounting solution with a strong reputation.

• You require seamless integration with other Intuit products like TurboTax and Payroll.

• You need a solution with strong accounting and third-party integration features.

Choose Zoho Books if:

• You're a freelancer or a small business that needs a cost-effective accounting platform.

• You are already using, or plan to use, other Zoho Suite products for a unified software ecosystem.

• You need easy-to-use software with strong mobile apps and excellent customer support.

As you weigh your options between QuickBooks and Zoho Books, we encourage you to explore our comprehensive list of the best accounting desktop software for 2023. This list lets you see how QuickBooks and Zoho Books compare against other key players in the industry like Xero and Freshbooks. By reviewing these alternatives, you can ensure that you make the best possible choice for your business's accounting needs.

FAQs

Does Zoho integrate with QuickBooks?

Yes, Zoho integrates with QuickBooks Online through Zoho Flow and Zapier. You can create flows that trigger actions in QuickBooks Online based on events in Zoho. Similarly, Zapier supports both Zoho Books and QuickBooks and allows you to create Zaps that connect the two apps and automate tasks.