Why should I switch from Excel to Quickbooks?

It’s a common story I hear from clients:

I keep track of my income and expenses in Excel.

I have all my expenses in Excel and I use Stripe to record my income.

While Excel is a powerful tool (I use it everyday), it isn’t ideal for bookkeeping.

Small business owners should switch from Microsoft Excel to QuickBooks Online for a number of reasons:

1. QuickBooks saves time and money:

Excel requires you to manually record each of your expenses into a spreadsheet. This process is time-consuming, not to mention the time spent setting up your spreadsheet and categorizing anything you have questions on. (You should always categorize your expenses, not just record them).

In addition, not pulling your information into a profit and loss record and balance sheet is going to prompt your tax accountant to ask for more data. This requires them to spend additional time on your taxes and increases your tax prep fees. While QuickBooks costs a monthly fee, the decrease in time spent on your books more than makes up for the nominal expense.

2. Increased accuracy and reporting

QuickBooks is designed as an accounting system and records transactions through double-entry accounting. This means the software records the expense and the decrease in your bank account.

QuickBooks also provides a manner for you to generate a variety of reports. These reports aid you in making business decisions instead of depending only on your bank balance for insight.

With QuickBooks, you can look at your business on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. We recommend clients pull these reports each month to determine and understand any business cycles they might have.

3. Sharing data with your tax professional

Through a simple email invite, you can grant your tax professional access to your QuickBooks. This helps you work with your professional and saves you time pulling specific data they request. With interactive data at their fingertips, a tax professional should be able to find tax savings, provide advice, and discuss planning opportunities with you.

TL;DR: We recommend QuickBooks Online for almost every small business owner once they begin to generate income.