QuickBooks Desktop Feature Comparison Chart

I’ve been working with QuickBooks since 2005, but even so I sometimes get a bit confused as to what feature is found in the different flavors of the desktop product. It is a question that I’m asked often, and I’ve never found a complete, official list on any Intuit web site. So here goes, an attempt at defining which features are found in which QuickBooks product.

A few disclaimers and comments:

• This only addresses the current US Desktop products.
• I’m focusing on the current release, 2011 (news on 2012 coming out soon!).
• This is not a complete list of features, the intent here is to list the differences between products.
• I won’t claim that this is a complete or fully accurate list, so if you find any omissions or errors, please let me know.
• I’m not addressing the differences in QuickBooks Plus – this can be confusing, a “Plus” feature may be released mid year, so “Plus” users will see different features than regular users. Also, ProAdvisors will have the Plus features even though they aren’t subscribers in the normal sense.

QuickBooks US Desktop Comparison

An explanation of the columns:

• Pro: QuickBooks Pro.
• Premier: QuickBooks Premier – note that this comes in different “Editions” and some features are found only in some Editions.
• Enterprise: Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions – note that this also comes in different “Editions” and some features are found only in some Editions.
• Acct: These are features found in the “Accountant” versions of QuickBooks, both Intuit QuickBooks Accountant (which is compatible with Pro and Premier) and Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Accountant. I’m not pointing out the differences between Note that there may be differences between Premier and Enterprise, just the differences that are included in the Accountant versions.

This is not a list of ALL features found in ALL versions, just those that don’t exist in ONE or more of the versions.

Note that there isn’t a column for QuickBooks for Mac. Every feature that I list here is not found  in QuickBooks for Mac. If a feature is marked in all columns then all Windows products have the feature, and it isn’t in the Mac version.

If I mark something as limit the feature is only found in SOME editions, not all, such as being in the Premier Contractor edition but not in the Retail edition. We’ll go into that kind of issue more in a future article.

If I mark something as adv in the Enterprise column, that means it is available only if you purchase the Advanced Inventory add-on feature.

So, let me know if I’ve missed anything, or made an error. I’ll be listing the difference between different editions some time in the future. And, note that the 2012 release will change this table!

9/1/2011 changes – Mac has Purchase Orders, so I dropped it from the list. Thank you, J Ross Beasley

9/1/2011 changes – added a few lines based on the ProAdvisor lineup card. Thank you, Jo Ellen Peters

Tags: QuickBooks, QuickBooks Enterprise, QuickBooks Mac

Category: QuickBooks Tips/Tricks, Technical QuickBooks