If you’re looking for company accounting software, QuickBooks, Quicken, and Mint are three names that probably come to mind as you begin your search. They are three of the most widely used budgeting programs on the market. Despite the fact that they are identical, each app has a unique focus. The main difference between the three is probably because Mint is totally free, whereas QuickBooks and Quicken are paid services. So, which software—Quicken, QuickBooks, or Mint—is superior? Is QuickBooks a viable substitute for Quicken? Can Quicken be replaced by Mint? We’ll compare QuickBooks, Quicken, and Mint for small businesses in this article, outlining everything you need to know about each program so you can make an informed choice for your company.
Quicken Vs Quickbooks Vs Mint
What is Quickbooks?
Accounting, inventory, payroll, tax preparation, invoicing, bank account tracking and reconciliation, cost management, budgeting, payment processing, and management of accounts receivable and payable are all included in the full-featured QuickBooks business and financial management suite.
This feature set does not encompass everything QuickBooks is capable of. It can also be plugged into a variety of other software applications to add functionalities. In a nutshell, QuickBooks is the Swiss Army Knife of business financial software; it is capable of almost everything your company would require. However, there are several capabilities that many businesses won’t ever need, and QuickBooks Professional’s expensive cost can be a good incentive to look elsewhere.
QuickBooks will not let you down if you manage a small to medium-sized business and need to make sure you can monitor all financial data and produce reports describing any part of your firm. Just be aware that there is a learning curve when you first start off and that not all features are obvious when you first start the application.
Additionally, QuickBooks provides a desktop version for a set price as well as an online version that can be accessed through a web browser on a tablet, smartphone, or other device for a monthly or yearly subscription. Regardless of the version you select, some capabilities, such payroll management and payment processing, have an additional cost.
What Is Quicken?
Quicken provides for people and families what QuickBooks provides for small businesses. Your personal finances are tracked by Quicken, including account balances, transactions, investments, personal budgeting, loans, and other financial activities. Along with your personal information, the Home & Business version allows you to track rental properties and small businesses.
With the help of these capabilities, you can use your computer as your personal financial control panel, downloading the most recent data from all of your credit, investment, and bank accounts directly into Quicken. To better understand the tax ramifications of buying, and selling, and how you are expanding your portfolio, you can track investments using the cost basis.
Even though the business features are somewhat less comprehensive than those in QuickBooks, they are still more than adequate for a family with a few rental properties, a person with a side hustle, or a solo proprietorship. A desktop product is Quicken. Look at Mint.com for an online version.
What Is Mint?
Mint compiles all of the information about your personal finances into a simple, cloud-based solution. With Mint, you can easily and swiftly keep track of your finances whether you’re at home or on the move. It is also entirely free.
But don’t be deceived by the “free” price tag. You won’t have to deal with a feature-poor, difficult-to-use program. In fact, the complete opposite. Because of how simple it is to use and how many practical functions it contains, such as expense tracking, budgeting, and investment tracking, Mint has garnered a lot of positive feedback from users. However, there are a few things that are conspicuously absent, such bill pay. On your smartphone or other devices, Mint also features robust mobile apps that are simple to use.
Users who want a quick and simple approach to track and manage personal finances can utilize Mint. Both the mobile apps and cloud-based software from Mint are simple to set up, use, and understand even for users with no prior software experience.
Ease Of Use
QuickBooks
Compared to Quicken, QuickBooks Online is significantly simpler to use. The workflow-based grouping of tasks makes it much simpler to discover the appropriate activity. You can easily browse the software using the left navigation bar on the QuickBooks Online interface. For the time period you select, the dashboard displays a summary of the total paid and unpaid customer bills, total expenses, profit and loss (P&L), and sales.
Quicken
Although it isn’t quite as simple to use as Mint, Quicken is still quite simple to use. The program could be more streamlined, despite the fact that it is generally well-organized. There are many assistance alternatives available to help you make the most of the software, even though some of the functions could be a little difficult to set up and learn.
Mint
One of Mint’s main advantages, other its free pricing model, is how simple it is to use. You won’t have any trouble setting up and using Mint, even if you’ve never used accounting or finance software before. It offers a contemporary, intuitive user interface. The software also includes a ton of automations that can help you save time.
Customer Service
QuickBooks
Users of QuickBooks should start by visiting the online help section of the software, which provides articles and video tutorials organized into sections like Reports, Payroll and Workers, and Advanced Accounting, among others. A second, independent resource center for QuickBooks is available, together with training programs, a blog, and a discussion board. To use live chat (6am to 6pm PT, Monday through Friday), users of QuickBooks must first log in.
Quicken
Quicken provides live chat through the My Pure Cloud app. There is no phone help available.
They offer a FAQ page, a page with frequently asked questions, a page with common help topics (under the Learn & Support menu), and the Quicken Community, where users may discuss problems with the program. These sections can teach you how to use the Quicken platform to its fullest potential.
They also provide a website with money management advice, which covers a variety of personal finance-related issues, such as how to save money, how to avoid living paycheck to paycheck, how to teach your kids to be frugal with their money, and much more.
Mint
Customers of Mint have access to live chat or email support seven days a week from 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM Pacific time. There is also a small selection of subjects in Mint Help that are mainly concerned with how the platform works.
Although Mint doesn’t have as many educational tools as Quicken, it is still a totally free app to use.
- QuickBooks Online includes a broad range of features and the sophisticated accounting abilities that small business owners want. An astonishing amount of integrations are provided by the software. A few exclusive features found only in QuickBooks Online include the built-in lending tool QuickBooks Capital and the QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping service.
- Quicken is a seasoned professional in the field of financial management and budgeting, and in recent years, it appears to have improved its ability to keep up with its more recent rivals. It manages both budgets and investments, which is essentially all you would need a financial management program to perform. Due to its robustness, it can have a high learning curve, so if you don’t want to initially invest a lot of time in managing your funds, you might choose a simpler, more streamlined solution.
- Mint’s interface is clean, contemporary, and appealing. The software also includes a ton of automations, such as automatic transaction importing, automatic categorization, and even an automation for the Kelly Bluebook. Mint will do the job and do it effectively if you need a quick way to keep track of your finances, know when bills are due, and don’t require (or have time for) a lot of specifics. The significant absence of customer service is the single problem that won’t be resolved. However, the personal accounting software is a challenger that is more than worth investigating due to the free cost, portability, and overall simplicity of use.
QuickBooks focuses on the accounting processes of small businesses whereas Quicken focuses on the finances of individuals and families. QuickBooks also offers an online version of their software that many businesses can use, while Quicken focuses on providing local software that is accessed on individual computers.
- QuickBooks is a full-featured business and management suite with all the tools that a small business would need, but it’s also costlier.
- Quicken helps families and individuals track account balances, investments, budgeting, and other expenses. While it can be used for small business, it is more limited; however, it costs less than QuickBooks.
For people looking for a detailed way to actively manage every aspect of their finances, Quicken is a great choice. It is ideal for users who enjoy the complexity of locally-installed software. If you want to create multiple budgets, track savings goals, and run reports, Quicken has far more to offer than Mint.
For people who want a simpler way to keep their spending in check and manage the basics of their finances, Mint is the winner. It is ideal for users who like cloud-based software and strong mobile apps that can keep up with a mobile lifestyle.
Tips:Make a decision that you can stick with because switching is difficult or even impossible.Converting data from Quickbooks to Quicken or Mint is not possible. Converting from Quicken orMintto Quickbooks is complex and difficult.
Quicken Software
Quicken shines in terms of usability. You may easily create reports on your company’s finances, expenses, and net worth. Additionally, it enables you to divide receipts into different spending categories, making it simple to separate expenses if you made purchases for both personal and professional use during the same trip. These tools can assist in maintaining your financial flow so you can track where your money is going.
Although Quicken provides consumers four different membership options, business owners are probably most interested in the Home & Business bundle. The majority of the competition just addresses personal money.
A subscription to Quicken’s personal finance app, Simplifi, is one of the company’s additional types of plans. This app, which was first released in 2020, aims to give users insights about their spending patterns. But it’s not inexpensive. The cost of a yearly subscription is $47.88, but you may also choose to pay $5.99 each month. Overall, because it’s designed for individuals tracking their expenditure, it’s not a particularly beneficial asset for a business owner.
A backup disc can be added to any bundle for $4.99. Since you can get Quicken from the internet, purchasing this CD copy of the program is not at all essential.
Even if you simply use Quicken on a desktop computer and don’t use the mobile apps or the companion website, your machine still has a chance of being hacked and your financial information stolen. However, Quicken has implemented support for multi-factor authentication during login to boost protection against identity theft. Security is particularly important when accessing your information online. It’s still crucial to take independent precautions to safeguard yourself, such as creating a strong password and storing it in a password manager, and avoiding clicking dubious email links.
If you’re acquainted with Quicken, you’ll notice that it still functions and looks similar to how it did recently despite better performance and regular updates with new features. The user experience provided by Quicken’s most recent capabilities, particularly the mobile app companion, is cutting edge, making prior features seem antiquated in comparison.
The balances of your accounts, which are broken down into Spending and Saving, Investing and Retirement, Property and Assets, and Loans and Debt, are displayed in a vertical pane on the left. Any of these can be clicked to see a more in-depth view, typically a register or graphs. At the bottom of the window is a link to your credit score and your net worth. You must register for Quicken’s free service in order to obtain your credit score. Sadly, Quicken’s free credit score is not updated daily like Credit Karma, but rather every three months.
How Can Quicken Aid Your Future Planning?
For many years, Quicken has offered features like long-term planning tools and property/debt tracking that some users would never utilize. However, they are present and remain out of your way when not required.
If you’re unfamiliar with Quicken, you should browse around the program tabs sometimes (such as Planning), as you could discover something interesting. Nevertheless, the sheer number of tools is sometimes bewildering. However, no other company comes close to offering as many coaching and tracking capabilities in a software or web-based service as Quicken does.
Consider the Planning section, which offers a number of tool sets. You can construct various budgets with Quicken Deluxe based on the categories you select or those that Quicken suggests for you based on your spending and income trends. You can modify your budget as necessary by viewing your progress in an understandable graphical style. Quicken allows you to manage your budget down to the last penny. The program is extremely flexible and complex.
Quicken vs Mint
Two of the most widely used software programs for managing personal finances are Quicken and Mint. How can you know which is the best for you?
While Quicken is best for more in-depth financial management, analysis, and bookkeeping, Mint is best for straightforward day-to-day money management.
We conducted a comparative test in order to determine which is superior (Quicken or Mint) in more depth. See the results below to identify the app that will assist you in managing your finances.
The way users access Quicken and Mint is the most visible distinction between the two apps. Although you may access your Mint account from a desktop computer, many people choose to monitor their finances using the Mint Apple or Android applications. You can simply monitor your spending, analyze your credit card balances, and assess how you’re doing with your budget from anywhere, whether you’re checking in from your phone, iPad, or Kindle.
With Quicken, things are a little different. The Quicken software is intended to be installed on your Windows PC or Mac, while there is a companion app that enables you monitor your accounts from your phone. Your checking, savings, and credit card accounts can be linked through the app, but if you’re using the desktop version of the program, you’ll need to manually sync in order to load the most recent transaction data. In essence, it functions nearly as well, but it requires more manual labor from you.
Based on how easy it is to use, Mint gets a thumbs up for accessibility. You don’t need to go through the extra process of syncing your linked accounts at the end of the day because you can access all of them from anywhere there is an Internet connection.
Today’s news is dominated by stories about security breaches, so users must be more vigilant than ever about safeguarding their data. Some people may find it strange that Mint keeps data in the cloud, but the app employs the same 128-bit encryption and security procedures as banks. Additionally, Mint’s servers store your bank login information separately, ensuring that even if your account were hacked, your user IDs and passwords would remain safe.
With Quicken, all of your account data is stored straight to the hard disk of your computer. Even while that does mean that it isn’t floating around in cyberspace, hackers might still manage to access it. Although it’s not a perfect solution, using security software and configuring a firewall can help keep your information secure. Similar to Mint, Quicken’s app processes data that is kept in the cloud, so there is an additional danger to take into account.
It actually depends on your personal preferences for security in this case. Although there have not yet been any complaints of Mint users’ information being compromised, it is still possible. But keep in mind that Home Depot, Michael’s, and Target also believed that storing your information on your own computer with Quicken would be safer.
Comparing the Features
The most used function of Mint is its budgeting tool, which enables you to create customized budgets. This makes it possible for you to track your expenditure precisely and set up distinct savings targets. The software allows you to set objectives for things like saving money or paying off debt and then connect those goals to your spending plan. You may set up reminders for when your expenses are due using the notifications tool, which will help you remain on top of your finances. (And now the app allows you to pay your bills as well, further simplifying your life.) Users of Mint may also keep track of their investments, check their credit score, and receive tailored advice on how to cut costs and boost savings.
While doing nearly everything Mint does, Quicken goes one step beyond. In addition to the fundamentals like creating a budget, Quicken allows you to anticipate your cash flow, record your tax-deductible costs, generate reports of your spending, monitor the performance of your investments, and pay your monthly payments (either online or by printing checks). Even if Mint doesn’t allow it, you can use the software to transfer money back and forth between accounts.
Quicken is the genuine deal if you’re seeking for full-service financial software. It’s a better option for folks who have a little more complicated financial situations and don’t mind taking extra time to review the activities in their accounts. However, if simplicity is important to you, you might prefer Mint because it provides you with the essentials without overwhelming you with everything else.
Comparing the Cost
One of the factors contributing to Mint’s attraction to such a huge audience is the fact that it is free. The only requirements for registration are the creation of a username and password, as well as the login details for each account you choose to link. Simple, easy, and most of all, free.
However, if you want to become a little more involved with your money, Quicken is worth the price despite having a big price tag. The software’s price range for 2020 is $35.99 for the starting version and $46.79 for the premier edition.
Depending on your demands, this category’s winner may change. Mint is the most affordable option if you just need a simple way to manage your money. And while some people might object to paying for Quicken, others could consider it a minor price to pay for a more thorough understanding of their financial condition.
Which is best for your business
Mint and Quicken appear to be rather similar at first glance, but as you examine closer, it’s clear how very different they actually are.
The free Mint app is excellent for tracking daily expenses and creating goals. With its cutting-edge mobile app, it’s also perfect for those who wish to manage their money while on the road.
In contrast, Quicken is more suited for tracking your investments, assessing long-term spending patterns, and logging expenses for tax purposes. Before you buy Quicken, it’s crucial to know what you need and what it can accomplish for you because all those extra features come at a cost.
Freshbooks vs QuickBooks
A well-known accounting program with a long history is Intuit QuickBooks. Many small business owners adore it for its extensive features and versatility in integrating with just about everything. For decades, it has assisted companies of all kinds in keeping their accounting organized and precise.
FreshBooks, on the other hand, is less well-known because it caters to a far more niche segment of the business market. The software is well-liked for its straightforward user interface and functionalities. It’s ideal for independent contractors and small enterprises that don’t require all of QuickBooks’ bells and whistles. If you only need invoicing skills, it’s also better.
These two accounting software options really come into their own when comparing features. Compared to FreshBooks, QuickBooks has more features, but those features are more expensive. QuickBooks is a superior choice if you need double-entry bookkeeping, time tracking, or inventory management. FreshBooks might be a better option if you don’t require all of those capabilities and only need a tool to assist you keep track of your earnings and outgoing costs.
Both choices are subscription-based in terms of cost. FreshBooks’ entry-level package is $15 per month, compared to $30 for QuickBooks. QuickBooks’ plans can cost up to $200 per month for additional features, while FreshBooks’ most expensive plan is only $55 per month.
Having saying that, FreshBooks is exceedingly simple to use and will be adequate for the requirements of the majority of small businesses or freelancers. If you only want a single user, it is even more inexpensive than QuickBooks at the lower plan level. When you start to require obscure integrations, more challenging accounting functions like inventory management, or if you require a large number of users, QuickBooks starts to emerge as a superior choice.
Accounting vs. Invoicing
In terms of accounting software, QuickBooks is the undisputed champion. It has many features that can aid small businesses in managing their finances. QuickBooks offers all the features you need to manage your books, including recording earnings and expenses, issuing invoices, and paying bills.
FreshBooks is a better choice if all you’re looking for is invoicing software, though. It is perfect for freelancers and small enterprises because of its user-friendly features and straightforward UI. It also interfaces with a variety of other software packages, making it a fantastic option for companies that require numerous financial tracking methods.
Conclusion
Financial management is a critical part of running a business. It ensures that your business is successful and stays on budget. You need to make sure that the financial management solution you choose meets your specific needs and goals. You also need to be sure that the financial management solution you choose is affordable and easy to use.