Accounting Software: QuickBooks vs. SAP Business One
Most small businesses start using QuickBooks to manage their accounts as it’s a simple, basic and a reliable solution.
When a business starts to grow and become more successful they require more than just an accounting system. They have new requirements to manage multiple aspects of their business which require more than just excel sheets, e.g. inventory, operations, sales & customer management. As a result many businesses choose to upgrade from their accounting software such as QuickBooks to an ERP system such as SAP Business One – a trusted business management system aimed at small and growing businesses.
Faced with a decision to add to your current QuickBooks solution or find a solution that better meets the needs of your growing business, we have completed a side-by-side comparison between QuickBooks and SAP Business One. We addressed some essential features that typically impact sustained growth, efficiency, decision making and profitability.
Comparison: QuickBooks vs SAP Business One
| QuickBooks | SAP Business One | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | Highly respected and commonly used entry-level accounting package, but offers limited modules for expanding & growing businesses. | Industry-leading ERP (Enterprise Resource) software used to manage all aspects of your business, ideal for businesses who’ve outgrown QuickBooks |
| Reputation | World’s most popular entry-level accounting software. | 70% of the world economy’s transactions run on an SAP system |
| Target Market | Small business with relatively small budget and basic accounting needs 1-100 employees < €10 Million revenue |
Growing small & mid-size businesses with accounting and business management needs 5 – 1,000 employees €100k – €250 million revenue |
| Number of Users | 30 users maximum | Unlimited users and role specific privileges |
| Basic Features | Accounting | Accounting & Financials Sales & CRM Inventory & Distribution Purchasing & Operations Real-time Reporting Mobility |
| Database Availability | Proprietary Database Difficult to integrate with other application and 3rd party add-ons. Have to purchase a new licence every year |
Fast & Flexible database management system that allows you to expand your solution as your business grows. Can integrate with 3rd party software |
| Role Based User Privilages | Not possible | Users are granted role-specific privileges ensuring sensitive business data can only be seen by appropriate users |
| Financials | Basic bookkeeping capabilities | Fully fledged financial capabilities |
| CRM | Offers a separate add-on solution, but it’s not fully integrate and provides no drill down capability | CRM is integrated as part out of the box functionality. Ability to track activities, sales opportunities, campaign management, service contracts and more |
| Workflow | User-friendly graphical user interface. Limited flexibility for different users | Helps streamline workflow with the ability to customise work-space to meet each user’s individual requirements. Can automatically route tasks to certain users |
| Inventory Management | Only handles basic tracking and average costs. Growing businesses tend to find inventory management to be the most limiting part of QuickBooks. It doesn’t monitor warehouse availability and track back-orders or serial numbers. Doesn’t support Standard Cost inventory accounting or Bills of Materials | SAP Business One’s handles all of the highlighted inventory management functions not present in QuickBooks. Allows for very flexible pricing structures. SAP Business One ensures you have the most up-to-date and in-depth inventory information at your fingertips at all times |
| Production & Manufacturing | Does not support production or manufacturing | Comes out-of-the-box with robust built-in Production & Manufacturing modules |
| MRP | Not offered | Integrated MRP module that predicts demand for materials based on existing stock, sales orders, purchase orders and production orders. Adjust the parameters with powerful what-if scenarios |
| Increased Data Volumes | After you reach a certain number of transactions, performance declines and they system slows down | No limits to the total number of data such as employees, products, orders, vendors and customers entered in SAP Business One |
| Custom Reports | Enterprise-level package has custom reporting tool, but it’s difficult to use for the average user and has limited features | Built-in Crystal Reports and custom queries, to create and publish reports, charts, dashboards and KPIs |
| Audit Compliance | Not GAAP compliant Users can makes changes without an audit trial |
Fully GAAP compliant |
| Add-On Integration | Less than 30 QuickBooks-specific add-ons, with no option for 3rd party software integration | Almost 600 prepacked, fully integrated industry specific solutions ensuring a fully customised solution for SAP Business One to meet your business requirements |