Spark365
Business Central vs Quickbooks
for Small Businesses (2020)
3 Important Advantages to Know About
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
As a Quickbooks Alternative
Business Central is particularly suited for small companies that are expecting growth. Designed for efficiency, scalability, flexibility, analytical reporting, security and affordability, Business Central has many advantages over QuickBooks, particularly for micro or small companies with plans to increase transaction volume and expand their business.
Here are three powerful advantages of choosing Business Central vs QuickBooks:
1. Protect Your Data and Processes
Typically across a growing company, employees in different roles need to use the software together. One of the risks is that the entire software is affected by any single user. Business Central uniquely builds in safeguards that prevents you and your team from accidentally making incorrect entries
Tracking and accuracy. Business Central’s Audit Trails and Preview Posting functions prevent user errors and employee fraud .
The software is the accounting expert (not the user). Business Central system structure and posting concept supports users to easily follow GAAP without needing to be knowledgeable in those accounting requirements. Quickbooks, although designed for non-accountants, requires users to know how to correctly post according to GAAP.
2. Save Time and Work Smarter with Microsoft 365 Business Integration
No more opening/closing/juggling different programs (Excel, Quickbooks, Gmail, etc), which is not only a hassle, but can cause human error and waste unnecessary time.
Microsoft integrates your email (Outlook), Excel and your accounting software all in in one. The difference in is staggering. This integration eliminates multiple manual steps -- saving you time and simplifying your day-to-day processes so you can focus on growing your business.
Excel: Sub-ledger details are easy to see in Excel and you can do it in just one click. Quickbooks users can download their data into excel, but it requires multiple steps.
See how it works:
Outlook: Operate Business Central from within your e-mail inbox! You can see important insights on your customers and vendors first and then create/send financial documents like quotes and invoices -- all without ever closing your Outlook window. You save tons of time by doing it all in an integrated way. Once you experience this, you can never imagine doing it any other way.
See how it works:
3. Flexible (and Amazing) Reporting
Business Central allows you to customize reports easily without any Chart of Account adjustments. Real-time data visibility provides insight into your overall business situation and on your business performance.
Dimensions:
Dimensions are attributes and values that categorize your entries so you can track and analyze them. For example, instead of setting up separate general ledger accounts for each department and project, you can use dimensions for transactions such as Sales Orders, Purchase Orders or Journal Entries. This gives a rich opportunity for analysis, without creating a complicated chart of accounts. QuickBooks offers a limited number of dimensions, but in Business Central, you can set up unlimited dimensions.
When you’re a growing small business, you can’t predict how your business model will change. Simply updating your dimensions offers an easy and flexible way to get the data analysis you need without adjusting and re-building a complex COA.
Account Schedules:
Account schedules let you create highly customized reports very quickly to get insight from the financial data stored in your chart of accounts. Account schedules analyze figures in G/L accounts, and compare general ledger entries with general ledger budget entries. For example, you can create account schedules to calculate profit margins on such dimensions as departments or customer groups. The results will then display in your Role Center and in reports. You can create as many account schedules as needed, each with a unique name.
QuickBooks include many reports in their plan, but once users get to know the software better, they realize the ability to customize these reports is limited. There are only a few ways to slice and dice your data, and while there is an option to customize your filters, the process is tedious.
BC is designed in a way where businesses can flexibly analyze their data in many ways. Business Central’s account schedule is a flexible, simple and powerful reporting tool that can provide you the data you need with just a few clicks.
By using account schedules, there is no need to rebuild your Chart of Account for analysis as you would need to in QuickBooks. You can also click on hyperlinks to drill down to each original transaction detail. The navigation function shows you all the General Ledger Entry details -- another advantage that BC offers that you can't find in QuickBooks.