NetSuite vs. Quickbooks — which accounting solution fits your business?

NetSuite vs. QuickBooks – both solutions feature accounting functionality for businesses of varying sizes. While QuickBooks is a starter bookkeeping system for everyday accounting needs, NetSuite is a robust financial management solution for organizations that have moved beyond the capabilities of QuickBooks. In this post, Rand Group solution experts outline key differences between NetSuite and QuickBooks to help you decide which solution is best suited for your business.

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QuickBooks is an easy-to-use accounting software to manage income and expenses and keep track of the financial health of a small business. There are several versions of QuickBooks with varying capabilities.  This analysis will center on QuickBooks Online, the most popular option for small businesses, and QuickBooks Enterprise, which is better suited for small to midsize organizations looking for more than just accounting features.

NetSuite offers an entire suite of business solutions beyond accounting to serve companies looking to increase operational efficiency throughout the business: CRM, ecommerce, HR management, professional services automation and more. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, gives organizations clear visibility and control of their business from financials to supply chain, order management, procurement, production management, and warehouse management.

While QuickBooks Online functions solely as an accounting solution and QuickBooks Enterprise goes a step further with financial management, NetSuite offers an entire suite of enterprise grade applications that reaches well beyond the needs of accounting and finance.

When it comes down to specific features, NetSuite ERP can accommodate much more detailed and expansive processes, whereas QuickBooks Online is designed to meet the day-to-day needs of small-businesses. QuickBooks Enterprise falls in the middle to offer more than just booking keeping, but not as much overall business management functionality as NetSuite ERP.

Below is an overview comparing high level features between the three solutions. Not all features listed below are included in out-of-the-box functionality, some features might require additional fees or an upgraded plan.

When it comes to general ledger, QuickBooks cannot be customized, and a limited number of tags exist for workarounds. In contrast, NetSuite ERP provides accounting data from a consolidated level down to individual transactions, plus multidimensional reporting, allowing you to customize your ledger to meet your business needs.

QuickBooks Online has a limited approval workflow and few user roles, which does not deliver a strong control environment and true segmentation of duties. However, QuickBooks Enterprise does have custom user permissions to control which users can view certain data. By comparison, NetSuite helps enforce segregation of duties by controlling the data and functionality users have access to via specific permissions.

Both NetSuite and QuickBooks have standard accounting reports, including P&L and cash, built-in, but NetSuite provides an expansive library with real-time reports, such as forecasting and consolidated parent and subsidiary reports. NetSuite also allows detailed drill-down and drill-across reporting for any record in the system.

While NetSuite ERP and QuickBooks Enterprise offer many of the same features that QuickBooks Online lacks, NetSuite offers more capabilities overall.

​When choosing a new business application, it is essential to consider how it will integrate with the rest of your existing technology stack. Do they connect and allow for data sharing or will they remain siloed and disconnected?

QuickBooks is a standalone product that cannot be customized to extend or add functionality. Additionally, the finance functionality in QuickBooks is limited, requiring your business to add more applications to your technology stack to obtain more advanced capabilities. More applications lead to increased costs, more time to manage and train users, and increased risk of data errors when transferring and consolidating data for reporting.

On the other hand, NetSuite ERP can be customized and configured to meet your company’s specific needs, and you can choose to utilize other NetSuite features such as CRM, project management, business intelligence, and more with seamless integration. The NetSuite platform ties business processes, departments and divisions together since every user within the application is using the same data repository, updated in real-time. All team members are on the same page, errors can be minimized, and you gain broad insights across all facets of the business.

Although both systems offer numerous integrations with third party applications that might exist in your technology stack, NetSuite ERP offers greater functionality along with tight integration with other solutions in the NetSuite ecosystem.

Often a key factor in deciding on a solution is price. NetSuite and QuickBooks have drastically different capabilities, and as such, pricing is also different. QuickBooks’s cost is inexpensive and starts at just $25 to $50 a month for Online and $125 a month for Enterprise, with a maximum number of users allowed depending on the specific plan. In contrast, NetSuite offers a unique modular approach to subscription licensing designed to provide the right value for each business. NetSuite ERP can scale with price and functionality as your business grows and adds more users. In general, NetSuite will be more expensive than QuickBooks, but it works with any size business and provides value with its additional features, functionality, and platform. Contact a Rand Group solution consultant for a personalized NetSuite ERP quote.

Lastly, once you select a software solution, it needs to be implemented. Both NetSuite and QuickBooks can be purchased directly from the publisher or from an authorized partner, but there are big differences in how you implement each. With QuickBooks, implementation might be simple for a small organization with just a few users, but the users must change their business processes to fit the platform since the software cannot be easily customized.

Because NetSuite is a more robust and customizable solution for larger organizations, we recommended choosing a solution implementation partner to get the software configured and business users trained. NetSuite ERP is highly customizable, with the ability to add modules or functionality, and a partner can help make those customizations for maximum business efficiency. A partner can also offer additional hands-on training and ongoing support.

For organizations seeking an industry-specific solution, both publishers offer versions or packages of their software tailored to specific industries such as manufacturing, services, and retail. NetSuite developed SuiteSuccess, which includes pre-configured settings for modules and all the functionality needed for a certain industry. With SuiteSuccess, your business can get up and running quickly on NetSuite by swapping customizations for best practices.

Another implementation factor is how it is deployed – on-premise or in the cloud? As the name suggests, QuickBooks Online is online. However, QuickBooks Enterprise is on-premise and requires third party hosting or additional fees to take it off-premises. NetSuite ERP is fully cloud-based.

Both are beloved solutions with extensive training, user groups and knowledge bases online. NetSuite vs. QuickBooks? Ultimately it boils down to what your organization needs. Do you require the extensive features and power of NetSuite ERP as an all-in-one solution? Or does the easy-to-use interface and capabilities of QuickBooks meet your everyday accounting requirements? Our solution experts can help you decide on the appropriate course for your business technology.

For organizations that have outgrown QuickBooks, NetSuite ERP can be the logical next step for scaling and expanding insights. Rand Group is an Oracle NetSuite Solution Provider, and our business application experts are recognized as leading NetSuite specialists in implementing rapid cloud solutions across industries. Contact one of our experts today to start working on an implementation strategy and to get a personalized quote.