QuickBooks Tip: Top 5 Advantages of QuickBooks Online Desktop App

Many business owners and other users access QuickBooks Online (QBO) in the typical fashion: they open their web browser, type the website address, and hit Enter. However, a little-known application can bring the desktop experience to QBO users – without giving up their favorite online features. Intuit recently pushed out a big update upgrading the app’s features and benefits when compared to using the browser itself, potentially propelling the app as the most accessible option.

The desktop app offers the benefits of QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online users, without sacrificing the automatic upgrades, cloud service, and efficiency and accessibility of QBO that they have come to know and love.

Browser vs. app

Although there are some inherent advantages to working within the browser, such as accessing your account via any device with web access and not being locked into your existing hardware setup, many disadvantages exist as well. For example, you generally don’t have access to a full keyboard when using QBO via a browser on a mobile device, and more importantly, you may not always have a fast, secure internet connection.

Top 5 QuickBooks Online Desktop App advantages

The desktop application removes the disadvantages mentioned above, and provides the following new features to take advantage of.

1. No more handwritten lists of three-key shortcuts. The app uses all standard keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl-c to copy and Ctrl-v to paste. Moreover, the app offers shortcuts you don’t find in the web version, such as Ctrl-n to open a new window within the application.
2. Information in different windows now refreshes automatically, much like the QuickBooks Desktop application. For example, if you have an Income Statement and Balance Sheet open and you make a change to an entry in the bank account, both reports automatically update to reflect the change.
3. You can have multiple reports open at the same time. Different than having multiple browser windows, this acts like a desktop application with the ability to quick-tab between reports. These reports can be dragged and dropped at will, and stay running in the background if you close the app. Next time you open the app, the reports will be visible again.
4. No time outs or re-entering credentials every time you log in. After logging in once, the app saves your credentials, allowing you to go directly to the dashboard the next time you launch the app.
5. A top menu bar offers users several handy tools. This new feature aggregates all of the most pertinent tools into one taskbar, eliminating any hunting you might do in QuickBooks Online.

Intuit continually making improvements

When the QuickBooks Online app was first released, users complained of sporadic crashes, random blue screens and other anomalies. Users were experiencing slow connections and poor responsiveness – not what they expected from an app touted as an equivalent of QuickBooks Desktop. The QuickBooks Online desktop app update has solved all of these issues. Speed is said to have improved, the overall stability has strengthened and the overall user experience simply works “better.”

As with all Intuit products, updates and new features emerge on an ongoing basis. We recommend that QBO users give the application a try – it can completely change the way you access QuickBooks Online.

Contact me or another member of Kaufman Rossin’s QuickBooks team for help with getting the most out of your business’ investment in QuickBooks.

Interested in the QuickBooks Online desktop app? You can download it here.