Oh The Choices!
QuickBooks holds 89% of the small business accounting market in the U.S. But we can’t forget about Sage’s small business product, Peachtree. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, so let’s dive right in…
Peachtree strengths:
- Stronger inventory management
- Job costing capabilities
- Over 140 customizable reports
- Work flow management
- Scalability/multi-user performance
- Through GAP checks for duplicates and suspicious activity
- Can accommodate up to 40 users, 10 more than QB
QuickBooks Strengths:
- Attractive and very easy adoption
- Accountant Copy Capabilities
- Multi-Currency
- E-Store/E-Commerce Integration
- Online SaaS option (QuickBooks Online)
- Very nice Point of Sale option
- More third party add ons
Conclusions: QuickBooks is great for service-oriented businesses; inventory control is where it falls short. Peachtree has the market on that. QuickBooks only works in average costing; Peachtree can manage inventory by LIFO, FIFO, serialized and average costing. Pricing for both products is very close. QuickBooks is overall more attractive and easier to use, and they have a Mac version. QB also has an online version that is VERY affordable, but limited and more appropriate for home finances. Both products are dependable and excellent.
Follow us on Facebook
Join us on Linkedln
[Disclaimer : I am an Intuit employee]…not taking anything away from Peachtree, I would just like to add the following comments as additional data points to the above analysis :
IMHO : QBES has over 150 customizable reports and also provide Job Costing capabilities (arguably much easier to use than those provided by SAGE products) and offer scalability and improved performance through our Sybase iAnywhere database engine.
Further, PT may have better inv mgmt capability “out of the box”, but we integrate with more specialized third party inventory management packages that ultimately provide more inv mgmt capability. Workflow Management can also be easily accommodated through a variety of robust third party packages.
Thoughts/Feedback welcomed and appreciated…
Comment by Darren — July 8, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
Well said Darren, thanks for the info.
Comment by Sonja Fridell — July 9, 2010 @ 1:40 pm
Sage Peachtree employee here, just letting you hear from the other side.
Clearly opinions vary but the choice really comes down to what your needs are. For instance Darren feels Job Costing is better in QuickBooks; but, if you track phases, cost codes, and their estimates you’ll find that only comes with Peachtree.
Take this review as a starting point. You don’t have a lot of time to spend picking a product but you don’t want to invest in something that won’t work for your business. To get a good evaluation of what meets your needs with minimal effort, go to the online community for the product you are interested in and post some specific questions. You’ll get great answers from users, consultants, and employees that have made specific scenarios work. You might also go to our websites and find a local Peachtree Consultant or Pro Advisor. Let them do all the leg work for you and a little bonus secret … they often have great prices.
Some additional points to think about:
- Peachtree technical support is US based while our competitor’s support is internationally distributed
- The last 3-4 yrs our competition averages 12 service releases a year while Peachtree averages only 2
- 3rd party products can drastically increase the cost of your choice. They can be great solutions if you need them and Peachtree has a comprehensive group of partners; however, Peachtree’s depth of functionality in many areas may negate this need.
Jared
Comment by Jared — July 13, 2010 @ 7:46 pm
Good points Jared.
Comment by Sonja Fridell — July 13, 2010 @ 8:27 pm
that’s great to know, so if it’s a warehouse then peachtree, but if it’s a computer service company then QB
Comment by jacob — January 13, 2011 @ 6:08 pm
If you don’t know what you are doing, then QB is the right choice. “Accounting for Dummies”, this is what makes it suitable for most people/businesses. Simple, Intuitive, easy to write checks with.
If you have a higher calling, and you want extreme insight into your business, Peachtree is the right choice. Still a simple interface, but not intuitive, and perhaps confusing for the average user. However, Peachtree is well worth the effort if you need the details.
Both are great products, It mostly depends on you, or your abilities and desires.
Comment by Predatechob@robco.com — March 4, 2011 @ 8:45 am
We are a small law firm, and at the moment I am very dissatisfied with QB. Every time we do our updates to QB, we receive constant errors, and being kicked off QB. “Your computer is not communicating with the Admin computer”. We have had hours and days of non productive time. The attorneys can’t use their Time Master, I cannot send out invoices, receive payments, post deposits, write checks, reconcile the account registers. It is a Saturday, I came in to send out invoices, was kicked out of QB 4 times with errors, each time asking me to send an email reporting what I was doing. I did, and 2 hours later, I have yet to see a response in my email inbox. What should have taken me 15-30 minutes took 2 hours! The customer service/support with QB is some of the worst I have seen. I am looking for a replacement software. Our business cannot afford this much downtime.
Comment by CT — June 18, 2011 @ 7:36 pm
Hi Carrie,
That’s a total bummer! Sounds like your network is set up incorrectly. Have you had someone take a look at the configuration?
Comment by Sonja Fridell — June 20, 2011 @ 1:03 pm
I’m trying to decide what to do here. Since being unemployed for a while now (economy), I’m thinking of other alternative paths to take in my career. I thought about starting a bookkeeping/Quickbooks consulting business. I want to buy the program and go from there. I once took a beginners course but never got to use it on a job. Most of my work experience is in accounting, finance and administrative so I thought I could adapt to my own business. I’m graduating with a BS degree in Business in a few months as well. Any advice and suggestions would be welcomed. I really could used some guidance from professionals here.
Comment by Mary — June 26, 2011 @ 6:01 pm
What is good in PT is the payroll that really work even here in the Philippine settings. Also will print payslip and automatic computation of withholding tax.Peachtree indeed worked not only on small medium enterprise but large companies as well. I have tried it in a company with several kind of products(distribution, manufacturing and engineering(project-jobs),only maximize the capabilities of peachtree.
Comment by janette — July 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am
I’ve used both. Peachtree looks more “professional” because their ads are very low key…not being shoved in your face all the time. When I first started doing bookkeeping I wanted to avoid “double entry accounting”. Now I can’t imagine doing bookkeeping without understanding double entry accounting. Peachtree doesn’t “hide” the double entry accounting.
There are other technical reasons why I prefer Peachtree. But if you are already using Quickbooks, and you have no reason to change, then stick with it.
Comment by jscottu — July 21, 2011 @ 8:13 pm
Thanks for the feedback! I totally agree
Comment by Sonja Fridell — July 22, 2011 @ 3:26 pm
Thanks Janette, nice to hear it works well abroad!
Comment by Sonja Fridell — July 22, 2011 @ 3:26 pm
These both books have a good knowledge. But I would prefer Peachtree. It has a good strategy of inventory management.
Comment by Accountants Cooloola — August 17, 2011 @ 2:12 pm
I think every businessman wants they have a good inventory management. So this point of view Peachtree book is the best.
Comment by Car dealerships Bethlehem pa — November 15, 2011 @ 5:31 pm
I have read both books. But I found Peachtree book more impressive because it has explained each concept briefly.
Comment by Florida Beach Vacation Rentals — November 17, 2011 @ 8:39 am
I really enjoy the blog article.Really looking forward to read more. Really Cool.
Comment by Jaime — December 20, 2011 @ 9:21 pm
Thanks very much Jamie!
Comment by Sonja Fridell — December 20, 2011 @ 9:28 pm