Freshbooks vs Quickbooks: Comparison for UK Businesses

If you need accounting, financial management and bookkeeping services for your business you might be torn between FreshBooks vs QuickBooks. This guide covers the important questions: is QuickBooks easy to use, or is FreshBooks better? How does FreshBooks UK pricing compare against QuickBooks? And which has better reviews?

Join us as we look at FreshBooks vs QuickBooks from the perspective of businesses in the UK, with a focus on features, fees and service.

Are you looking to expand your UK company overseas? Check out Wise Business, for multi-currency account and card services with no monthly fees and integrations with services like FreshBooks and QuickBooks, to make accounting simple.

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FreshBooks vs QuickBooks - Comparison overview

When it comes to QuickBooks vs FreshBooks there’s a lot of overlap in the available services - but they’re not exactly the same. This means that the best provider for you might come down to the finer details of the services you need to use, as well as your personal preference.

We’ll get into the details of how each provider operates, and what they cost, as well as how FreshBooks customer service measures up against QuickBooks customer service later - first, here’s a feature overview:

Service	FreshBooks	QuickBooks
Pricing model	3 off the shelf plans, plus custom services	5 off the shelf plans
Pricing starts	From £15 per month, with promotional offers available for new customers1	From £10 per month, with promotional offers available for new customers2
Trustpilot rating	Poor, 2.3 star rating from 5, from over 800 customer reviews3	Excellent 4.5 star rating from 5, from over 15,000 customer reviews4
Bank connections	✅ for some plans	✅
Expenses management	✅	✅
Send invoices	✅	✅
Multi-currency support	✅	✅ for some plans
Payroll	✅ for some plans	✅ additional fees apply
Reports and insights	✅	✅
Bills management	✅	✅ for some plans

FreshBooks UK review

FreshBooks splits out its service offerings across different industry types and business models:

• Freelancers
• Self employed professionals
• Businesses with employees
• Businesses with contractors

There are several different plan models which you can pick, or you can build your own package with the help of the FreshBooks sales team.

FreshBooks services let you create and send professional invoices, remember customers about late payments, reconcile accounts, manage your VAT and more.

You can access services online and via the FreshBooks app, with different options aimed at different market segments, to support everyone from a new freelancer to an established business employing others. As you’d expect, plans have varied pricing - we’ll look at the FreshBooks cost in more detail later.

Over on Trustpilot, FreshBooks has a disappointing Poor, 2.3 star rating from 5, from just over 800 customer reviews. With over 30 million small businesses using FreshBooks, this is obviously a very small number of reviews, so getting some word of mouth feedback on FreshBooks from people you know who use the service is probably a good idea.

It’s also helpful to know that FreshBooks does respond to customer feedback on the site, including to negative reviews, to try to resolve issues when they arise. Have a look at the latest comments online to help you form your own opinions.

FreshBooks key features

FreshBooks offers several different plan options for UK customers, which all have their own features. Exactly what you can do with your FreshBooks account will depend on the plan you pick, allowing you to tailor make your solution based on your business needs. Services which are available can include:

• Invoicing and payments
• Time tracking and payroll
• Accounting and VAT
• Expenses and receipts
• Reports and business insights
• Client communication tools
• Integration with business apps

Does FreshBooks integrate with my bank?

There are various options to integrate FreshBooks and business bank accounts, which can make reconciliation easier, faster and less prone to human error.

Exactly what options you’ll have will depend on the FreshBooks plan you have - for example, some reconciliation services aren’t offered on the cheapest FreshBooks Lite plan.

Compare the options for your preferred plan level - plus, if you do business overseas, and need to send or receive foreign currency payments you might also be interested in the FreshBooks integration with the Wise Business account. Link FreshBooks to Wise, to make it easier and cheaper to send, spend and exchange foreign currencies for your business, with simple reconciliation after.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

FreshBooks customer support

While FreshBooks does have a UK phone contact number, it’s meant for prospective customers rather than for receiving help as an existing user. If you’ve already got a FreshBooks account you can get help initially through the FreshBooks AI chatbot which can connect you to a service agent if needed.

Prospective customers can call FreshBooks on 0800 047 8164, or request a demo online.

FreshBooks cost

FreshBooks offers UK customers 3 different off the shelf pricing plans, and also custom made options which you can design yourself based on your individual needs. Custom packages have their own pricing, so you’d need to talk through your requirements to get an individual quote. Plans are priced from £15 a month to £35 a month, but all options have a promotional offer at the time of writing, which means you get a 50% discount on this cost for 3 months.

Plan	FreshBooks fee - Monthly
Lite	£15 per month - with a 50% reduction for first 3 months
Plus	£25 per month - with a 50% reduction for first 3 months
Premium	£35 per month - with a 50% reduction for first 3 months

*Correct at time of writing - 28th October 2024

QuickBooks reviews UK

QuickBooks offers online accounting packages to manage the day to day finances for your business such as income and expenses, reporting, taxes and VAT for example.

There’s also optional support for payroll if you have employees. QuickBooks has 5 different plans which each have a specific target market - this target market dictates the features and services which are available, to allow you to pick the plan which closest meets your personal needs:

• Self employed - aimed at Sole Traders not registered for VAT who need to prepare Self Assessment
• **Simple start **- aimed at Sole Traders or small businesses managing VAT, Income Tax and preparing Self Assessment
• **Essentials **- aimed at small businesses working with suppliers, who need to manage VAT and Income Tax
• Plus - aimed at small and medium businesses managing projects, stock, VAT and Income Tax
• **Advanced **- aimed at larger businesses needing automatic data backup, custom permissions, bespoke reporting and insights

QuickBooks is a well liked service which has over 85% of market share for small business customers in the US. While it’s not used by quite as many businesses in the Uk at the moment, it still has a healthy slice of close to 4% of the market here. On Trustpilot, QuickBooks gets an Excellent 4.5 star rating from 5, from over 15,000 customer reviews.

QuickBooks key features

What you get from QuickBooks depends on the plan you pick - here are some of the key features supported by QuickBooks across different account plans:

• Bank connections and reconciliation
• Invoices, quotes and estimates
• Tax and VAT support
• Expense management and mileage tracking
• Time and productivity tracking
• Multi-currency support
• Reports and insights
• Optional QuickBooks payroll additional services

Is QuickBooks easy to use?

Whether or not QuickBooks is easy to use will depend a bit on your specific needs, experience and the plan you choose. Overall, QuickBooks has a reputation for being beginner friendly and not requiring any specialist experience to get started.

In fact, a quick scan of Google will pull up tutorials offering to teach you how to use the system for more or less anything in under 30 minutes - and the fact that QuickBooks has huge market share among small business owners, sole proprietors and freelancers also goes some way to suggest it’s an easy to use service.

If you have concerns about how easy it is to use QuickBooks - or FreshBooks for that matter - you can always ask the sales team for a product demonstration to see what you think of the interface.

Does QuickBooks connect with my bank?

All QuickBooks account plans let you connect your business or bank account, for easier reconciliation. For example, you could use the QuickBooks integration with the Wise Business account to link QuickBooks to a Wise Business account that can hold and exchange 40+ currencies, to do business without borders.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

QuickBooks customer service

QuickBooks offers support including tutorials, blogs, ways to talk to other users and community resources. If that doesn’t help, QuickBooks customers in the UK can use an online contact form to be connected to the person you need to resolve your problem⁸.

QuickBooks pricing in the UK

QuickBooks pricing in the UK varies depending on the plan you pick and whether or not you want to pay monthly. Annual plans offer better discounts at the time of writing - but all new customers qualify for some reductions in cost. Here’s an overview of the QuickBooks costs:

Plan	QuickBooks costs - Monthly
Self employed	£10 - fees reduced by 75% for first 6 months
Simple start	£14 - fees reduced by 75% for first 6 months
Essentials	£28 - fees reduced by 75% for first 6 months
Plus	£38 - fees reduced by 75% for first 6 months
Advanced	£90 - fees reduced by 75% for first 6 months

*Correct at time of writing - 28th October 2024

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks fees - Head to head comparison

If the FreshBooks vs QuickBooks debate is still unresolved for you, looking at the costs might help. Here’s a quick head to head overview of the options you have available from each provider:

	QuickBooks	FreshBooks
Number of plans available	5	3 + custom pricing
Price range	£10 - £90 per month	£15 - £35 per month, custom pricing also available
New user discount	Available at time of research for 6 - 12 months	Available at time of research for 3 months
Add on fees	Payroll available - fees on request	Team members - £8 per member per month Advanced payments - £15 per month

FAQs - FreshBooks vs QuickBooks

Are FreshBooks and QuickBooks the same?

No - FreshBooks and QuickBooks aren’t the same. They both offer some overlapping services including accounting and bookkeeping you can manage with your phone or laptop, but the pricing and plan options are different. Some services may also vary, so researching both before you pick is essential.

Are QuickBooks and FreshBooks cloud-based?

Yes. Both FreshBooks and QuickBooks are cloud based solutions to make it easier for businesses to manage their finances on the go.

Which accounting software is better for small companies?

There’s no single best accounting software for small companies. In the UK, businesses, freelancers and sole traders are pretty well served with a number of accounting software solutions available which all come with their own unique features and fees.

Both FreshBooks vs QuickBooks are worth considering - and you might also want to look at alternatives like Xero, to see which suits your personal preferences and needs.

Connect QuickBooks or FreshBooks with Wise Business account

Wise Business can help UK businesses, freelancers and sole traders to manage finances across multiple currencies, with low fees and the mid-market exchange rate.

Wise Business account connects with Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, FreshBooks and more solutions to help you seamlessly manage your finances across borders.

When you open a Wise Business account, you’ll benefit from all of these useful features:

• Hold and exchange 40+ currencies;
• Send payments to 160+ countries for low fees and the mid-market exchange rate - this is a fair exchange rate with no margins or mark-ups added to it;
• Get local account details to get paid in 8+ currencies like a local;
• No monthly fees or minimum balance requirements;
• Debit and expense cards for you and your team, which you can use in 150+ countries;
• Multi-user access for team members, with ways to control and manage permissions;
• Pay up to 1,000 people at once with the Wise batch payments feature;
• Integrate with your favourite cloud accounting solutions, like Quickbooks.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

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Making a decision between FreshBooks vs QuickBooks will take a bit of research. But investing time in comparing the options available to you makes sense, as you’ll know you’re buying the optimal service for your own specific needs, with a mind to your budget and the features which matter most to you.

Sources used in this article:

1. FreshBooks pricing
2. QuickBooks pricing
3. Trustpilot FreshBooks
4. Trustpilot QuickBooks
5. QuickBook customer support

Sources last checked November 1, 2024