Starling Business Toolkit vs Quickbooks

If your business is growing, you’re going to get to grips with accounting and bookkeeping. The more organised you are, the smoother things will run - and the less likely you’ll be hit with an unexpected tax bill.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there to help with accounting.

In this guide, we’ll be comparing two of them side-by-side - it’s the Starling Business Toolkit vs QuickBooks. We’ll run through what they both have to offer in terms of features, fees and more. It’s all to help you choose the right solution for your company.

And if you opt for QuickBooks in the end, it’s great to know that you can integrate it seamlessly with your Wise Business Account.

💡 Learn more about Wise Business

Starling business toolkit vs QuickBooks - Comparison overview

Let’s start with an at-a-glance overview of what both QuickBooks and the Starling Business Toolkit have to offer:

Service	Starling Business Toolkit	QuickBooks
Pricing	£7 a month	From £10 to £90 a month
Create invoices	✅	✅
Bookkeeping	✅	✅
Self-employed tax return	❌ - but does have HMRC Tax estimation for sole traders	❌ - but does provide figures to prepare for Self Assessment
VAT	✅	✅
Accounts payable	✅	✅
Expenses tracker	✅	✅
Bank account connection	✅	✅
Payroll	❌	✅ - optional add-on for extra cost
Reporting	✅	✅
Inventory	❌	✅
Multi-currency accounting	✅	✅
Trustpilot rating	4.4¹ ⭐	4.6² ⭐

Starling Business Toolkit review

The Business Toolkit is a paid add-on for the free Starling Bank Business Account. So, you’ll need to apply for a Starling Business Account before you can access the Toolkit.

It’s aimed at freelancers, sole traders and small businesses who need to manage accounting and bookkeeping, but don’t necessarily want or need an accountant or dedicated accounting software.

The Starling Business Toolkit aims to link essential accounting services with its business bank account, so that everything can be easily managed in one place. It covers everything from accounts payable and invoicing to tax and VAT.

Starling Bank is generally well thought-of by its customers. The bank has an ‘Excellent’ rating of 4.4 on TrustPilot.¹ This is based on over 40,500 reviews, although bear in mind that some of these will be from personal customers.

Some business customers mention the Toolkit in particular. One reviewer states:

“[The] Business Toolkit in particular is a lifesaver; I've tried so many ‘proper’ bookkeeping software and they've given me endless nightmares, Starling's Toolkit however is so simple it's actually usable.”¹

Starling Business Toolkit - Main features

Here’s a quick look at all the different things you can do with the Starling Business Toolkit:

• Create and manage unlimited invoices, including email integration and payment matching
• HMRC Tax estimation for sole traders
• Record VAT on transactions
• Submit Making Tax Digital (MTD) VAT returns
• Bookkeeping to-do-lists
• Manage bills, including uploading bills and scheduling payments
• Track expenses
• Smart savings tools to put funds aside for taxes

Starling Business Toolkit price

The pricing model for the Starling Business Toolkit is really straightforward. You’ll pay a flat fee of £7 a month and get all of the features listed above.³

You have to sign up for a Starling Business account first, but this has no monthly fee.

Starling Bank also has other add-ons for its Business Account. This includes a Bulk Payments tool costing £7 a month that you can use to run payroll and make other batch payments.⁴

The bank also has occasional offers available, such as the chance to try add-on services for free for a limited time.

Read more: Wise vs Starling Business Account Comparison

QuickBooks review

QuickBooks is an accounting software provided by US business software specialist Intuit. It’s a full package of bookkeeping and accounting tools, which can be linked to bank accounts, accountants and other business tools.

Its target audience is similar to that of the Starling Bank Business Toolkit, but a little broader. QuickBooks is for self-employed people and freelancers, but it can also be used by SMEs in all industries.

Like Starling Bank, Intuit QuickBooks is well-reviewed by UK customers, receiving an ‘Excellent’ rating of 4.6 on TrustPilot (based on 14,400+ reviews).² Customers seem particularly happy with the company’s customer service, with one reviewer saying:

“I moved all my accounts onto QuickBooks when VAT had to be submitted digitally. Best thing I've done. So much easier to keep on top of things. End of year accounts, easy to do as is the quarterly VAT submissions.

“If you have a query, their customer service is second to none. Highly recommended them.”²

QuickBooks features

Now, let’s take a look at all the main features you get with QuickBooks, which vary depending on which plan you sign up for:⁵

Feature	Self-employed plan	Simple Start plan	Essentials plan	Plus plan	Advanced plan
Send and track invoices	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Manage bills	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Submit VAT returns	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
Prepare for Self Assessment	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Customised reporting	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Receipt capture and expenses tracker	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Mileage tracker	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Inventory management	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅
Employee time tracker	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅
Batch invoices	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅
Cash flow insights	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
Multi-currency accounting	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅

QuickBooks Payroll is also available, but it’s an add-on with an extra cost starting from £1 a month.⁵

Read more: Xero vs QuickBooks: Head to head comparison

QuickBooks pricing

Lastly but just as importantly, let’s take a look at QuickBooks pricing. It offers plans in 5 tiers, each having a higher monthly fee but offering more features in return. Each plan is geared towards a particular business, or a stage in the growth of a business.

Plan types	Monthly cost⁵
Self-Employed	£10
Simple Start	£14
Essentials	£28
Plus	£38
Advanced	£90

QuickBooks also has special offers available from time to time. At the time of writing, it’s offering 75% off the above fees for 6 months.⁵

Manage your international business with Wise

Want to grow your business and expand overseas? The Wise Business account is ideal for companies that trade internationally, who buy goods or employ people from other countries.

There’s just one powerful account, with no monthly subscription fees. Features include:

• Local account details for 8+ major currencies - so you can get paid by clients and customers in their own currency, without unnecessary currency conversion
• International payments to 160+ countries for low, transparent fees
• Employee expense cards and expense management tools
• Payroll and invoice payments
• Seamless API integration with business and accounting tools such as QuickBooks
• Bulk payments - batch pay up to 1,000 people at once
• Bespoke permission levels to control team access

What’s more, all currency conversions with Wise are carried out using the mid-market exchange rate. This means that no margin or mark-up is added, so you get a great rate and don’t lose funds to foreign currency exchange.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

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And that’s it - our head-to-head comparison of the Starling Business Toolkit vs. QuickBooks.

We’ve covered the features on offer, as well as how much each service costs.

This should give you a solid starting point to compare the two and work out which is the best fit for your business.

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Sources used:

1. TrustPilot - Starling Bank
2. TrustPilot - QuickBooks
3. Starling Bank - Business Toolkit
4. Starling Bank - Bulk Payments
5. QuickBooks - Pricing

Sources last checked on date: 21-Jun-2024