Are you finding that you need more flexibility in an area of QuickBooks Online? Maybe it’s time to try an integrated app suited for your unique needs.

When you first started using QuickBooks Online, you probably found that it supplied the tools you needed to manage your accounting – and then some. But if your business has grown of become more complex, you may need more functionality and flexibility in one or more areas like time tracking and billing.

There are hundreds of add-on applications that integrate well with QuickBooks Online in the QuickBooks Apps store. While several of these apps are free, most have subscription fees. They’re designed to amplify the power of QuickBooks Online’s features. Although QBO will remain your home base, you’ll have to learn about the add–on apps to understand how they work and how they integrate with QBO.

With that in mind, here are some of the most popular add–on solutions from the QuickBooks Apps store:

1. Expensify

QuickBooks Online allows you to record expenses. Its thorough form templates ask you for numerous details like vendor, product or service, amount, and billable status, Completed expenses appear in a table. You can run any of several related reports like Expenses by Vendor Summary. If you use the QuickBooks Online mobile app, yu can snap photos or receipts that are turned into expense forms by QBO and partially completed with the receipt data.

But Expensify ($5-9 per month for one user) does more. It’s a robust expense management system that handles everything from receipt processing to next-day reimbursement. Where QuickBooks Online only supports basic expense tracking, Expensify allows you to create expense reports and follow them through multi-level approvals. It features automatic credit card reconciliation and expense policy enforcement, as well as bill pay and invoices-payments. Two-way synchronization with QuickBooks Online means you can work in either application and your data will be replicated in the other, as in the case with all of these integrated solutions.

2. QuickBooks Time

Formerly known as TSheets,this powerful time-tracking application builds on QuickBooks Onlin’s time management and payroll features. QuickBooks Time ($8-10 per user per month plus $20-40 monthly base fee) is now owned by Intuit, so it’s embedded directly into QuickBooks Online.

Your employees can track their hours on any device, from any location, and the hours will instantly be available in QBO so managers can review, edit, and approve timesheets. That data can then be used in areas like invoicing, job costing, and payroll. Advanced features include scheduling capabilities, overtime monitoring, GPS tracking, and real-time reports. The Who’s Working window shows you where your staff members are working and what they’re doing in real time.

3. Method:CRM

QuickBooks Online does a good job of helping you create profiles of customers and storing them for quick retrieval. But some businesses need mor than that. They need true Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Method:CRM ($28-49 per month peruser; discounts for annual subscriptions) is an excellent partner for QBO in this area.

When you integrate Method:CRM with QBO, you no longer have to do duplicate data entry to keep track of your customers and their sales profiles and histories. You get a shared lead list and activity tracking (email and phone calls), and your customer records contain the information a sales team needs, like customer details, interaction, transactions, and services performed. Leads are stored in Method:CRM until they’re customers, and you can track sales opportunities from a customer’s initial interest through the final sale.

Two More Advanced Integrated Apps

QuickBooks Online provides basic inventory-tracking capabilities, but if your business has more complex needs, and integrated application like SOS Inventory ($49.95-149.95 peruser per month) should be able to meet them. Built for QBO from the ground up, the application offers advanced features like sales orders and order management, assemblies, serial inventory, and multiple locations. And if you need more sophisticated bill pay, invoicing, and payment processing (with multiple automated approval levels) than QBO offers, you might look into the highly-regarded Bill.com ($39-69 per user per month).

Growth is Good, but Challenging

There are options for expanding QuickBook Online’s capabilities, which is one reason it’s the best accounting software for small businesses. As your business grows, so does your need for more sophisticated and comprehensive accounting.

You don’t have to figure it out on your own. We are experts in both accounting and QuickBooks Online, and we’d love to help you get back to running your business. Schedule your Accounting Hub consultation today to find out the answers to all your accounting questions.

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