Skip to main content

Get 50% OFF QuickBooks for 3 months*

Buy now
Switch to QuickBooks and 70% off for 3 Months
Talk to Sales: 877-683-3280
Hours
Mon - Fri, 5am - 6pm PST
Sat - Sun, 7am - 4pm PST
Product support & help
Need help signing in?
R
rshan
August 27, 2023
Question

QBO Essentials vs Plus

  • August 27, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 5 views

According to the descriptions of QBO Essentials and Plus, both offer "time tracking billable hours by customer." Plus adds inventory management and a few other features that I do not need. However, when I proceed to downgrade my plan to Essentials, QBO warns me that I will lose "time tracking billable hours by customer" as well as "create and track projects"!!! What?!

 

Did the plans change and only Intuit provisioning knows about it? I'm afraid to try completing the downgrade for fear of losing hours entered for billing and invoices. Might I also lose invoices and payments history?

 

1 reply

Adrian_A
Adrian_A
Level 8
August 27, 2023

Hello rshan,

 

I have the details you need regarding the impact on billable expenses when downgrading. 

 

The downgrade won't severely impact the transactions already booked. There are several things that will happen to the billable expense transactions. 

 

The first thing you will notice is that you won't be able to use the Billable Expense feature. Though, the invoices, expenses, and the Billable Expense Charge transactions will still appear on your books. 

 

To further elaborate, those expenses marked as billable will no longer have the customer mapped to them. Plus, the Billable column will disappear. The Billable Expense Charge transactions are still mapped between the expense and the sale forms, though.

 

Before downgrading, you might want to check this article for the details: Upgrade or downgrade your QuickBooks Online subscription (expand the Downgrade your subscription section). 

 

When you're ready to downgrade, you can follow the steps from the article I've hyperlinked. 

 

As for your second question, when you downgrade to Online Essentials, you won't lose any of your invoices and payments. Your data will remain intact, including your invoices and payment history. 

 

Meanwhile, I've also added this article as your guide in ensuring your accounts match your bank and credit card statements: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

 

Let me know if you have any additional inquiries regarding the features in QuickBooks Online.

R
rshanAuthor
August 27, 2023

Hello Adrian_A,

 

Thanks very much for the prompt and thorough response to my questions. The feature in question, however, is the "Track billable hours by customer" feature, not the "Billable expense" feature, which is explicitly called out with a green check mark as a feature that is included in the Essentials version and is also explicitly called out as a feature that is not available in the Essentials version. See screen shots that illustrate the issue.

 

 

 

Thanks again for your assistance,

 

rshan

 

 

 

R
Rea_M
Level 10
August 28, 2023

We appreciate your input, rshan. 

 

I'll share further insights about the available features when downgrading QuickBooks Online (QBO) plan from Plus to Essentials so you can decide which one suits best for your business.

 

From your description, I can tell that you've encountered the scenario while trying to downgrade your QuickBooks plan from Plus to Essentials. There are certain accounting features that aren't available when you do so. 

 

For the time being, recording billable expenses is available in the Plus and Advanced versions. With the Essentials plan, you can track billable time by job or track and invoice your billable time.

 

To help you choose a new plan and see which subscription level is right for you, you can visit this page: Plans for every kind of business.

 

Additionally, there's a usage limit for each subscription level in QBO. These apply to how many billable users, chart of accounts, classes, locations, and tags you can add. If you wish to learn more about them, please see this article: Learn about usage limits in QuickBooks Online.

 

I'm all ears if you have other feature and account management concerns in QBO. You can drop a comment below, and I'll gladly help. Take care, rshan. 

Need QuickBooks guidance?
Log in to access expert advice and community support instantly.
Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement