QuickBooks Pro VS Premier – What’s The Difference?

QuickBooks Pro VS Premier – What’s The Difference?

Every day our customers ask us the difference between QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier. This is a popular question because the QuickBooks website doesn’t offer a practical explanation as to why (Premier) is ~$160.00 more than (Pro). Below you will find the main differences that we’ve found that actually matter for our users. If none of none of these differences resonate with you, buy QuickBooks Pro and save the money.

1. Number of Simultaneous Users

With QuickBooks premier you can have a maximum of 5 simultaneous users. With QuickBooks Pro you can have a maximum of 3 simultaneous users. When I say simultaneous users, I am referring to the number of users that can be using QuickBooks at the same time. This does NOT mean that you can’t have more than 3 and 5 users altogether. For example, let’s assume that you have 10 users. You will have to pay for 10 licenses on either on Pro or Premier. The difference is that only 3 users will be able to access Pro at once while 5 users will be able to access premier at once.

2. Price Levels

The MOST important difference in the QuickBooks Pro VS. Premier argument is that of price levels. QuickBooks Pro only lets you apply a percentage discount or percentage markup to all products for a customer. This means that you can either increase or decrease the price of all products for a customer by a percentage. For example, if you assign a 10% discount to Customer A, all products sold to that customer will be sold at a 10% discount.

In addition to the above, QuickBooks Premier lets you create price levels per item. This means that you can sell the majority of your products to Customer A at a standard price, and then you can either markup or discount individual products. This means that you could charge different prices per product per customer, which is a huge benefit if you are selling commodity items.

3. Create inventory assemblies and Bills of Materials

The third most important factor in the QuickBooks Pro vs QuickBooks Premier argument is that of inventory assemblies and bills of materials. These features are used by companies who manufacture products. Assemblies and bills of materials are only supported on QuickBooks Premier and work as follows:

Inventory assemblies use inventory items or sub-items that are put together to produce a finished item. Within the inventory assembly you can define a Bill of Materials that list the component parts of the inventory assembly. For example, let’s say that you manufacture cookies. The cookie inventory assembly would contain a Bill of Materials that includes eggs, flour, sugar, ETC. Each time that you build a cookie assembly, the inventory for the ingredients will decrease. This allows you to keep an accurate inventory count of both the finished goods and the raw items.

4. Units of Measurement

The fourth and final most important benefit of Premier over Pro is the ability to set up units of measurement. Units of measurement let you order, inventory and sell your items in different package sizes. For example, lets say that your business is dedicated to selling candy. In your warehouse, all candy is stored in boxes that contain 100 candies apiece. Even though your inventory is stored in boxes, you may want to sell candy to your customers as individual pieces, in packs of 5, and in boxes of 100. Each time that your candy is sold in these configurations, QuickBooks Premier will convert prices for you and modify your quantity on hand by the correct amount. This will ensure that you can sell different configurations of the same product, and keep accurate track of all inventory.