Your plan isn’t the only important consideration you have when it comes to choosing a version of QuickBooks Enterprise. On top of the different pricing levels and features, the Enterprise edition also offers six additional industry-specific versions of QuickBooks. Planning QuickBooks for professional services is one of the most important steps that one must consider before executing the plan.
Each of these comes with additional features designed for their respective industries, such as extra reporting tools. While choosing the version tailored for your industry might sound like a no-brainer, it’s best to analyze each option and what they offer to ensure you make the best choice.
To that end, this article will discuss the different options of QuickBooks Enterprise based on your industry and their features and will recap some of the features that come in the standard QuickBooks Enterprise model.
Versions of QuickBooks – Industry-Specific Offerings
QuickBooks Enterprise has six industry-specific editions, which are:
- Accountant
- Contractor
- Manufacturing and Wholesale
- Nonprofit
- Professional Services
- Retail
The industry-specific editions of QuickBooks Enterprise include the same functionality as QuickBooks Enterprise as well as a few additional features specific to the industry at no extra cost.
Take a moment to consider some of the advantages QuickBooks Enterprise provides.
Enterprise Edition Features
QuickBooks Enterprise offers the following features:
- Advanced Inventory: QuickBooks has warehouse and order management tools, including three levels of inventory tracking, automated inventory forecasting, multiple warehouse order fulfillment, automated order management, and more.
- Advanced Pricing: In terms of pricing, QuickBooks allows you to set volume discounts and manufacturer markdowns, schedule promotions, manage sales tax, set prices by class, and more.
- Advanced Reporting: QuickBooks Enterprise comes with over 200 built-in reports, including reports for profit and loss, income and expenses, cash flow, customer balance, sales, and more.
- Cloud Access
- Field Service Management
The list above includes only some of the features found in the Enterprise edition. Remember that some of the above are reserved for their higher price tiers, Enterprise Platinum and Diamond.
With that refresher out of the way, it’s time to dive into each of the industry-specific editions of QuickBooks Enterprise.
A Breakdown of QuickBooks’ Industry-Specific Editions
The following list will be ordered alphabetically and is not a ranking of any kind. When we consider all the QuickBooks corporate benefits, it becomes obvious all versions of QuickBooks are equally important. A general description and a list of features will be provided for each edition. QuickBooks Enterprise editions include:
QuickBooks Enterprise Accountant Edition
With the Accountant Edition, accounting firms and offices can track the finances of many businesses while still staying on top of their own. Users of QuickBooks Accountant Edition have access to crucial accounting tools like an accounting university, advice on how to become a “firm of the future,” training videos, events, a QuickBooks network for accountants, and other learning materials.
It is important to note that the Standard Version and the other five industry editions include a user role for an internal or external accountant. In contrast, the Accountant Edition is developed specifically for accounting firms.
This version is tailored to the needs of accountants, as its name implies. QuickBooks Accountant edition features the accountant center, QuickBooks’ file manager, client data review, and delivering general entries.
One window allows you to categorize a large number of transactions at once and spot changes to items in the list, QB File Manager gives you complete control over your files, including version control, batch file upgrades, password storage, and client-based file organization, and the Accountant Center allows you to begin your reconciliation immediately.
Features
The Accountant Edition includes the following features:
- The Accountant Edition offers batch input, batch removal, and batch invalidation of transactions.
- You can access specific tools and reports you have memorized through the Accountant Edition’s Accountant Center.
- Users of the Accountant Edition can examine a Working Trial Balance, which shows future transactions, adjustments, starting balances, ending balances, and workpaper references.
- Year-end activities can be managed with the Client Data Review tool. Client data review allows accountants to rectify unapplied credits or payments to customers, reclassify transactions, empty undeposited money accounts, apply vendor payments and credits, write off invoices, identify erroneously paid payroll obligations, and merge vendors.
- While QuickBooks Enterprise Standard Edition allows high-level users to view several journal entry reports, only accountants are permitted to make and send general journal entries.
- QuickBooks Enterprise Accountant Edition allows you to select a closing date when you have closed your books for the year. The accountant uses a password to protect closing dates.
QuickBooks Enterprise Contractor Edition
QuickBooks Contractor Edition is ideal for contracting, construction, and any business that needs project management and advanced job costing. Your QuickBooks Enterprise subscription also includes Intuit Field Service Management for one user, which could be useful for contracting organizations that need scheduling.
Industry-specific QuickBooks Contractor features include item percent complete, job costing, and custom billing. In the Item Percent Complete tool, you can see what percentage of your project is still pending. Using the work costing function, you can determine which jobs are profitable and which are not. Users can configure different pricing levels to meet various needs using the custom billing tool.
Features
The Contractor Edition includes the following features:
- Estimates can be changed using change orders. A change order can be created if a specific item is no longer available to complete an estimate or if a customer changes their mind about an estimate. Customers sign change orders to confirm an agreed-upon modification. These agreements provide additional security and clarity to estimates.
- The Contractor Edition comes with a Job Costing Center highlighting your three most and least profitable jobs. It displays real costs, unassigned expenses, and outstanding bill totals in the ‘Job Costing Highlights’ section.
- The Contractor Edition allows negative inventory quantities, but QuickBooks does not suggest it.
- A customized chart of accounts is included in QuickBooks Enterprise Contractor Edition to meet the needs of contractors.
- You can set different custom billing rates for different types of employees in your firm, such as apprentices, masters, and journeymen. Fixed hourly rates and bespoke hourly rates can be set by service item.
- A project’s completion bar shows how much of the project has been completed.
- In addition to the 200+ reports included with Enterprise, you will have access to 19 additional reports. Most of these reports focus on task costs to give a contracting company an accurate assessment of the profitability of each project.
QuickBooks Enterprise Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition
This edition is suited for manufacturers and wholesalers with many users and a need for comprehensive sales reports.
Massive stockpiles are handled every day by manufacturing and wholesale businesses. This industrial category has a high demand for speedy and dynamic sales reports.
The manufacturing edition includes backorder tracking, sales order fulfillment, item receipts, charts of accounts, building assemblies, and manufacturing-related reporting.
Small businesses might find the advanced inventory features in the Platinum version quite useful.
Features
The Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition includes the following features:
- Manufacturing and wholesale businesses can utilize QuickBooks Enterprise Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition’s custom chart of accounts.
- There are 11 manufacturing reports in addition to the 200+ included in Enterprise. Typically, these reports focus on sales, such as Sales by Class and Item Type or Profitability by Product.
- You can create bills and item receipts for items you have received.
- The back-order tracking feature gives customers and vendors easy access to their back-orders.
- This edition includes a Customer Return Materials Authorization Form, a Physical Inventory Worksheet, a Damaged Goods Log, and aNon-Conforming Material Report. Microsoft Word is used to access all of these reports. They can easily be modified in Word or printed for use.
- Although the standard edition of QuickBooks Enterprise allows you to build assemblies, the Manufacturing and Warehouse Edition will generate a default set of building assemblies specific to the manufacturing industry.
- You can send basic sales orders in any version QuickBooks Enterprise. However, the Sales Order Fulfillment Worksheet has more features to offer. The worksheet shows the sales job number, order date, ship date, amount to fulfill, open amount, and whether or not the order was partially invoiced.
QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit Edition
Several QuickBooks integrations are designed exclusively for nonprofits, as those in the nonprofit sector may have different accounting needs than other industries. Nonprofit organizations that require complex accounting, multiple users, and robust reporting will benefit from QuickBooks Enterprise and QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit Editions. However, QuickBooks Enterprise does not offer nonprofit discounts, and your volunteers and donors will be referred to within the software as employees and customers respectively.
In addition to the QuickBooks Enterprise edition, the Nonprofit edition includes features such as pledges (like the invoicing tool) and donations (like the receipt feature). Other features include gift letters, industry-specific charts of accounts, nonprofit reports, and more.
Features
- The Nonprofit Edition makes managing pledges simple. Pledges are managed in the same way as invoices. You can add an item and its description, class, amount, and tax when you create a pledge.
- Added to the 200+ nonprofit reports included in Enterprise, you’ll get access to nine new nonprofit reports. A Statement of Financial Position and a Statement of Functional Expenses (990) are included in this supplement. Reports that provide nonprofit information are also available, such as the Biggest Donors and Grants report and the Budget vs. Actual Programs and Projects report.
- Checks, echecks, credit/debit cards, and cash can all be used to manage and record donations.
- You can create and send donor letters thanks to its personalized letter templates.
- A customized chart of accounts is included in QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit Edition. QuickBooks Enterprise uses the Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA) for nonprofits.
- You can track programs and products using QuickBooks Enterprise’s Programs/Products Tool and class tracking.
QuickBooks Enterprise Professional Services Edition
While it cannot be classified as an industry, accounting needs for all professional services are nearly the same. Professional organizations have business plans that necessitate specific solutions. That includes estimating, job costing, extensive billing frameworks, cash flow monitoring, hierarchy-based user roles, budget forecasting, and task tracking. Legal firms, medical practices, engineering firms, architecture firms, graphic design agencies, marketing agencies, and other similar businesses can benefit from QuickBooks Enterprise and QuickBooks Premier Professional Services Edition.
This edition differs from the Standard Edition in that it includes the ability to submit proposals and generate additional reports.
Features
- You’ll also have access to 18 professional reports and the 200+ reports included with Enterprise. Many of these reports deal with work pricing, but few deal with professional services, such as a Billed vs. Proposal by Project report.
- Estimates and proposals are both available in the Professional Services Edition. You can include item descriptions, amount, expected hours, quantity, rate, and total in the proposals.
- You can specify different levels of custom billing rates for all the types of employees in your firm. For example, different prices can be set for a law associate, outside consultants, partners, and paralegals. You can set fixed hourly rates per service item or bespoke hourly rates.
- A Quick Invoice Display screen displays all expenses, projects, items, mileage, and totals for them. From this screen, you can directly invoice, which simplifies work billing.
- Legal, medical, and engineering firms have customized charts of accounts in the Professional Services Edition.
- An item percent complete tool indicates how much of a project has been completed.
QuickBooks Enterprise Retail Edition
Large retail enterprises benefit from the Retail Edition of QuickBooks Enterprise because it provides strong inventory and sales reporting capabilities. Since QuickBooks Enterprise Standard Edition and Retail Edition already integrate with Shopify and QuickBooks POS, businesses using these products may benefit from direct integration with QuickBooks.
Like the industrial and wholesale industries, retail needs detailed sales reports and inventory management regularly. Many organizations with a retail presence use the QuickBooks Enterprise Retail edition. The Retail version connects seamlessly with retail programs such as QuickBooks POS and Shopify, so businesses that use these products can take advantage of QuickBooks Enterprise Retail version.
Among the highlights of QuickBooks’s Retail edition are daily sales entries, vendor returns, and sales order fulfillment. Inventory management is essential in the retail industry, which makes the sales order fulfillment feature, which displays the order date, ship date, open amount, accurate invoice details, and amount to fulfill, very beneficial. Meanwhile, the vendor return tool lets you track your bill credits and vendor returns. Plus, it is easy to enter daily sales data into the software.
Features
- In Vendor Returns, you can manage vendor returns and bill credits.
- While the QuickBooks Enterprise already allows you to send sales orders by default, the Retail Edition comes with a Sales Order Fulfillment Worksheet with many more options. Sales order dates, ship dates, job numbers, open amounts, amounts to fulfill, and if the sales order was partially invoiced appear on this worksheet.
- Aside from the 200+ reports included in Enterprise, you’ll get 14 additional reports. Most of these are sales-related. Additionally, there is a nice Sales Graph and an Accounts Payable Graph.
- Receiving inventory is possible with or without a bill when using the receive inventory module.
- The Retail Edition of the software features a Physical Inventory Worksheet, a Customer Return Materials Authorization Form, a Non-Conforming Material Report, and a Damaged Goods Log, among others. All of these reports are accessed using Microsoft Word. They can be modified in Word or printed for actual use.
- The Retail Edition allows negative inventory quantities, but QuickBooks doesn’t suggest it.
- The Retail edition generates a default set of retail-specific building assemblies. Building assemblies are available in the Standard Version as well.
- It also includes a custom chart of accounts tailored to the needs of retail firms.
Summary of Versions of QuickBooks Industry-Specific Editions
Here is a brief recap of each edition:
- Account Edition: Specifically designed accounting software for accountants. This edition lets you quickly view client data and meet end-of-year requirements thanks to useful features like the accountant center and the client data review tool.
- Contractor Edition: This Quickbooks edition is ideal for independent contractors and those with various jobs, especially those with varying invoicing and payment structures.
- Manufacturing & Wholesale Edition: This edition is designed for companies with complex organizational needs, including inventory management and reporting. This edition’s comprehensive reporting package can make managing a wide range of items easier.
- Nonprofit Edition: This edition offers several advantages to nonprofits. Some features help manage pledges and gifts and specialized reporting for the nonprofit sector.
- Professional Services Edition: Medical and legal firms benefit from the Professional Services Edition of QuickBooks. As expected, this includes billing tools and a variety of customizable reports for professional services.
- Retail Edition: For traditional retail enterprises, the Retail Edition is the best choice. In addition to linking with your POS or eCommerce platform, you’ll also get a wide range of reports with this version.
Conclusion
The different industry-specific editions of QuickBooks Enterprise offer excellent features for businesses that operate within those sectors. However, just because your business operates in a specific industry doesn’t mean you have to choose that specific version out of all the versions of QuickBooks. You might be more comfortable using the standard edition. Or some other organization might find the QuickBooks premier editions more useful. Since all the different editions come at no additional cost, there is no harm in choosing to go from standard to one. You’ll need to evaluate the needs of your business to decide which option fits you best.
