QuickBooks Online Plan Comparison:
Simple Start or Easy Start Plan

Learn about the Simple Start or Easy Start Plan

QuickBooks Online Simple Start or Easy Start Plan is ideal if you pay for your expenses using your debit or credit card, and have simple invoicing needs for your clients and customers. If you are a consultant or contractor who needs to keep track of expenses as they happen, provide invoices and receive payment, track mileage, and run simple reports this is a good place to start! 

The QuickBooks Online Simple Start or Easy Start Plan will track all the information you need to file sales tax and prepare your income tax returns at the end of the year, and run reports to see how your business is going throughout the year.

Cost of QuickBooks Simple Start Plan

The QuickBooks Online Simple Start Plan costs $30 per month in the US, $24 per month in Canada, $22 per month in Australia, and 15 pounds per month in the UK.

These are the features available in the Simple Start Plan:

QuickBooks Simple Start Features

To compare the features available in the different QuickBooks Online plans, let's start with the features available in the Simple Start Plan. These are the basic features of QuickBooks Online and are all available in both the  Essentials Plan, and the Plus Plan.

Connect Your Bank and Credit Card Accounts

QuickBooks Online allows you to connect your bank and credit card accounts and import transactions directly from the bank. This is where the magic of QuickBooks Online gets started! Using artificial intelligence based on your prior entries, and bank rules you create you will be able to automate many of your transactions, and save hours of manual entry bookkeeping.

QuickBooks: Connecting your bank & credit cards
The banking page in QuickBooks highlighting income.

Reconcile Your Accounts

It is important to regularly reconcile your bank and credit card accounts to ensure that your records are complete and accurate. QuickBooks Online makes reconciling a breeze, and you can easily identify any errors for immediate correction!

QuickBooks screen to Reconcile like a pro and continue or do it later.

Additional resources for account reconciliation:

To check what to do before you reconcile your bank account in QuickBooks Online you can watch this video and download my checklist.

Reconciliation steps are included in this video and detailed instructions from QuickBooks can be found here.

Invoice Your Customers and Receive Payments on the Go

Using the app on your phone or tablet, or logged in on your laptop you can use QuickBooks Online to prepare an invoice on the spot. You can email to your client in real time, and hopefully collect payment right then and there too!

An example invoice

Prepare Basic Accounting Reports

All the reports you need to see how your business is going are available in this plan.

Prepare an income or profit and loss statement and a balance sheet to help run your business. You can also run an accounts receivable report to see who owes you money, and follow up to manage your cash flow. 

Example profit and loss document.
Someone holding a phone taking a picture of a receipt.

Capture Expenses Using the App

You won’t have to worry about losing receipts, and not being able to claim expenses on your taxes, you will also have easy access to those receipts under “attachments” if you are audited or need to locate a receipt for any reason.

Tracking mileage screen on a phone and computer.

Track Mileage

Using the app you can capture your mileage in order to quantify vehicle travel, claim expenses and have support if you are audited.

Collect & Record Sales Tax QuickBooks Online

Track and Report Sales Tax

No more guessing, or adding up invoices, and missing out on tax credits. Sales tax is tracked on all your transactions as they are recorded in QuickBooks Online.

Send Estimates to your Customers

Send an estimate to your potential customer and get approval for your quote in advance. This is easily converted to an invoice when the work is completed. Saving time after a job is completed, and it is time to put up your feet after a long day working!

Estimate example
A popup asking How much do you want to invoice

Progress Invoicing

Better manage your cash flow. You can send an invoice part way through the job, rather than waiting to the end. This is also easily prepared from your estimate.

Manage 1099 Contractors (US)

The top of the contractors screen

Finishing Up

Once again, if you are going to pay all of your expenses as they come due this could be the plan for your small business. If you find you would like to add other functions, you can always upgrade your plan later.

Check out the QuickBooks Online offers available today!

Ready for More Comparisons?

Continue on to learn about the specifics of the QuickBooks Online Essentials Plan.

If you would like assistance to select or set up your QuickBooks Online file you can book a session here.

If you have QuickBooks, and have connected the bank, check out my bank feed training course before you get started.

About the Author

Kerry Smithies smiling at the camera with a blurred background.

Kerry Smithies is a top ranked QuickBooks Pro Advisor and CPA.

Be sure to subscribe to Kerry’s YouTube channel with lots of QuickBooks Online how to videos and tips for managing your business finances.

With extensive experience working with small businesses and entrepreneurs in Australia, Canada, and the US. Kerry now focuses her attention entirely on helping business owners manage their finances and grow their businesses by automating their accounting function utilizing QuickBooks Online and related cloud applications to streamline their bookkeeping functions giving them more time to focus on what they do well, run their own business, and enjoy hard earned down time!

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