Bonsai vs Quickbooks – Comparison

Last updated on February 8, 2024

If you’re on the hunt for financial and business management software that can simplify some of that tedious work regarding accounting, banking, and other tasks, Bonsai and Quickbooks are among the most reliable options available in the market.

Both of these platforms are praised by numerous satisfied users, but, as a savvy shopper, you probably want to know all about their pricing, free trials, features, and customer support rating. In this comprehensive Bonsai vs Quickbooks comparison, we’ll delve into all of those crucial factors to help you decide which of the two is a better solution for you.

Bonsai vs Quickbooks: An Overview

Bonsai is an all-in-one software suite that also includes financial management functionalities. Its features include expense tracking, invoicing, payment processing, accounting, bookkeeping, and tax-related tools. In addition, Bonsai can automate scheduling, client management, file sharing, time tracking, and so on. Read our full review to discover the ins and outs of Bonsai. 

Quickbooks Online by Intuit is a leading accounting software. It has a diverse set of financial management tools, including inventory management, accounts receivable, bookkeeping, sales tax reports, payroll, and more. Quickbooks is designed for businesses of all sizes.

Pricing & Free Trial

Investment limit plays a big role in choosing the best tool for your needs. Let’s look into the costs of using Bonsai and Quickbooks so you can compare them with your budgetary plans. 

Pricing Plan

Bonsai provides different plans starting at $21/month for the Starter plan, $32/month for the Professional, and $66/month for the Business plan. Each upgraded plan comes with additional features, even though the Starter plan packs all the essentials like scheduling, CRM, payments, and unlimited clients. You can enhance your set of tools with additional team members and a Bonsai Tax add-on at $10/month for each. 

Quickbooks has four payment options starting at $30/month, with a 50% discount for the first three months if you forego the free trial. Its basic plan covers income and expense tracking, invoicing, tax deductions, sales, and cash flow. Higher-tier plans unlock extra features like project profitability and employee expenses.

Free Trial

Bonsai gives you a free trial with full access to your chosen plan for 7 days. 

Quickbooks has a more extensive trial period, as you can use the platform at no cost for 30 days.

Features

Let’s look into the array of features that these robust platforms offer and their unique functionalities. 

Bonsai Features

• Accounting
• Bookkeeping
• Banking
• Scheduling
• Client management 
• Automation
• Client portal
• Communication
• Contracts
• Invoicing
• Payments
• Client intake forms
• Session notes
• Time tracking
• Collaboration tools
• Prebuilt and customizable templates
• Mobile app
• Integrations with Gmail, Google Calendar, Zapier, QuickBooks, etc.

Bonsai’s comprehensive financial tools allow you to manage, allocate, and use your income in a way that maximizes your profits. Besides accounting, bookkeeping, and banking, you can divide your income into savings categories and spend it using a dedicated business card.

Bonsai enables you to create different packages with various payment options to upsell to your clients. You can create private coaching or group sessions and set recurring payments, upfront payments, or per-session pricing.

The templates library has a coaching category, so you can take advantage of coach-specific contracts, invoices, life coaching session templates, and many other ready-made documents that need minimal edits to make them your own.

Quickbooks Features

• Accounting
• Bookkeeping
• Banking
• Invoicing
• Payments
• Payroll
• Time-tracking
• Reports
• Integrations with AutoEntry, Squarespace, Shopify, Method: CRM, etc.

Quickbooks streamlines payments with its functionality to generate professional invoices with links for bank transfers and payment gateways directly embedded for client convenience.

With Quickbooks, you can plan ahead by forecasting your cash flow for the next 30 and 90 days. It also gives you insights into your finances through cash flow statements, balance sheets, and income statements, and allows you to monitor all your business balances in one place with real-time transaction updates on your dashboard.

QuickBooks simplifies bookkeeping as it automatically matches payments and spending. You can also attach receipts to transactions to store everything in one place. 

Bonsai vs Quickbooks – How Are They Different?

There are many praise-worthy features in both Bonsai and Quickbooks, but their differences can be the deal-breaker. Here is how these platforms differ.

All-in-One Solution vs Financial Management Solution

Bonsai acts as an end-to-end tool for businesses, and it can optimize your coaching practice from top to bottom. You can use Bonsai for project tracking, scheduling, document organization, client communication, and payments. On the other hand, Quickbooks primarily focuses on bookkeeping and accounting, so you’ll need to invest in more tools for tasks beyond financial management.

Coaching Templates

One of Bonsai’s many benefits is its templates library. Whether you need a life coaching contract, session terms and clauses, invoice, proposal, or assessment form, you can use a dedicated template, make some changes, and have the document ready in minutes. 

Client Management

Bonsai enables you to organize and manage clients to track ongoing work and maintain strong relationships. You can create individual client profiles with details like notes, contacts, rates, and tags. Quickbooks lacks a CRM feature, and it only stores client billing history, paid invoices, and related data.

Customer Support

Bonsai has a 4.5 rating for customer service on Capterra. Overall, the reviews are mainly positive, describing the support team as fast and helpful. The representatives are available via email or in-app chat, and they can be contacted 7 days a week.

Quickbooks has a 4.0 rating for customer service on Capterra. Most reviewers praise the customer service, but a few express dissatisfaction with the time they’d waited to reach the reps. You can get in touch with their support agents via the help center or phone.

Conclusion – Bonsai or Quickbooks?

Even though both of these platforms can make your back-office work easier, the superior choice is Bonsai.

Bonsai delivers an all-in-one solution at a lower cost than what you’d pay for just an accounting tool. There’s no denying that Quickbooks is an efficient and reliable platform, but with Bonsai, you receive financial management functionalities along with numerous other tools that will centralize your entire business management.

If you’re specifically searching for accounting and bookkeeping software, you should consider Freshbooks, a budget-friendly alternative with an equally robust set of features.

Alternatives to Bonsai and Quickbooks

Maybe neither of these platforms meets your requirements for the ideal life coaching software. If that’s the case, you can look into top-rated alternatives such as Honeybook, Paperbell, CoachVantage, Simplero, and Practice.

In addition, our list of the top picks for coaches and Bonsai alternatives article can tell you more about these well-known tools and point out how they differ from Bonsai.

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