2055 Carolyn Sue, Baton Rouge, LA 70815
225-923-1985 • fax: 923-3515
50 key differences between
BusinessWorks
and QuickBooks Pro
This list of 50 key differences between QuickBooks Pro and BusinessWorks clearly illustrates that these products are vastly different. This comparison is not intended to be all inclusive — there are hundreds of differences between these products.

QuickBooks Pro is usually adequate for companies with less than five employees, annual revenues under $200,000 and working on a stand-alone system as opposed to multiple users on a network. Larger companies, or even a small one fitting this profile that has plans for growth in the near future, will quickly outgrow Quickbooks’ capabilities. For businesses with annual revenues of $500,000 or more, BusinessWorks provides a more complete and more appropriate solution.
Network Performance Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Designed for Network Use No Designed with file and record locking and supports up to 48 concurrent users.
Security Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Audit Trail Turned off by default. When turned on, flags a record as changed or deleted; but not by who changed the record. Provides a complete audit trail of every transaction in the system. Transactions may not be deleted to maintain the integrity of the audit trail.
Passwords Only four passwords can be defined. “Owner” has unlimited access to everything, “Data Entry” includes everything except payroll and printing reports, “Payroll” can edit and access everything except reports, and the “Transaction” password is used to edit transactions. Broken down by module and by tasks within modules. You can determine which tasks within a module a user can access.
System Wide Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Executive Summary Reports (Flash Reports) Not Available Flash reports are available for all modules and provide managers with key executive information in a summarized format.
Import/Export Comma delimited text only. In addition to CSV, BusinessWorks supports 30 formats including formats supported by Microsoft(r) Excel, Works, Word and Lotus(r).
Global Change Not Available Available and used to change a wide variety of part, customer, vendor or employee default information for all or a range of IDs simultaneously, thus saving time.
Report Queue Not Available Virtually an unlimited number of user defined report groups can be set up which contain reports from all modules. The reports in each group are set up once and then the reports can be printed unattended as frequently as the user chooses.
System Information/Status Not Available Provides on-screen status of each module including number of customers, vendors, parts, etc. as well as a System Status Report and Network Status Report.
General Ledger Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Departmental Accounting Includes account classification only. Key missing features include account consolidation by department and departmentalized financial statements. Full implementation of departmental accounting including departmentalized financial statements as well as consolidated financial statements.
Complete Budgeting Must manually enter budgets each year for each account. Budgets are limited to one enterprise. Budgets can be set up by amount or percent of an annual figure. Previous, current or future budgets can be calculated automatically using a wide variety of criteria including actuals or budgets from other periods. You can even increase or decrease the budget for multiple accounts automatically as well as create budgets for individual departments.
Multiple Company Consolidation Not Available Can merge data for multiple companies to provide consolidated financial statements.
Accounts Payable Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Vendor Information Limited to contact information and terms. Additional information includes MTD and YTD purchase information, last payment and monthly purchase history.
Cash Flow Analysis Based on due date only. Transactions cannot be sorted and totaled for each vendor. Can be based on a variety of selection criteria including due date, discount date and scheduled days to pay. Additionally, the user can specify the number of days between each period on the report.
Open Invoice Analysis Not Available Included as a standard report to show full detail of open invoices on record.
Discount Analysis Not Available Included as a standard report analyzing all discounts taken and available.
Accounts Receivable Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Ability to Track Open Credits Not Available Completely supported including the application of open credits and reporting capability.
Tracking Finance Charges Only one finance charge for the system. In addition to the system default, each customer can have an individual finance charge rate.
Payment Analysis Reporting Not Available Included as a standard report.
Cash Flow Analysis Based on due date only. Transactions can not be sorted and totaled for each customer. Can be based on a variety of selection criteria including due date, discount date and average days to pay. The user can also specify the number of days between each period on the report.
Sales Rep Tracking Not Available Can assign sales reps to customers. Sales rep MTD and YTD totals are tracked.
Sales Commissions Not Tracked Sales Analysis Report is available. Can even be generated for paid invoices only.
Customer Analysis Limited information on customer by customer basis. Customer History report includes but not limited to sales history, payment history, MTD and YTD figures.
Payroll Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Deduction Calculation Methods Limited to 3 calculation methods. Contains 15 calculation methods including fixed amount per hour and percent of net pay.
Multiple Payroll Expense Accounts Not Available An unlimited number of payroll expense and payroll tax expense accounts can be defined to allow for flexibility when posting payroll.
Thorough Reporting Only three pre-defined payroll reports. 26 pre-defined reports plus worksheets.
Direct Deposit Not Available Fully implemented direct deposit system.
Variable Commissions and Piece Rates Not Available Can set up commission and piece rate tables with ranges and assigned rates.
Order Entry Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Ship to Addresses One Up to 500 ship to addresses can be defined for each customer.
Print Packing Lists Not Available Packing lists can be printed and sorted by customer or order number.
Complete Order Processing Not Available Full sales order functionality including tracking through a wide variety of reports.
On Order, Committed and Back Order Tracking Not Available Complete tracking with multiple reports and inquiry screens.
Accurate Sales Order Analysis Not available. “Pending Sales” listing only. Complete, in-depth sales analysis reporting.
Thorough Reporting Seven Sales reports. Over 25 reports for Order Entry tasks and analysis.
Return Tracking Limited to writing a credit memo. Returns are tracked in the Order Entry module by invoice or by part with full reporting capabilities.
Inventory Control Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Decimal Places Limit of two. Up to four decimal places can be set up for cost and price. BusinessWorks also supports fractional quantities.
Fields for Tracking Committed or Back Ordered Quantities Not Available Both are present in BusinessWorks.
Product Line Tracking Not Available Product line tracking is supported for more detailed reporting of inventory performance by product line.
Quantity Adjustments and Returns Not Available Both are present in BusinessWorks.
Global Price Change and Model Part Not Available Both of these time saving features are included in BusinessWorks.
Serial Number Tracking Not Available Tracks and provides the serial status (on hand, issued, reserved, missing) for an unlimited number of serial numbers for each part. Serialized On Hand, Receipts, Issues and Returns reports are available.
Multiple Warehouses Not Available Tracks quantities and history for up to 99 user-defined warehouses. Parts can be easily transferred between warehouses. Many reports are available that can be sorted by warehouse.
Inventory Performance Report Not Available An Inventory Performance report is available to show important information in a summarized format including profit margin, average on hand and stock value.
Build/Unbuild Sub-Assemblies Not Available Fully supported.
Complete Pricing Single price only. Pricing methods include absolute, margin, markup or product line.

Three pricing levels are available (good, better, best) and up to five user- defined quantity breaks are available per part.
Costing Methods Average costing only. Supports Standard, LIFO, FIFO and Average costing methods.
Physical Inventory Worksheet only. Complete functionality including the ability to lock other users from inventory. Also can update parts by absolute or relative counts.
Job Cost Quickbooks Pro 5.0 BusinessWorks 12.0
Tracking Job Phases Not Available Can track up to 999 phases per job.
Tracking Overhead Methods/Amounts Not Available Six different overhead methods are available with automatic calculation of amounts.
Analyze Job by Job Code Detail Not Available Categorized job codes and automatically calculates changes in prices and costs based on job code detail.
Retainage Not Available Retainage is the total price of the job that the customer will withhold until the job is completed. BusinessWorks can withhold, track and release retainage using two different methods.