QuickBooks is accounting software that helps small businesses track their finances. It’s a popular choice among small business owners because it’s easy to use, affordable, and offers powerful features.
While it can’t compare to a full-featured ERP system, QuickBooks can work as a tool for small-scale manufacturing when it integrates with additional manufacturing software.
This article will explore some of the most popular manufacturing software that integrates with QuickBooks.
QuickBooks Base Features
You may wonder if you can get away with using only QuickBooks to stay on top of your manufacturing business without investing in additional software. If you’re on a tight budget, you’ll want to ensure that you’re only paying for essential software.
Unfortunately, while QuickBooks is great for basic accounting, the base version doesn’t offer the features you need for manufacturing.
These are QuickBooks Online’s capabilities:
- Track income and expenses
- Capture and organize receipts
- Maximize tax deductions
- Invoice and accept payments
- Track miles
- Run basic reports
- Send estimates
- Track sales and sales tax
- Manage 1099 contractors
So while these features can cover the basics of running a business in any industry, you’re out in the cold when it comes to the more specialized needs of manufacturing.
What Manufacturing Software Offers
Manufacturing software integrates with QuickBooks to provide an accurate and up-to-date view of your financials. This integration gives you a clearer picture of how much money you spend on materials, labor, and other aspects of your business. This allows you to make better decisions about what areas need improvement or attention.
The software can help automate many of the tedious aspects of the manufacturing process, such as tracking inventory, production schedules, and customer orders.
Manufacturing software provides solutions for many of the challenges that manufacturers face. These include:
- Tracking inventory and materials from purchase to production and delivery
- Keeping track of manufacturing costs
- Managing quality control
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements
- Managing day-to-day operations
Manufacturing software smooths over many of the issues you would run into trying to handle your business with a manual system and QuickBooks.
Top Manufacturing Software
Now that we’ve established why you need manufacturing integration software let’s review some available options.
These are all available through the QuickBooks app store, so you can be sure they all integrate seamlessly.
More solutions are offered beyond the official app store, so don’t worry if you don’t find a good fit for your business.
SOS Inventory
Overall rating: 4.5/5 (339 ratings). It offers a 14-day free trial with prices ranging from $49.95/month to $149.95/month with additional fees for more users.
The SOS Inventory provides a complete solution for all the inventory needs of retailers with its easy-to-use and powerful product management tools. It offers detailed product information, real-time stock updates, accurate forecasting, and more.
It was explicitly built for QuickBooks Online, so all the features are specifically designed for the program. It also integrates well with Shopify and PayPal.
Katana Inventory and Manufacturing
Overall rating: 5/5 (104 ratings). It offers a 14-day free trial with prices ranging from $99/month (if paying annually) to $599/month. The enterprise version of the plan uses custom pricing.
The Katana Inventory and Manufacturing service is designed to give you access to the best tools for managing your inventory, production, and finance. You can use the software to manage your supply chain, manage your products in real-time, track your sales, forecast future demand or production capacity requirements, and more.
ERPAG
Overall rating: 4.5/5 (46 ratings). Prices range from $49 to $149.
ERPAG is a QuickBooks Online add-on tool that allows you to create invoices and estimates, send quotes and orders, and track expenses. It also has an invoice generator that can generate customer invoices with minimal input.
They support invoices, bills, work orders, voided documents, customer returns, return to supplier, and stock adjustments.
Manufacturing Operations & Inventory Management
Overall rating: 5/5 (19 ratings). Prices range from $450/month to $600/month.
Manufacturing Operations & Inventory Management is a module of QuickBooks Online that helps companies manage their inventories and production. It offers inventory management, production planning, order fulfillment, and more.
Unleashed Software for manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution
Overall rating: 4/5 (19 ratings). It offers a 14-day free trial and prices ranging from $150/month to $899/month.
As the name implies, Unleashed Software offers a variety of features for both small and large businesses in the manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution sectors. Some of these features include:
- Invoicing
- Expense Tracking
- Realtime data on demand
- Stock Control
MRPeasy
Overall rating: 4.5/5 (9 ratings). Prices range from $49/month to $99/month.
MRPeasy is cloud-based accounting software that helps small businesses and entrepreneurs to manage their finances. The software has the following features:
- It offers an easy way for you to track your expenses and income.
- You can use it to generate invoices, reports, and financial statements.
- In addition, it automatically generates your taxes for you.
- You can also use it to make payments, manage payrolls, track inventory, etc.
ParagonERP
Overall rating: 5/5 (4 ratings). Subscriptions start from $99/month.
ParagonERP is cloud-based accounting software that is designed to help small businesses. You can centralize all your data from a variety of programs. It offers a wide range of features, including invoicing, multi-location inventory management, purchase orders, and payments.
It helps you know what’s happening at all times with pre-designed transaction screens and easy-to-understand reports.
ACUMATICA MANUFACTURING ERP
Manage every aspect of your manufacturing business in one place, and boost efficiency with a comprehensive, mobile, manufacturing ERP designed for your unique needs. Acumatica’s manufacturing cloud ERP software integrates with customer management, sales, inventory, and financials, providing real-time coordination of activities. Acumatica Manufacturing Edition helps manufacturers manage resources, reduce costs, and improve profitability.
Is QuickBooks a Good Choice for Manufacturing?
QuickBooks is incredibly popular with business owners for a reason. It’s a simple system that’s easy to get up and running, with enough customization to make it a good fit for most small businesses.
While the base system isn’t ideal for manufacturing, these add-ons can make it an adequate solution for smaller manufacturers. However, there are still some limitations, and the pricing for some of the more involved solutions can make costs comparable to ERPs with more features.
Need help choosing between Acumatica Cloud ERP and QuickBooks?
Acumatica ERP is a one stop solution for all your business management needs. It has industry-specific manufacturing (Acumatica Manufacturing ERP), service (Acumatica service management ERP), retail commerce (Acumatica retail commerce ERP), distribution (Acumatica Distribution ERP), and construction (Acumatica Construction ERP) tools. QuickBooks is the world’s most widely used accounting software, but Acumatica provides competition.
If you want to find the right solution for your company, Confianz can help. We partner with small businesses to set them up for success. So call today to get started!
Ask us for free Acumatica demo, we are Acumatica Cloud ERP Certified Partner!
