Switching from QuickBooks
Books built around the hours you bill
QuickBooks Online is a capable general ledger. CherryWorks Pro has one too, built around timesheets, invoices from billable hours, contractor payouts and client support, with unlimited users on every plan.
14 days on Professional. You won’t be charged until day 15 · Cancel anytime
Why services firms look beyond QuickBooks
QuickBooks is built for every kind of small business. Firms that sell hours often end up adding tools around it.
Users are capped by plan
Full users are capped at 1 on Simple Start, 3 on Essentials, 5 on Plus and 25 on Advanced. Growing past a cap means moving up a plan.
Fuller time tracking is a second product
Adding employee time to invoices starts on Essentials. For fuller time tracking, Intuit sells QuickBooks Time as a separate subscription.
Paying contractors is an add-on
Direct deposit to contractors and 1099 e-filing come with the Contractor Payments add-on, $25 a month for up to 20 contractors at list price.
No place for client support
QuickBooks doesn’t include a help desk, so client requests and the hours spent on them are tracked somewhere else.
QuickBooks and CherryWorks Pro, side by side
QuickBooks’s details are its published list prices and features as of October 2026. Check the vendor’s site for current terms.
| What | CherryWorks Pro | QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | CherryWorks ProPer firm: $39, $89 or $159 a month. Unlimited users on every plan; Starter is limited to 5 clients and 3 projects. | QuickBooksPer plan: Simple Start $38, Essentials $85, Plus $140 and Advanced $340 a month, with 1, 3, 5 or 25 users |
| Time tracking | CherryWorks ProTimers and weekly timesheets; approvals on Professional and up | QuickBooksEmployee time on Essentials and up; QuickBooks Time is sold separately |
| Invoicing from time | CherryWorks ProInvoices built from billable hours, sent from your own Microsoft 365, Google or SMTP mailbox | QuickBooksYes, on Essentials and up |
| Online payments | CherryWorks ProClients pay by card or ACH; payments post to the ledger | QuickBooksQuickBooks Payments: card 2.99%, ACH 1% |
| Paying contractors | CherryWorks ProEach person’s hours × their cost rate; pay contractors through Stripe Connect or record a payment (Professional and up). W-2 staff stay on your payroll. | QuickBooksContractor Payments add-on, $25 a month for up to 20 contractors, with 1099 e-filing |
| Client support | CherryWorks ProSupport cases and a client Help Center on Professional and up; hours logged on a case can be billed | QuickBooks— |
| General ledger | CherryWorks ProDouble-entry general ledger on every plan; bank feeds on Professional and up; period closes on Business | QuickBooksYes, double-entry; bank connections on every plan |
What QuickBooks does well
- A full double-entry ledger that accountants and bookkeepers widely use
- Bank connections on every plan
- Payroll for W-2 staff through QuickBooks Payroll
- Inventory tracking and project profitability on Plus and up
Also in CherryWorks Pro
- Marketing Hub on Business: contacts, companies, campaigns and sequences, beside your clients
- 19 built-in reports, including project profitability, utilization, AR aging and a 1099 export
- Estimates your clients accept online, recurring invoices, dunning and payment plans
- Every hour moves from unbilled to invoiced to pending payout to paid, and team members can see their own
- Expense reports with approval, and bank reconciliation on Professional and up
Sources for QuickBooks, checked October 2026:
Moving from QuickBooks
The import wizard reads the CSV files QuickBooks exports. Nothing is written to your books until you’ve reviewed a dry run.
Export from QuickBooks
In QuickBooks Online, use the Settings gear → Export Data, or open a report and choose Export. Save customers, products and services, time, invoices and expenses as CSV.
Upload and check
Upload up to ten files at once. CherryWorks Pro works out what each file holds from its header row and checks every file for problems before you go further.
Review, then import
Choose what to bring across and the date ranges, review the dry run, then run the import. An admin can roll back a completed import, which removes the records it created.
What comes across from QuickBooks: clients, services, time entries, invoices and their payments, and past contractor payments from an expense export. Projects are created from your time entries.
The import wizard is on Professional and Business. The 14-day trial runs on Professional, so you can import your own data and send a real invoice before you’re charged.
Marketing Hub · Business plan
Find the next client in the same system.
Marketing Hub adds contacts, companies, segments, email campaigns, sequences that stop on a reply, and an AI chat for your own website. Prospects stay apart from your clients, so outreach never touches your invoices or reports.
Try it with your QuickBooks data.
Fourteen days on Professional, import wizard included. Bring your history across and see what your team is owed.
14 days on Professional. You won’t be charged until day 15 · Cancel anytime