Evaluation guide
Looking for a QuickBooks alternative?
Usually the question underneath is different: not whether the accounting is good, but whether your operation and your books should be two systems held together by an integration.
Accounting first, or operations first
QuickBooks is accounting software, and widely liked for it. Point of sale, stock and payroll typically arrive through integrations or add-ons around that core.
That works well when the accounting is the centre of gravity. It gets harder as the operation gets more physical — stock moving between locations, recipes consuming ingredients, guests charging across outlets — because every one of those is a sync boundary where the two systems can disagree.
The questions below are about that boundary. If your operation is simple, it barely matters. If it is not, it is the whole thing.
What QuickBooks is
Accounting software, with point of sale, inventory and payroll typically added through integrations or companion products.
Who it suits: Businesses where accounting is the centre of gravity, where the operational side is straightforward, and where an accountant already works in it daily.
The questions to ask
Most of these are about the seam between operations and books.
Does closing the day post your books and create your tax records, or is that a separate month-end exercise?
In Qvian: Closing the day does both. And the system knows exactly which days you have not closed — which is usually the reason a return comes out short.
Does selling a dish take its ingredients out of stock?
In Qvian: Yes, through the recipe — and what leaves stock is measured with the same conversion used to cost it, so your food cost and your stock never disagree.
When a supplier invoice arrives at a new price, does every dish using that ingredient re-cost by itself?
In Qvian: Yes — including through sub-recipes, so a house sauce used in six dishes moves all six. You do nothing.
Does it show what a delivery does to your margin before you receive it?
In Qvian: Your average cost, the new average cost, what you currently charge, and the resulting margin — with the option to re-price while the invoice is still open, rather than six weeks later after you have sold the stock at the old price.
When a bill carries an unpaid balance from last month, does it stop you booking it as a new expense?
In Qvian: Yes. It will not post until that brought-forward amount is assigned. Otherwise you double-count last month's bill every month, and it is almost impossible to spot later.
Where does a till discrepancy end up in the accounts?
In Qvian: A designated variance account, never revenue. Plugging a difference into sales is how shrinkage gets disguised as turnover.
Does each location have its own profit and loss, and are balances between them tracked and settled?
In Qvian: Yes to both. Otherwise you know the group made money and not which parts of it did.
Can you click a figure on your tax return and see the invoices behind it?
In Qvian: Every value on the summary drills through to the documents that produced it.
When staying on QuickBooks is right
Often it is.
- Your accountant works in it every day and your operation is simple enough that the seam never bites.
- You are a service business with little or no stock, where the operational side is invoicing and not much else.
- You need specific accounting features tied to a jurisdiction Qvian does not cover.
The only comparison figure we quote
A competitor offered our clients free service for life. They stayed, at several times the price. That is the only comparison statistic we have any business quoting.
Frequently asked
It can. Qvian keeps full double-entry books — chart of accounts, journal entries, profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, trial balance, general ledger, receivables and payables — posted automatically from sales, purchases, stock movements, payroll and reservations as they happen.
That is a common and reasonable position. Qvian syncs to QuickBooks Online with account mapping, so your accountant keeps working where they already work while the operation stays in one system. You do not have to choose.
Every sync boundary is a place the two can disagree. When stock movements, sales and the ledger come from the same event, a cost of goods figure and a stock level cannot drift apart — there is nothing between them to fall out of step.
To a designated variance account, never to revenue. It matters more than it sounds: plugging a difference into sales is how a growing shrinkage problem gets disguised as turnover and stays invisible for a year.
Yes. The sync is one-way — Qvian pushes accounting entries to QuickBooks — so nothing is overwritten on the accounting side while you evaluate.
Other evaluation guides
See it against your own numbers.
Bring a supplier invoice and your menu. That is the whole demonstration.