By
Sandor Lenner,CPA,MBA on June 06th, 2009
The purpose of this article is to provide QuickBooks help to a typical small business owner to understand the differences between using the remote access capabilities with QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Online Plus. A less expensive QuickBooks Online version is also available, from Intuit, the manufacturer of the QuickBooks products. That software was not considered for this analysis. Before we address the differences, its first important to understand the term remote access. The term remote access has been with us for a long time and has emerged to mean, according to Wikipedia,a form of communication with a data processing facility from a remote location or facility through a data link. One of the more common methods of providing this type of remote access is using a virtual private network(VPN). The definition is further enhanced by the term remote desktop, which also according to Wikipedia, refers to a software or an operating system feature allowing graphical applications to be run remotely on a server, while being displayed locally. Some allow attaching to an existing user’s session (i.e. a running desktop) and “remote controlling” it in front of the user’s eyes. Whereas, according to a Google definition, online accounting relates to accounting that can be done on the World Wide Web. With this understanding of the remote vs. online accounting, we can provide some QuickBooks help by addressing the differences in two typical small business accounting QuickBooks products,- QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Online Plus.