NetSuite ERP vs. QuickBooks Enterprise 2021 comparison

By QuickBooks April 19, 2021

Having a comprehensive financial management solution that streamlines business processes and supports growth can be invaluable to your business. If you’ve found your current systems aren’t meeting your business’s needs as you scale, a SaaS ERP (enterprise resource planning) software may be a useful addition to your toolkit.

An ERP is designed to streamline processes, assist in planning and execution, and provide visibility into performance. With an ERP, interdepartmental communication and collaboration can also be improved.

However, searching for an accounting solution and financial management software for your business can be challenging, especially when faced with a plethora of choices. In this guide, we’ll be comparing two of those choices, QuickBooks Enterprise vs. NetSuite ERP, so you can decide if one of these solutions might work well for your business.

Interested in learning more?

Growing your business with the right software solution can help you take your business to the next level. QuickBooks Enterprise streamlines operations like accounting and inventory management, improves financial visibility and is built to scale with your business.

Image Alt Text

QuickBooks Enterprise vs. NetSuite ERP: Experience and features comparison

How do QuickBooks Enterprise and NetSuite ERP stack up against one another? We’ve pulled data directly from G2, a tech marketplace where businesses can provide their unbiased opinions and review software solutions.

QuickBooks Enterprise

NetSuite ERP

Overall experience

User satisfaction
Meets requirements
Ease of use
Ease of doing business
Performance and reliability
Likely to recommend
Ease of setup
Quality of support

92%

89%

88%

87%

85%

84%

83%

81%

81%

84%

70%

76%

81%

79%

70%

73%

Financial feature accolades

Financial statements
Reconciliations
Budgeting/forecasting

91%

89%

83%

83%

80%

75%

Operational feature accolades

Payroll features
Inventory tracking/ordering
Time and expense
Payment processing
Invoice customization
Inventory pricing and costing

89%

83%

88%

88%

88%

83%

79%

82%

78%

82%

83%

79%

Reporting feature accolades

Custom reporting
Inventory reporting

86%

83%

80%

81%

Customization & functionality

Data import and export tool
Integration APIs
Customization capabilities
Breadth of partner applications
Workflow capability

83%

82%

81%

81%

N/A

82%

80%

82%

80%

80%

What can QuickBooks Enterprise offer?

QuickBooks Enterprise is a top-rated business management software that grows with you. This solution gives you the opportunity to affordably expand, with three tiers that start at $180/month*—additional customizations are available. This allows you to find solutions that match your budget, without paying for features you don’t need. With QuickBooks Enterprise, you can run your business efficiently with a personalized solution that streamlines your operations and gives complete financial visibility, with a dedicated team with you every step of the way.

QuickBooks Enterprise is primarily designed for product-based businesses that deal with large amounts of inventory, such as manufacturing, wholesale and distribution, and retail providers. It is also targeted toward professional services businesses that need to allocate time and materials against each job or those with inventory and material-tracking needs, such as construction contractors. This is because QuickBooks Enterprise has key features that these types of businesses require, including job costing, advanced inventory management, supply chain management, and time and expenses tracking.

QuickBooks Enterprise is highly customizable and flexible:

  • Run your business from anywhere* thanks to QuickBooks Enterprise’s remote capabilities. This means remote teams can access QuickBooks from wherever they’re working
  • Conveniently integrate with other QuickBooks services such as employee time tracking, payroll, payments, and point of sale (POS)
  • Gain deeper functionality by integrating with Salesforce and e-commerce, or connecting with apps specific to your industry or need
  • Get QuickBooks Enterprise software recommendations as your business evolves, from experts who are available 24/7*

NetSuite ERP software is designed to provide visibility and control to businesses. NetSuite ERP provides tools catering to small and mid-size companies and especially large global organizations. Specifically, NetSuite ERP is targeted toward certain industries including advertising and marketing agencies, media and publishing companies, financial services, and restaurants and hospitality. In addition to the features it shares with QuickBooks Enterprise—like inventory and order management and financial management—NetSuite ERP provides a range of large-scale capabilities with features like demand planning and procurement tools.

QuickBooks Enterprise is a build-as-you-go solution that allows businesses to avoid paying for functionality they don’t need and starts at $180 per month with remote access.* NetSuite ERP is positioned as a large-scale business management system at its core and pricing is available on a quote basis. Pricing is personalized to each customer and depends on add-ons.

When deciding between NetSuite ERP vs. QuickBooks Enterprise, the key differentiator may lie in what type of business you’re operating, what functionality proves most useful for your current situation, and which features are necessary to help you manage daily operations.

It is very good software that we use as our ERP system at this early stage of our manufacturing company. The Advanced Inventory system does just what we need…. It is very intuitive and easy to teach to new users.

Luis R., Mechatron Solar, Inc.
Runs on QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Image Alt Text

Features designed for growing businesses

QuickBooks Enterprise expands upon the features that are the foundation of QuickBooks accounting software. QuickBooks Enterprise is designed for businesses that need to scale and are ready to move beyond basic bookkeeping and accounting capabilities—like managing the general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, revenue recognition, and more—and into a solution that has increased functionality.

Here are the key features of QuickBooks Enterprise:

Customizable, expanding as you grow

  • Scalability – QuickBooks Enterprise is scalable based on your business’s needs as you grow. That way, you can create a software solution that’s tailored to your business and scalable. Add POS, payments processing, payroll services, employee time tracking, and remote access as needed.
  • Easy to evolve – If you’ve been using QuickBooks Pro Plus or Premier Plus, it is easy to shift into QuickBooks Enterprise when your business is ready.

Streamlined operations

  • Advanced inventory* – Automate inventory and order management from start to finish for improved accuracy and productivity. With advanced inventory capabilities like simplified warehouse management, mobile inventory barcode scanning, and inventory cost tracking, QuickBooks Enterprise automation helps make your operations more efficient while improving customer experience.
  • Advanced pricing* – Simplify and optimize your pricing strategy with customizable and automated price rules and calculations that are done for you. This functionality makes it easy to adjust pricing and allow for exceptions when needed.
  • Order management* – Simplify the order fulfilment process and reduce errors with one system to manage all aspects of tracking fulfillment: process orders, forecast, automatically generate invoices, and print shipping labels. With this order management system, you can automate a lot of the process and reduce errors.
  • Field service management* – Connect your office and service technicians thanks to add-on field service functionality that allows you to get real-time updates from the field and improve job-scheduling efficiency.

Financial visibility

  • Advanced reporting* – Get access to over 200 built-in, customizable reports tailored to your industry or create your own, which you can save as templates and run again later. With advanced reporting, you can focus on the metrics that matter most to your business.
  • Job costing* – Get a complete view of job costs and establish accurate job costing to improve your margins. This feature allows you to see profit and loss at the project or job level, stay on top of estimates, and know how much is needed to complete the job.

In addition to more diverse and complex features than other Intuit QuickBooks solutions, QuickBooks Enterprise has the capacity for 1 million customers, vendors, and inventory items, 100,000 classes, 45 custom fields, and up to 40 users.* That’s six times the list capacity of QuickBooks Pro Plus and Premier Plus, which give businesses a scaled-down version to start with until they grow into QuickBooks Enterprise.

While QuickBooks Enterprise doesn’t pair with an internal CRM like NetSuite ERP, it can be integrated with a wide range of third party applications—like syncing to Salesforce through the Salesforce CRM connector. That way, you can introduce a customer relationship management solution when the timing is right for your business.

NetSuite ERP offers features that allow business owners to:

Customizable to your business’s needs

  • Scalable business management system – Add and customize functionality as you grow.

Streamline mission-critical processes

  • Order management – Manage the full lifecycle of an order with automated processes.
  • Production management – Improve visibility into the production process and run operations efficiently.
  • Supply chain management – Manage a global supply chain across different continents and time zones.
  • Warehouse and order fulfilment – Use NetSuite ERP’s built-in tools to manage your order fulfillment process.
  • Procurement – Buy goods and services with insights on optimizing costs and purchasing in a timely manner.

Gain clear visibility and control of the business

  • Financial management – Get real-time financial insights, expedite daily financial transactions, and maintain compliance.
  • Financial planning – Streamline budgeting and planning and centralize financial data.
  • Data and visual analytics – Use data to generate actionable business insights for quick, informed decision-making.

When comparing NetSuite ERP vs. QuickBooks Enterprise, consider which solution will meet your business needs based on features, costs, and flexibility.


See what people are saying about QuickBooks Enterprise

More than 145,000 companies* have chosen QuickBooks Enterprise to manage their accounting, financial reporting, inventory, payroll, payments, and more. Notable awards include:

  • G2 Leader Enterprise Spring 2021
  • G2 Momentum Leader Spring 2021
  • G2 Leader Mid-Market Spring 2021

According to recent data, 89% of QuickBooks Enterprise users rated it 4 or 5 stars.

Frequently asked questions

Now available: QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 23.0