Netsuite vs QuickBooks: Detailed Comparison (2025)

Even at first glance, we can see that both solutions offer something unique to your company. But let’s go into a bit more depth to help you make an informed decision on these three popular options for companies.

Netsuite is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that serves various industries, from manufacturing and retail to professional services. This ERP example offers a variety of modules with advanced features, such as CRM for sales, service and marketing automation, and PSA.

QuickBooks is a versatile project-centric financial management system for small businesses and accountants. It offers a variety of advanced features that help manage accounts payable and accounts receivable. This includes custom invoicing, income and expense tracking, tax management, and inventory management.

Productive is an all-in-one business management solution. It’s a tool designed specifically for professional services or agencies, created by industry veterans for companies of all shapes and sizes.
Productive can streamline and unify your business operations, from sales and resource management to billing. It’s also probably the best solution for project management and enterprise resource planning.

In case you’re here only for Netsuite or Quickbooks, you should skip to the feature comparison below. However, you might want to stick around as we’re getting to the part of the article that solves all your financial management struggles.

Productive is probably the best alternative to both Netsuite and Quickbook because unlike the two, it supports your project’s end-to-end lifecycle with billing, invoicing, project management and more.

The idea behind Productive is to consolidate the patchwork of different tools into a single source of truth.

Here’s how:

All of this is combined with a modern, user-friendly interface that helps business leaders with all levels of software aptitude manage their processes. Productive also offers extensive learning materials (videos, articles, and one-on-one support with its highly praised customer support and success team).

Learn more about the importance of project accounting for business success.

Productive gives you all-in-one project management, resource planning, financial tracking, and sales tools in a single platform. It helps you run more profitable, efficient projects without juggling multiple apps.

Productive’s resource planning helps you get the most out of your resources with responsive resource plans. You can allocate hours with various methods, drag and drop entries, and view how workloads are balanced with heat maps.

By switching to the Profitability view, you can check how your scheduling impacts your budget spending and profit margin. Productive also supports customizable time off management.

Productive’s Financial Management supports your company’s finances with three core features: Budgeting, Billing, and Purchase Orders.

With Budgeting, you can manage hourly rates and build your project budgets, whether fixed, hourly, retainer, or hybrid. With Billing, you can build professional invoices and send them directly from the platform.Purchase Orders help you manage your external expenses and payments to suppliers.

Real world results speak real volumes. You can learn how BIGZ gained a 360-degree view of their business operations.

For easier reporting, Productive offers more than 50 agency-focused templates that can be populated with specific data with custom fields. Productive provides reports that cover all areas of your business processes, such as financial reports, human resources reports, time tracking reports, and more.

You can organize them on a separate dashboard, or schedule them to be sent to external emails to keep key stakeholders in sync.

Finally, Productive offers a lightweight CRM that helps you optimize your prospect engagement.

Customize your sales funnel stages, set reasons for lost deals and manage your communications history in one place. You can also send quotes directly from productive and get key sales process insights, such as total revenue won, the number of closed deals, breakdown of reasons for lost deals, and more.

Additional functionality: 

Regarding third-party integrations, Productive can connect with popular communication, HR, and accounting tools. This includes Slack, Google Calendar, Hubspot, Zapier, Xero, QuickBooks, Breathe, Personio, and more.

Productive offers a variety of project management and task planning features. This includes project templates, customizable project views (Gantt, Kanban, Calendar, and more), automatic notifications, and simple to-dos and dependencies for progress visibility.

These project management features also include a time tracking tool for agencies with an integrated timer, automatic time tracker, manual entry or a handy desktop widget. Since most professional services, consultancies or agencies charge their clients by the hour, time entries and staff utilization reports are integrated in the platform.

So yes, you keep all the billable information (plus project-specific data) under one roof. Then you make a few clicks and you’re done with invoicing (more on that later). For simpler collaboration, you can invite clients to your projects free of charge.

According to the 2023 Global Report on Agency Valuations, only around 40% of agencies use an integrated system to support their business operations — as many as 8% don’t use tools or use spreadsheets, 23.5% use a scheduling and reporting tool, while over 25% use disparate tools.

Productive cuts down on the number of business apps you’re using daily, which not only speeds up your various processes but can also save you money on IT overhead.

Another lock-in feature that Productive provides is its project budget management and financial forecasting. Productive supports the cash flows and financial processes of various companies by delivering accurate, real-time data.

Check out Productive with a 14-day free trial.

Netsuite is one of the top enterprise resource planning software solutions for business owners from various industries. It provides customizable enterprise applications that help streamline manual processes and support sustainable rapid growth. Some notable features are human capital management, complex accounting, and financial reporting.

When it comes to third-party apps, there is a potential for integrations with API, though this is a process that requires time and expertise. The pricing of the tool is custom for each agency and is not available on the website.

Netsuite can be a good choice for companies who are interested in more robust financial control and revenue management. The tool also takes a modular approach with a range of features that can be added according to user-specific needs, which can be a good option for companies with complex or unusual workflows.

Finally, since the software is designed to support various industries, it can also serve industries with business requirements that differ from professional service providers.

If you want to know more about CRM features, check out our article on the best CRM for agency needs.

There are some notable downsides that can make Netsuite a less-than-ideal choice. For one, because Netsuite is a fairly customizable software, the implementation process can take a longer time than with integrated solutions. Some reviewers on G2 have also noted that training materials could be better:

Additionally, many users note that Netsuite’s license can get expensive, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. The price tends to increase as the organization grows, as larger businesses might want to implement additional features.

Finally, some users have reported notable issues with customer support, especially during the implementation process.

If you have extra questions, have a look at our Netsuite competitors article. 

QuickBooks Online is an accounting software solution for online bookkeeping and financial health management. Users praise it as a tool for small companies looking for an efficient solution for invoicing, reconciliation, and accounting processes.

QuickBooks Online offers integrations with various productivity apps and other additional solutions, some of which include OnePageCRM, Birdview PSA, Power BI, and more. QuickBooks Online also offers multiple pricing tiers with an annual and monthly subscription and a 30-day free trial.

QuickBooks Online can provide a strong foundation for your agency’s accounting and financial processes. The tool offers all of the essential features that smaller businesses need to manage their payments and expenses online. Additionally, it offers a lengthy free trial that can help you get firsthand experience to make an educated decision on whether it’s the right tool for you.

We also covered QuickBooks in our list of Time Doctor alternatives, so check that article out to learn more.

While QuickBooks Online is one of the best accounting solutions available, it’s not a suitable option for agencies looking for a comprehensive platform for their agency project management. For a more cost-effective option, you can consider implementing an all-in-one option with a QuickBooks integration, such as Productive.

Additionally, some users have reported issues with QuickBooks customer support regarding responsiveness and accessibility. Other users have added that the tool’s pricing points might not be affordable for all smaller businesses.

Netsuite, QuickBooks (and Productive) offer essential financial management features, including budgeting, forecasting, and invoicing. However, as more specialized tools for accounting, Netsuite and QuickBooks offer some additional solutions, such as electronic payments and tax management. If this is something that you’re looking for, both Netsuite and QuickBooks can be a good pick.

Productive is a good choice for integrated project management and professional services billing software solutions. Therefore, all three tools can be a good pick.

Learn more about financial forecasting in Productive:

As a tool for accounting, QuickBooks doesn’t offer resource planning features. Netsuite, on the other hand, does have certain features for optimized staff management, such as skill assigning, utilization tracking, and availability forecasting.

Productive also offers extensive human resources management with time off scheduling, billable hours tracking, easy allocation, and budget and utilization forecasting.

In the end, it depends on whether you’re looking for an integrated business management platform or an all-purpose ERP. If you’re part of the professional services industry, Productive is your top choice.

QuickBooks, Netsuite (and Productive) all offer real-time insights, customizable templates, and specific dashboards for monitoring financial insights. All three tools can be a good choice, depending on which kinds of insights you’re looking for.

Productive can be a particularly good pick, as it offers a consolidated platform, which means that your insights are built from all platform activities — sales, time tracking, resource planning, budgeting, and salaries. It also supports standardized and accurate data.

Additionally, some users have stated that report building in Netsuite can be complicated. For these reasons, our vote for the reporting category goes Productive.

When it comes down to making the final decision between Netsuite, QuickBooks, and Productive, go back to the essentials. What do you want to achieve with your tool?

If you’re looking for a solution that can fit neatly into your current processes and fill a specific niche, QuickBooks can be a good pick. Its basic accounting features make it a good option for smaller agency workflows.

If you’re ready to invest in a more comprehensive solution that covers all business processes but also requires a significant upfront investment and implementation process, you can consider Netsuite. It’s a complex solution, but it can be rewarding, especially for larger businesses with specific operations.

Finally, if you’re interested in an integrated solution for end-to-end management and financial visibility, you should book a demo with Productive.