Is QuickBooks a CRM?

Not a full one. QuickBooks is accounting software, but QuickBooks Online now includes Customer Hub, which Intuit describes as built-in CRM features for tracking leads, opportunities and pipeline stages. It covers basic sales tracking. Teams with a real sales process usually pair QuickBooks with a dedicated CRM such as Zoho CRM.

QuickBooks started as accounting software and that is still its core job: invoices, bills, bank reconciliation, payroll in some countries and financial reports. It stores customer records because you need them to invoice, but a customer list alone is not a CRM.

Intuit has added sales features. Its help pages describe Customer Hub in QuickBooks Online, where you can add leads, track opportunities with a status of Hot, Warm or Cold, and move them through pipeline stages. Intuit says it is available on QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced and some Intuit suites. Intuit's Canada page calls these built-in CRM capabilities and admits larger teams with complex sales processes may still prefer a dedicated CRM.

A dedicated CRM goes much further: email sync, call logging, lead scoring, sales automation, territories, forecasting, quotes, marketing links and detailed reporting per rep. If you have a sales team, long sales cycles or many leads to follow up, you will feel the limits of an accounting tool quickly.

Does Zoho integrate with QuickBooks? Yes. Zoho CRM can connect to QuickBooks Online through integrations listed on Zoho Marketplace or through middleware such as Zoho Flow, so customers, products, quotes and invoices can pass between the two. Zoho's tightest link is with Zoho Books, but you do not have to switch accounting systems to use Zoho CRM.

Written by Flowpeak, a Zoho implementation partner. Zoho pricing and features change, so confirm current details on the official Zoho site. Free checklists | Ask us a question