Keep the words you already know: Write Check, Enter Bills, Receive Payment, Reconcile. Drop the per-employee payroll fee. LedgerBarn is bookkeeping, invoicing, and cent-verified payroll for one flat $49 a month, every employee included.
QuickBooks is a fine program. The trouble is the bill, and where Intuit is taking it.
Since October 1, 2024, Intuit no longer sells QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, or Mac Plus to new US subscribers. Existing subscribers can still renew, and Enterprise is still sold at a higher price. Older Desktop years lose payroll and bank feeds on a schedule, and Intuit points Pro and Premier users toward Enterprise or QuickBooks Online.
Desktop Pro Plus and Premier Plus went up twice in 2026, in February and again in October. QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus, and Advanced went up for renewals in August. A subscription renews at whatever the new price is.
QuickBooks payroll is its own subscription: a monthly base fee plus a charge for every person you pay. Hire for the season and the bill grows with the crew. LedgerBarn is one flat price, every employee included.
A business or farm paying 5 people, on QuickBooks Online’s cheapest books-and-payroll bundle, against LedgerBarn.
| 5 employees, books + payroll | QuickBooks Online Simple Start + Payroll | LedgerBarn |
|---|---|---|
| Books and payroll | $88/mo | $49/mo, all of it |
| Per employee ($6.50 × 5) | $32.50/mo | |
| A year | $1,446 | $588 |
That is $858 a year back in the business, and the gap grows with every person you hire.
QuickBooks Desktop’s older payroll plans also charge $5 per direct deposit; LedgerBarn’s direct-deposit (ACH) files are included, and the only fee is whatever your own bank charges to send them. QuickBooks list prices from Intuit’s payroll pricing page, checked October 2026, before the introductory discount. Simple Start is QuickBooks Online’s smallest plan, for one user; Intuit raised its per-employee fees in July 2026, so the real figure may be higher. Prices change, so confirm before you decide.
The left side of the screen is laid out the way QuickBooks organizes its centers, and the buttons use the names you already click every day.
Add Customer, Create Estimate, Create Invoice, Receive Payment, Statements. Every customer’s invoices and payments on one page; A/R Aging under Reports.
Enter Bill, Pay Bills, and Apply Checks to Bills for the checks you already wrote. Vendor history in one click; 1099s flagged for year end.
Add Employee, Run Payroll, Pay Tax Deposits, Payroll Forms. Each payday fills a payroll liabilities account; recording the payment empties it.
Write Check, Make Deposit, Credit Card Charge, Undeposited Funds, Memorized. Match Transactions brings in the bank’s download; Reconcile sits right beside it.
Profit & Loss in QuickBooks’ own bands, with last year beside it. Balance Sheet on cash or accrual, A/R and A/P Aging, General Ledger, Trial Balance, Audit Trail.
Accounts and categories, opening balances, journal entries for the accountant, rules for the bank download, and logins for everyone who works in the books.
QuickBooks keeps books for anybody. LedgerBarn’s Farm Edition keeps them for a farm, and runs the rest of the place too.
Categories map to the lines of the farm tax return, and a Schedule F report adds them up for you or your preparer.
Form 943 for agricultural employers, the agricultural overtime exemption per employee, and the family-employee exemption, all in the cent-verified payroll engine.
The record-keeping H-2A asks for: the three-fourths-guarantee ledger, the AEWR wage-floor check, and the MSPA per-payday earnings statement.
Livestock, stocker lots with cost of gain and closeouts, fields and soil tests, equipment service, all beside the books, with lot purchases and sales posting straight to them.
The first of a month is cleanest. January 1 is cleanest of all, because payroll starts the year at zero.
Each account’s balance off its statement for the day before. The Dashboard keeps a dated checklist from there.
Enter the month in both and compare the month-end Profit & Loss. They print the same way, so differences jump out.
Keep your last QuickBooks backup for your records. From then on the books live in one place.
Want your QuickBooks Desktop history brought across, not just the balances? We do that for you as part of the cutover: write to sales@ledgerbarn.com.
The step-by-step switching guide →Yes, from QuickBooks Desktop. You export your lists and three reports from QuickBooks, and LedgerBarn brings across your chart of accounts, customers, vendors and items, what every account was worth the day you start, and every invoice and bill still open. Each balance is checked against QuickBooks before anything is saved, and you can undo it. Employees are set up fresh under Payroll. Your transaction history is brought across for you as a service: $149, or included when you pay a year up front. Write to sales@ledgerbarn.com.
Yes. The switch is the same either way: pick the day the books start here, enter opening balances from your statements, run both for a month, then turn QuickBooks off.
Yes, and you should. Run both side by side for a month and compare the month-end Profit & Loss. Start by December 31 and it is free through January 31, 2027, with no card.
Yes. Give them their own login. They get the General Ledger, Trial Balance, and Audit Trail, a journal entry window for their adjustments, and a download of every table as spreadsheets whenever they want it.
$49 a month for books and payroll, flat, every employee included. Farms that only want the farm records pay $12. Free through January 31, 2027, no card, cancel anytime.
Federal plus North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Florida, South Dakota and Michigan are set up today. Need another state? Email sales@ledgerbarn.com with the state and we’ll set it up. The books and invoicing work anywhere in the US.
Your books live in their own isolated database with their own encryption key, and they are backed up every night, with the last 14 nights kept. If you leave, it goes with you: an admin can download everything at any time, every table as spreadsheets plus the database itself.
No card, nothing to install. Pick the edition that fits the place you run; keep QuickBooks open until the numbers match.
Just farm records, no books? The $12 Farm Records plan is on the Farm Edition page.