Every booking, ticket, course and membership is income the day it is paid. Bank feeds match themselves to invoices, receipts are read for you, and profit shows per retreat and per offer. Add a personal set of books only you can see. Bookkeeping is included in ColibriOS Pro, not a separate subscription.
QuickBooks Online is accounting software: bank feeds, categorized expenses, invoices, reports, and on higher plans bills, contractors, inventory and budgets, for any kind of business.
| Feature | ColibriOS | QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 booking and scheduling | Yes. Booking with intake forms, waivers and payments | No. Appointment booking is not part of the product; the customer list is for invoicing |
| Group sessions, workshops and events | Yes. Group sessions, workshops, retreats and events with ticketing and check-in | No. Event registration, tickets or classes are not listed |
| Capacity and waitlists | Yes. Capacity, automatic waitlists and door check-in | No. Not part of an accounting product; not listed |
| Memberships and class packs | Yes. Recurring memberships, class packs and member pricing | Partly. Recurring invoices bill on a schedule; member access, portals or content are not listed |
| Online courses | Yes. Courses with enrollment, student payments and portals | No. Course or digital product delivery is not listed |
| Website on your own domain | Yes. Editable website on your own custom domain | No. A website builder is not listed |
| CRM and email marketing | Yes. Full CRM, email campaigns, funnels and texting | Partly. Customer records, invoice emails and reminders; newsletters or campaigns to a list are not listed |
| Bookkeeping, organized by Schedule C category | Yes. Income tracked as it happens, expenses sorted into Schedule C categories, year-end report | Yes. Bank feeds, categorization, invoices, expenses and the full set of accounting reports on every paid plan |
| Bank connection, transactions imported | Yes. Live bank feed through Plaid, or import statements | Yes. Bank and credit card connections with automatic transaction import |
| Receipt capture, read into an expense | Yes. Snap or upload a receipt and Colibri reads the vendor, date and total | Yes. Snap or upload a receipt, or email it in; QuickBooks extracts the details and creates a transaction to review |
| Profit per event, class or offer | Yes. Profit by gathering and by offer: paid invoices in, expenses, staff fees and mileage out | Partly. Track project profitability is on Plus and above; a project is set up by hand, not tied to a class or event you sell |
| Personal finances alongside the business | Yes. A personal set of books only the owner can open: budgets, net worth, subscriptions and goals | No. Their help says check and credit card accounts should be business-only accounts; personal finance is not a feature |
| Published pricing | Yes. Free plan, then ColibriOS Pro at $129 a month, on the pricing page | Yes. All five plans are priced on the page |
| Contract required | No. Month to month | No. Monthly billing; no contract term is stated |
| Cancel yourself, online | Yes. Settings, then Billing | Not stated. Cancellation is not described on the pricing page |
QuickBooks Online details checked August 2026 on QuickBooks Online's own pages. Their plans change; if you see something out of date, tell us at hello@colibrios.com. Everything in the ColibriOS column is part of ColibriOS Pro.
Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
Published on the pricing page. Free until Cyber Monday, November 30, no card. Month to month, cancel yourself in Settings.
Five published plans from free to $275 a month at regular price (the page leads with a limited-time discount); payroll and payments are separate; no contract, month to month.
Source: QuickBooks Online's pricing page, checked August 2026A comparison that says we win every row is not one you should trust. Here is where QuickBooks Online genuinely does more.
Every paid plan includes accountant access, and most bookkeepers and CPAs work in QuickBooks daily. ColibriOS has a read-only accountant seat and exports CSV and PDF reports, including a QuickBooks-format journal, but it is not where most accountants work.
Source, checked August 2026Essentials tracks and pays bills, Plus adds inventory and budgets, and payroll is an add-on. ColibriOS tracks what you spend and what you earn; it does not pay bills, run payroll or count stock beyond a product's quantity.
Source, checked August 2026If bookkeeping is the only thing you need, QuickBooks Free or Simple Start costs far less than ColibriOS Pro. ColibriOS is the better price only when it also replaces your booking, course, email and website tools.
Source, checked August 2026QuickBooks needs to be told about a sale. ColibriOS is where the sale happens: the discovery-call package, the retreat deposit, the course, the membership renewal. Each payment lands in the books with its client, its offer and its gathering already attached, the moment Stripe confirms it. Invoices, estimates and recurring invoices go out from the same place with a pay page that takes cards, Zelle, Venmo or cash.
Connect your bank and transactions arrive already sorted: a merchant rule you set, then the bank's own category, then your correction, which becomes a rule. A deposit that matches an invoice or a payment is matched for you, with a one-click confirm for the confident ones. A single charge can be split across categories, gatherings, or between the business and you. You can also import CSV, OFX or PDF statements.
Snap a receipt from your phone or drag one onto an expense. Colibri reads the vendor, date, total and tax and offers the expense pre-filled. Receipts stay attached to the expense and the bank line they belong to, so the year-end folder builds itself.
Profit and loss by month. Profit by gathering, with the venue, the facilitator fees and the mileage against the tickets. Schedule C by line number. A quarterly estimated-tax card with the next due date and a rough estimate from your books, and an email two weeks before it. Vendors fill in from your expenses, and the contractors report adds up who crossed the 1099 line. Everything exports to CSV and PDF for your accountant.
Tag an account or a transaction as personal and it moves to a set of books only the workspace owner can open. Owner draws and contributions show up in cash flow instead of as mystery transfers. QuickBooks is business only; Intuit sells personal finance as a separate product.
It does not pay bills, run payroll, count inventory beyond a product's stock or file taxes. If those are the reasons you pay for QuickBooks, keep it, and connect it to nothing: ColibriOS can still be the place your income is earned, and the bank feed will show the rest. Comparing other ledgers? See how Xero and FreshBooks line up.
Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
It is a business platform with bookkeeping built in, not double-entry accounting software. Income, expenses, bank feeds, receipts, mileage, profit and loss, Schedule C and estimated tax are all here. A balance sheet, journal entries, bills and payroll are not. Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
For income and expense tracking, yes: what you sell is earned inside ColibriOS, the bank feed fills in what you spend, and the year-end report gives your accountant income, expenses and mileage by Schedule C category. If you need a general ledger, a balance sheet, employees, inventory or a stack of supplier bills, QuickBooks still earns its place.
Yes, with a read-only accountant seat: they see the reports and the receipts and can export everything, and they cannot edit or spend. The year-end pack bundles profit and loss, Schedule C by line, expenses by category with receipts noted, mileage, the contractors list and a journal in QuickBooks CSV format.
QuickBooks Online runs $0 to $275 a month at regular price. ColibriOS Pro is $129 a month and includes the books alongside booking, invoices, courses, your website, email and text campaigns, bank connections and receipt reading. If bookkeeping is all you need, QuickBooks Simple Start at $38 is cheaper. If you also pay for a booking tool, a course platform, a newsletter tool and a website, ColibriOS Pro usually costs less than the stack.
Yes, through Plaid, with two-factor sign-in required. Transactions sync on their own, arrive pre-categorized, and are matched to invoices and payments. You can also import statements as CSV, OFX or PDF, with duplicates skipped.
It adds them up. Mark a vendor as a contractor, record the W-9 date, and the contractors report shows the calendar-year total for each one and each staff member's fees, flagging anyone at $600 or more. It does not file the 1099 forms.
Tag any account or transaction as personal and it moves into a separate set of books only the workspace owner can see, with its own report. Budgets, net worth, recurring-subscription detection and savings goals run on the personal side too.
Export your bank transactions from QuickBooks as CSV and import them, with the categories mapped once and remembered. Export your customer list and import it as contacts. Connect your bank going forward, and keep QuickBooks read-only until your accountant has closed the year.
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