In QuickBooks Online, a purchase order does nothing to your books until it becomes a bill. While that may work for a small business, for a city it means the money you’ve already committed to a vendor still looks available.
More offices are running into that gap now. QuickBooks Desktop 2023 lost Intuit support on May 31, 2026, which ended payroll updates, online bank feeds, and security patches [1], and many who had held onto the older system to avoid switching costs are now eyeing QuickBooks Online as a path forward. In this article, we compare it with fund accounting software built specifically for local government, using Intuit's own help pages, state auditor and comptroller guidance, and accounts from people who work in each system.
Our verdict: for a small- to mid-size community with several restricted funds, a utility, or grants to report on, fund accounting software such as gWorks Financials is the stronger choice. QuickBooks Online holds up only in the smallest offices, with one or two funds and a CPA familiar with government reporting.
QuickBooks Online vs. Fund Accounting Software at a Glance
Here’s how QuickBooks Online and gWorks Financials compare on the work a municipal finance office carries out each month.
Where QuickBooks Online Falls Short for City Finances
A fund is a self-balancing set of accounts, kept apart to carry out a specific activity under specific restrictions [6]. Your general fund, water fund, and road fund each have to balance on their own. QuickBooks Online falls short of this in two ways: it doesn't keep funds truly separate, and it doesn't set aside a budget when you commit to a purchase.
The first gap is how funds are kept apart. QuickBooks Online keeps one set of books for the whole organization. To track funds, Intuit's instructions have you turn on a feature called Class Tracking, create a class for each fund, and add a bank sub-account for each one [2]. Every transaction gets tagged with a fund, and a report can then show income and spending by fund. Because a tag is a label, not a separate set of accounts, a fund's balance is something you report on, not something that balances by itself. One Illinois-based CPA firm that serves townships uses QuickBooks's location tags for the same job, and says the result is less foolproof than the desktop edition [3].
Intuit's own help article on tracking funds points cities somewhere else. It cites GASB 34 asset rules and suggests a desktop edition of QuickBooks for municipalities instead of QuickBooks Online [2]. That edition is part of Premier Plus, which Intuit stopped selling to new subscribers on September 30, 2024 [1][7].
The second gap is committed spending. When a city issues a purchase order, that amount is set aside against the approved budget so the same dollars can't be committed twice. The New York State Comptroller's manual explains that this step acts as a guardrail against liabilities that exceed approved appropriations [8]. Unfortunately, QuickBooks Online doesn't do this: a purchase order there leaves the books untouched until it becomes a bill [4], so commitments end up in a spreadsheet beside the ledger.
What Month-End Looks Like in Each System
In QuickBooks Online, utility billing runs in a separate system [12], payroll is a separate subscription [11], and committed spending often lives in a spreadsheet, so month-end often means pulling those pieces together by hand. gWorks Financials keeps the general ledger, utility billing, and payroll in one system, and each billing run posts to the ledger without re-entry.
gWorks clients report that tasks which used to take hours now take minutes. Adams Village, Nebraska, a community of about 600 residents, says bank reconciliation dropped from about three hours to 45 minutes [5]. A utility billing clerk in Linn County, Iowa says “we wish we hadn’t waited so long [to switch].” Villages that once shipped five or six boxes of paper records to their auditors now send them digitally [5]. In a small office with one part-time clerk, those hours decide whether she gets home on time.
When QuickBooks Online Is Enough
Not every office needs fund accounting software. A very small entity with one or two funds, no utility billing, and a CPA who knows government reporting can run on QuickBooks Online. In that situation, the class tags and bank sub-accounts in Intuit's setup instructions can be enough to keep each fund's activity visible [2]. A quick test: if one person can keep every fund straight and your auditor asks for little beyond a report for each fund, QuickBooks Online is doing its job.
The strain starts with a third fund, a utility, a grant, or an auditor's follow-up questions. Each one adds a workaround, and workarounds tend to live in one person's head. That might hold until that one person retires, takes another job, or has to train a new hire, and whoever inherits the books gets a patched-together system that was never officially codified.
What Switching Takes
Cost is where most replatforming conversations begin, and setup for a new system can look daunting next to the monthly price of a QuickBooks subscription. The fairer comparison adds up what the current setup already costs: staff hours each month, spreadsheet errors, and audit findings. Shoring up those issues often pays off significantly, even in the short term.
Disruption is the other concern. Payroll can’t run late, and utility bills have to go out no matter what. The good news is that gWorks moves your historical records from your current system and handles setup, and clients are typically fully operational in about 60 to 90 days. Your team supplies records and goes through training, which includes more than 30 self-paced courses on topics like fund accounting, reconciliation, and year-end.
Size is rarely the obstacle. gWorks has worked in local government since 1978 and serves more than 2,000 local governments across 48 states [9]. Most of its clients have fewer than 25,000 residents, and the smallest has fewer than 100 [5].
Frequently Asked Questions
Is QuickBooks Online GASB compliant?
QuickBooks Online isn’t built around government reporting standards. Intuit's own help article points cities with GASB 34 requirements to a desktop edition instead [2]. gWorks Financials sets up the chart of accounts according to your state's requirements before go-live.
Do we have to leave QuickBooks Desktop 2024 right away?
Not because of a support deadline. Intuit's most recent guidance says Desktop 2024 will no longer be discontinued in May 2027 as originally planned and has no sunset deadline [10]. Because that decision has already changed once, the question is whether that platform (and any workarounds) will still hold by the time the next fund, grant, or audit request arrives.
Can gWorks bring over our QuickBooks history?
Yes. gWorks transfers historical records from your current system as part of setup using your team-provided data.
gWorks Financials: The Answer for Small- and Mid-Sized Communities
QuickBooks Online works for a business, but a city with restricted funds, committed budgets, and an auditor needs software made for that work. If you’re looking to make the switch, a quick demo of gWorks Financials can walk you through how your own funds, budgets, and utility accounts would be set up.
Request a Demo of gWorks Financials
Sources
- Intuit. QuickBooks Desktop 2023 service discontinuation policy
- Intuit. Fund accounting for non-profits in QuickBooks (updated August 5, 2026)
- Redman CPA. Which QuickBooks for Your Township, Village, or Other Local Government Unit (2019, updated 2021)
- Intuit Community. Purchase Orders (Auto Numbering), Intuit QuickBooks Team response (September 30, 2024)
- Wedoany. Adams Village Launches gWorks Cloud Platform, Bank Reconciliation Reduced to 45 Minutes (June 15, 2026)
- Washington State Auditor. Fund Accounting and Fund Types
- Intuit. QuickBooks Desktop to Stop Selling to New U.S. Subscribers
- New York State Comptroller. Accounting and Reporting Manual for Counties, Cities, Towns, Villages, Libraries (Chapter 7, Budgeting)
- PR Newswire. gWorks Named to GovTech 100 for Sixth Consecutive Year (February 24, 2026)
- Intuit. What's new in QuickBooks Desktop 2024 (updated September 18, 2026)
- Intuit. QuickBooks Payroll
- SourceForge. Utility Billing Software That Integrates with QuickBooks Online