Built for freelancers.You're running a factory, however small.
QuickBooks Self-Employed does one thing well: separating business and personal spending for a sole trader with no stock. The moment you buy materials and turn them into products, it runs out — there's no inventory, no cost of goods sold, and no way to know what a batch cost you.
Worth knowing first: QuickBooks Self-Employed has been closed to new customers since early 2024 and Intuit now directs new sign-ups to QuickBooks Solopreneur. Existing subscribers can keep going or migrate across, but the product isn't receiving new features. If you're choosing software now, you're really choosing between Solopreneur, QuickBooks Online, and something built for inventory — so it's worth understanding what each actually covers.
Where it stops for a product business
This isn't a criticism of the software. It's a category mismatch — Self-Employed was designed for people who sell their time.
No inventory, at all
Not limited inventory — none. There's no concept of stock on hand, so nothing tells you what materials you're holding, what finished product is on the shelf, or when you're about to run out mid-order.
Materials get expensed on the day you buy them
This is the one that quietly distorts everything. Buy $3,000 of wax in March and Self-Employed treats it as a March expense. But you'll turn it into product across the next six months, and the cost belongs against those sales. Your March looks terrible, your July looks great, and neither is true.
No cost of goods sold
Without inventory there's no COGS, and without COGS there's no gross margin. You can see revenue and you can see spending, but you can't see the number that tells you whether the thing you sell most of is actually making money.
Schedule C gets awkward
Self-Employed is built around Schedule C, but a product business has to report inventory and cost of goods sold on it. If your books never tracked either, working out closing inventory at tax time becomes a reconstruction exercise from a year of receipts.
Self-Employed, QuickBooks Online, and Stocksmith
The three you're most likely weighing, and what each covers for a business that makes things.
QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks Online
Stocksmith
Status
Closed to new customers
Current
From $20/mo
Income & expense tracking
✓
✓
— Not an accounting tool
Bank feeds & mileage
✓
✓
—
Invoicing & tax filing exports
Basic
✓
—
Stock on hand
—
Finished goods, higher tiers
✓ Materials and products
Raw materials
—
—
✓
Bills of materials / recipes
—
—
✓ Multi-level
Batch / production records
—
—
✓
Cost per unit & COGS
—
Manual
✓ Weighted average, automatic
Sales channel sync
—
Via apps
✓ Studio and above
Works alongside the others
—
✓
✓ QuickBooks integration
QuickBooks product availability reflects Intuit's published guidance as of August 2026. Intuit and QuickBooks are registered trademarks of Intuit Inc.
You probably don't have to choose
The common setup for a product business is one of each, not one instead of the other.
QuickBooks Online handles the books
• Bank feeds and reconciliation
• Invoicing and payments
• Sales tax
• Filing and your accountant's reports
Stocksmith handles what you make
✓ Materials and finished stock
✓ Recipes, batches and production
✓ Cost per unit and margins
✓ COGS and inventory valuation for tax time
Upgrading from Self-Employed to QuickBooks Online? That's the more common move, and there's a fuller comparison of where QuickBooks stops for manufacturers.
Material costs land against the sale, not the purchase
Materials sit as inventory until you use them, then flow into the cost of the batch you made and out again as COGS when the product sells. Your monthly numbers stop swinging on when you happened to restock, and start reflecting what you actually sold.
Inventory valuationtoday
Raw materials$14,820
Work in progress$3,240
Finished goods$21,510
Total stock on hand$39,570
COGS, last 30 days$11,940
Reports ready for tax time — no reconstruction
The margin question, answered per product
Once every product has a real cost built from its recipe, you can see which lines earn and which quietly don't. It's the most common surprise for businesses coming off a freelancer accounting tool — the bestseller and the profitable product are frequently not the same thing.
Material price up? Your margin recalculates instantly
When Self-Employed or Solopreneur is enough
Not everyone reading this needs inventory software.
You sell services, not products
Consulting, design, teaching, photography. No materials, no stock, no COGS. Intuit's solo products are built exactly for this and we'd add nothing.
Products are a small side line
If you sell a handful of items a month alongside service work, tracking inventory properly may cost more attention than it returns. Revisit it when stock starts tying up real money.
You need the accounting itself
Stocksmith is not accounting software. It doesn't do bank feeds, invoicing or tax filing, and it isn't trying to. You'll still want QuickBooks or an equivalent alongside it.
You buy and resell finished goods
If nothing is manufactured, QuickBooks Online's own inventory on the higher tiers may be sufficient without a second system.
Stocksmith connects everywhere you sell
Import orders automatically and sync stock levels across all your channels — so you never oversell or run out of stock.
It's been closed to new customers since early 2024, with new sign-ups directed to QuickBooks Solopreneur, and Intuit isn't adding features to it. Existing subscribers can continue or migrate their data across to Solopreneur. Intuit has indicated Self-Employed will eventually be retired, so if you're on it, treat the move as a matter of timing rather than choice.
Does QuickBooks Self-Employed track inventory?
No. There's no inventory feature — not a limited one, none. Material purchases are recorded as expenses on the date you buy them, which means no stock on hand, no cost of goods sold and no gross margin. For a business that makes physical products, that's the core reporting gap.
Should I move to Solopreneur or QuickBooks Online?
If you make and sell products, QuickBooks Online is the more useful destination — Solopreneur inherits Self-Employed's solo-trader framing and the same inventory gap. QuickBooks Online gives you proper double-entry books, a real chart of accounts and somewhere for COGS to live. Pair it with a system that produces those inventory figures, and the two together cover the job. Our QuickBooks for manufacturing comparison goes into where QuickBooks itself stops.
Does Stocksmith replace QuickBooks?
No, and it isn't meant to. Stocksmith doesn't do bank feeds, invoicing, payroll or tax filing. It handles materials, recipes, production and costing, then hands the resulting COGS and inventory valuation figures to your accounting system. Most of our customers run QuickBooks Online alongside Stocksmith rather than choosing between them.
How do I report inventory on Schedule C if I never tracked it?
You'll need a closing inventory figure and a cost of goods sold figure, and if your books only ever held expenses, both have to be reconstructed — usually by counting what's physically on hand and valuing it from purchase invoices. It's tedious but doable once. The reason to start tracking now is that next year's is then already done, and the year after that. Talk to your accountant about the method before you start; we're not able to give tax advice.
How much does Stocksmith cost?
From $20/mo billed annually on Pro, which connects one sales channel — a sensible starting point if you're coming off a solo accounting tool. $41/mo on Studio adds unlimited sales channels, and $83/mo on Indie adds batch and lot tracking, traceability reports and unlimited users. 14 days free, no card needed.
Find out what your products actually cost
14 days free, no credit card. Enter one recipe and see the cost per unit — for most people coming off a solo accounting tool, it's the first time they've seen that number properly.
