Yoley vs QuickBooks

Different tools, different jobs

This isn’t quite an apples-to-apples comparison. QuickBooks is a general-purpose accounting system that a trade business can use. Yoley is a trade-business app that happens to produce clean accounting-ready exports. The question for most tradespeople is: what do I use day-to-day on my phone, and what do I (or my accountant) use at year-end?

For most sole traders, the answer is: Yoley for daily work, an accountant for the year-end. You avoid QuickBooks’ £144–£384/year subscription and you get a workflow built for how you actually work (on site, one-handed, with a receipt in the other hand).

The CIS question

CIS — the Construction Industry Scheme — is where QuickBooks costs you disproportionately. CIS is only included in the Plus tier, which is £32/month. Over a year that’s £384 specifically to unlock a feature that UK builders, electricians and groundworkers need.

Yoley includes CIS deduction handling (20% / 30% / 0% rates), UTR numbers, automatic calculation on subcontractor invoices — on the Free plan. For a main contractor hiring subbies, this is a meaningful win.

Where QuickBooks wins

• Full double-entry accounting. QuickBooks is built for proper accounting with a chart of accounts, profit & loss, balance sheet. Yoley is not an accounting system.
• Direct MTD VAT submissions. If you’re VAT-registered and submitting MTD returns, QuickBooks does it natively. Yoley exports VAT-ready data but doesn’t submit for you.
• Self-assessment submission. At Plus tier, QuickBooks can submit your SA return. Yoley produces SA103-ready exports for your accountant.
• Multi-currency, payroll, multi-user. All stronger in QuickBooks.
• Web + iOS + Android. QuickBooks works on every platform.

Where Yoley wins

• £0 monthly. Free forever, no 30-day trial that switches to a bill.
• CIS included free, not paywalled behind a £32/month tier.
• Quote-to-invoice-to-paid workflow that’s built for iPhone use on site. QuickBooks’ mobile experience is an accounting app in a phone form factor.
• Receipt OCR on-device — no cloud, no monthly cap.
• HMRC SA103 mapping for every expense automatically.
• Card payments at 1.49%. QuickBooks Payments in the UK is typically more expensive for card-present equivalents.
• Tap to Pay on iPhone at 0.99% — QuickBooks does not offer this natively in the UK.
• Face ID, iCloud CloudKit sync, on-device privacy — Yoley is built for how iPhone users actually work.

Running both (what many tradespeople actually do)

A common setup: Yoley for the day-to-day (quotes, invoices, job diary, receipt scanning, card payments, CIS), then once a quarter or at year-end, export your data to CSV and hand it to your accountant — or import it into QuickBooks if you already use it. You save the subscription cost on daily tools and still get proper year-end accounting. For most UK sole traders on iPhone, this hybrid is the optimal setup.

Who should pick which

Pick QuickBooks if…

• You’re VAT-registered and need to submit MTD returns yourself.
• You run payroll, have multi-currency operations, or need double-entry accounting.
• You work primarily on a laptop and the on-site experience doesn’t matter.

Pick Yoley if…

• You’re a UK sole trader or small trade business on iPhone.
• CIS matters to you and you don’t want to pay £32/month to unlock it.
• Your admin needs to happen in the van, not at a desk.
• You use an accountant for year-end anyway.

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