QuickBooks for Billboard Companies: Uses, Limits, Prices (2026)

QuickBooks Online is good at the money side of a billboard company. It sends invoices, bills on a schedule, takes payments and keeps the books. Intuit lists no tools for faces, open dates, holds, leases or contracts. Paid plans list at $38 to $340 a month. A free plan also exists.

Do billboard companies use QuickBooks?

Yes. In June 2024, Billboard Insider asked readers which software they use to run their out-of-home companies. QuickBooks, Apparatix and BillboardPlanet were the top three answers. The article names QuickBooks first. It doesn't give vote counts or the number of respondents.

The same article calls QuickBooks "paid cloud-based accounting and invoicing." Billboard Insider says it uses QuickBooks for its own books and for its related company, Circle City Outdoor. It also notes ChargeOver, a billing tool that links to QuickBooks.

A newer poll looks different. In August 2026, readers chose among billboard-specific tools. Apparatix got 40%. "Something else" got 28%. An Excel spreadsheet got 14%. Billboard Planet got 10% and SignDash got 9%. The article doesn't give the number of respondents. QuickBooks isn't in those results. That fits. QuickBooks is the books, and the others run the billboard side.

What does QuickBooks do well for a billboard company?

QuickBooks does the work every company needs, billboard or not. These are the parts that fit an owner best.

Invoicing and payments

Intuit's invoicing page lists the main tools.

• Recurring invoices. "Set up recurring invoices to auto-send every day, week, month, or year." A board that bills the same advertiser each period fits this.
• Online payments. Simple Start lists card and bank-transfer payments inside the invoice, through QuickBooks Payments.
• Reminders. Automated payment reminders help with late payers.
• Estimates. QuickBooks tracks the total on an estimate, what has been paid and what is still owed.
• Progress invoicing. Plus and Advanced let you accept payments over time. That may help with a deposit and a balance.

The invoicing page doesn't say which plans include recurring invoices or estimates. Check the plan before you buy.

The books

Intuit's accounting page says QuickBooks learns how you sort income and expenses. Bank and card transactions sync in on their own. Reports grow by plan. Simple Start has general business reports. Essentials adds enhanced reports. Plus has comprehensive reports.

Can QuickBooks bill every four weeks?

Out of home is billed in four-week periods, not months. See four-week period. A year has 13 of them, so a four-week bill isn't a monthly bill.

Intuit's invoicing page lists recurring schedules by day, week, month or year. It doesn't name a four-week cycle. Test that your plan can repeat an invoice every four weeks before you move your billing over. If it can't, ask your accountant how to handle it.

Bill pay for landowners

Simple Start and up include bill pay with free ACH. A billboard company pays ground rent to landowners. QuickBooks can pay that bill. Intuit lists no way to keep lease terms, such as the end date. See ground lease.

Classes, locations and projects

Plus allows up to 40 classes and locations, and Advanced allows unlimited. Plus also tracks project profitability. These are tags. You could use one per market or per structure. You could use a project for a big production job. That is our idea, not an Intuit example.

What does QuickBooks not do for a billboard company?

Intuit's feature pages are about money. The pages we read list no tools for the items below.

Why isn't QuickBooks inventory enough?

QuickBooks has an inventory tool. Intuit describes it as a way to "keep track of every product you buy and sell." Stock counts update on their own. Low-stock alerts tell you to reorder. It is on the Plus and Advanced plans.

That fits a store with shelves. It does not fit a face. A face isn't bought and sold. It is rented for set dates, and the same face is open in some weeks and held or booked in others. Intuit's page doesn't list dates, holds or flights. See avails and hold.

How much does QuickBooks Online cost?

Here are the plans on Intuit's pricing page as of October 12, 2026.

The last column is our advice. Intuit lists users and features, not who should buy.

What each plan adds, per Intuit:

• Free. Tracks income and expenses, allows 2 invoices a month, shows the top 3 reports and connects 1 bank.
• Simple Start. Adds general reports, automated bookkeeping, invoicing with payments and bill pay with free ACH.
• Essentials. Adds enhanced reports, employee time on invoices and bulk invoice creation (beta).
• Plus. Adds budget planning, project profitability, inventory tracking, and classes and locations.
• Advanced. Adds custom dashboards, unlimited classes and locations, batch invoices, automated workflows, Excel sync, user permissions and priority support.

Intuit's page shows "50% off for 3 months" on each paid plan. The text we could read didn't give the price after the offer or the offer's end date. It says there is no annual contract, and you can cancel anytime. A 30-day free trial is listed too.

How do billboard companies pair QuickBooks with billboard software?

The clean split is this. QuickBooks owns the money. Billboard software owns the faces. Each job has one home.

Do not enter an invoice twice. If your billboard tool sends invoices to QuickBooks, let it. Then your team does not retype a rate in two places.

What does the flow look like?

Here is one sale from start to finish. The names are made up. Riverbend Outdoor in Jackson, Tennessee, sells face B-114 N to Hollis Family Dental.

1. A rep checks that B-114 N is open for the dates, in the billboard system or sheet.
2. The rep places a hold, so no one else quotes the face.
3. Hollis accepts the proposal, and the contract books the face.
4. The invoice goes out from QuickBooks, or from the billboard tool into QuickBooks.
5. A recurring invoice repeats it for the length of the flight.
6. The payment lands, and the books match the bank.
7. Rent for the ground under B-114 N is paid through bill pay.

Steps 1 to 3 never touch QuickBooks. Steps 4 to 7 never touch the billboard system, unless a link joins them.

Which billboard tools say they link to QuickBooks?

None of the sources say which records move, or in which direction. Apparatix's homepage, as we read it, doesn't mention QuickBooks. SignDash's 2024 interview says the two systems are "talking to one another" and nothing more. See our SignDash review and Apparatix review.

What should you ask a vendor about QuickBooks?

1. Is the link to QuickBooks Online, Desktop or both?
2. Which records move: customers, invoices, payments?
3. Does data move one way or both ways?
4. Which system creates the invoice?
5. What happens if an invoice is edited in QuickBooks?
6. Does the link cost extra?

How should you set up QuickBooks for a billboard company?

These are ideas to take to your accountant, not rules.

• Make one customer for each advertiser.
• Keep rental income and production income apart, so you can see each one.
• Use a class or location per market, if your plan allows it.
• Keep ground rent in its own expense account.
• Keep a deposit separate from the rest of the month's bill.

Keep the open-date calendar somewhere else. A spreadsheet works at first.

When do you outgrow QuickBooks and a spreadsheet?

Look for these signs.

• A rep asks if a face is held, and nobody knows.
• Two advertisers get promised the same face.
• A renewal slips by.
• You have empty faces and no one working on them.
• You have more than one sales rep.

OAAA runs a Tech Locator of vendors for out-of-home. Its categories include content management, CRM and marketplaces. Accounting and inventory aren't categories there. That fits the split. QuickBooks sits outside the OOH tools. See our guide to billboard management software and our list of best billboard software.

Questions people ask

Can a billboard company run on QuickBooks alone?

For the books, yes. For selling, no. QuickBooks handles invoices, payments and reports. Intuit's pages list nothing for open dates, holds, leases or faces. Most owners add a spreadsheet or billboard software for those.

Can QuickBooks track billboard inventory?

Not faces. Intuit's inventory tool is for products you buy and sell, with stock counts and low-stock alerts. It is on the Plus and Advanced plans. A face has open dates and holds, which that tool doesn't track.

How much does QuickBooks Online cost?

Intuit's pricing page lists Simple Start at $38 a month, Essentials at $85, Plus at $140 and Advanced at $340. It shows 50% off for 3 months on each paid plan. There is also a free plan.

Can QuickBooks bill an advertiser every month?

Yes. Intuit says you can set up recurring invoices that send every day, week, month or year. Its invoicing page doesn't say which plans include them, so check before you buy.

Which billboard software connects to QuickBooks?

SignDash added a QuickBooks Online link in 2024. Apparatix described a QuickBooks link in 2016. DOmedia's platform page lists Intuit QuickBooks. Each source gives few details, so ask what moves.

Do I need billboard software if I have QuickBooks?

You do when open dates, holds and renewals get hard to track by hand. QuickBooks can't tell a rep which face is free. A spreadsheet can, until the team grows.

Sources

1. 01QuickBooks Online pricing · Intuit · accessed Oct 12, 2026
2. 02QuickBooks invoicing · Intuit · accessed Oct 12, 2026
3. 03QuickBooks Online accounting software · Intuit · accessed Oct 12, 2026
4. 04QuickBooks inventory management · Intuit · accessed Oct 12, 2026
5. 05Quickbooks, Apparatix and BillboardPlanet are Most Used OOH Software Tools (June 17, 2024) · Billboard Insider · accessed Oct 12, 2026
6. 06Billboard Insider billboard software poll results (Aug. 11, 2026) · Billboard Insider · accessed Oct 12, 2026
7. 07Tracey Hess on What's New at SignDash (Sept. 25, 2024) · Billboard Insider · accessed Oct 12, 2026
8. 08Apparatix: Providing Billboard Solutions (Apr. 8, 2016) · Billboard Insider · accessed Oct 12, 2026
9. 09DOmedia platform · DOmedia · accessed Oct 12, 2026
10. 10For media sellers · DOmedia · accessed Oct 12, 2026
11. 11Watchfire Unveils Ignite OAx Business Management Software for Static and Digital Billboard Operators (Sept. 21, 2016) · Billboard Insider · accessed Oct 12, 2026
12. 12Tech Locator · OAAA · accessed Oct 12, 2026

Gabie Research

Billboard operations and sales research

The Gabie team studies how billboard companies price, sell and run their boards. Every number we publish links to its source.

Published Oct 12, 2026 · Updated Oct 12, 2026 · How we check facts