Here, five new donor-$\pi$-acceptor-$\pi$-donor (D-$\pi$-A-$\pi$-D) type conjugated acceptors have been designed by incorporating quinacridone as the donor unit, thiophene as the common $\pi$-bridging unit, and five central acceptor units. To investigate the influence of various central acceptor units on the geometric, electrical, optical, charge transport and photovoltaic properties of the designed acceptor molecules, density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) methods have been employed. The findings (frontier molecular orbital analysis and various key parameters viz. bond length alteration parameter, charge transfer rate, power conversion efficiency etc.) affirm that increasing the electron-withdrawing nature of the central acceptor units improve the performance of the designed acceptor molecules. The observed reorganization energy ($\lambda$) values infer the electron accepting nature of the investigated compounds. Moreover, the absorption properties manifest that compounds C2 and C4 have the highest $\lambda_$ values. The properties of the D/A blends also suggest that complexes A1/C2 and A1/C4 can facilitate charge carrier separation at the D/A active layer. Furthermore, the photovoltaic performance of the D/A complexes also reveal that complex A1/C2, with a theoretical PCE of 30.33\%, can be considered as the most promising candidate for application in OSCs.

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