Considering QB?
If you think you are going to install QB and be off and running, well sorry to disillusion you. The PR behind QB makes you think that, but it just ain’t so. Expect a learning curve, a steep learning curve, QB is not easy for first time users, unlike what the advertising says.
If you fish, hunt, mechanic, collect stamps, whatever you do, you had to learn the language of that endeavor. If you think you’ll do accounting and not learn the language you are mistaken, and then on top of that QB adds some words to the QB world of accounting terminology. That is part of the learning curve too.
QB has some bugs and oddities that have been there for ages, and evidently Intuit has no desire to correct them. I can say that with a fair amount of certainty since Intuit folks moderate the forum and see the problems, and yet they still exist.
That said QB is pretty accurate, if, and the key word here is if, you use it as designed. The learning curve includes figuring out what that design is.
If you need any of the following, just forget QB and look into one of its’ competitors. I wish I had the time and inclination to run more than one accounting package side by side so I could make an honest evaluation of which is best. I was going to do that, and then I finally figured out QB as it applies to my business, so now there is no reason. Notice the words “as it applies to my business” that is the key to making QB work for you.
If you need to track lot numbers, serial numbers, expiration dates, specific cost, unique items, FIFO, or LIFO - ignore QB.
If you have a lot of transactions annually with many different customers, vendors, and sub-contractors, and a large inventory - ignore QB.
If you have a strange sales tax set up, with levels or x-amount for this and then x-amount for that - ignore QB
If you need to use volume pricing - ignore QB
If you have to calculate destination based sales tax - consider another package, QB can do it but makes it hard
If you need matrix inventory - ignore QB (clothing stores, shoe stores, tire stores, etc)
If your business rents things - QB can do it, but it is a work around I would suggest looking for a dedicated rental application.
If you need custom reports - you will probably need an add in program, QB is very limited in what you can filter in and out of reports, and the column totals, sub-totals are restricted a lot.
If you need pick lists, work flow reports, multiple warehouse locations - consider another package, QB can do it but not easily, it is a work around.
In the 2008 version QB finally included unit of measure inventory/sales since I do not have 2008 I can’t play with it but from what I see on the forums it is not intuitive at all, and not bullet proof - the competitors have had it for a couple of years.
Someone is going to jump in and say something about third party applications about this point, but see here is the thing, I figure if I am going to pony up several hundred dollars for an accounting program, then the basics of business accounting/file handling should be included in that package, and with QB that just is not so (in some areas). And then someone else will pop up and say there is this work around or that work around for all the things I said that had the ignore QB comment. The point is … should you have to use a work around to do a common business activity?
Common sense tells you that the larger the file is the slower it loads, and at some point it will start to hang. QB has had this problem for years and years and years and has done nothing to fix it (the company file grows with every entry and there is nothing you can do about it). There is a third party application that will create a new company file, carrying forward the balances, but why should you have to buy something extra to do what common sense tells you should be a feature?
And here someone will pop up with something about condensing and cleaning up the company file, those choices are part of the File menu. Sounds good huh? Problem is that when you use them, the file size does not decrease, and in some cases it increases! Even making a portable file, which is supposed to drastically reduce the file size, and then restoring from that file, does not always work to reduce the file size. And then in 2008 the default file size is larger than the default file size in 2006 - logic follows that QB is keeping more information, that means the file size will grow faster than before too.
If you are Canadian, why in the world would you even consider QB when Sage makes Simply Accounting which is tailored for Canadian taxes and business activities. Simply Accounting used to make a US version, I wish they still did cause when I demoed their package I was impressed. So impressed that I was going to buy it even though I had QB installed, that was when I learned that they had discontinued the US version. Sage does make a US competitor, but when I demoed it, for some reason it just did not work as nicely as Simply Accounting. Sage is missing the boat in Canadian marketing in my opinion, they could control market share there if they did some active advertising.
You would think that QB would fix known problems in new versions, but they don’t, and if they do they do not tell you in the new version PR, lot of look pretty stuff does get in there though.
Which version to buy? If you are going to use QB then my suggestion is not to buy anything lower than Premier. I can almost guarantee that at some point you will have a business situation where you want to do something and the lower versions do not do it. Then you are faced with upgrading (which means buying a new software package QB does not do an upgrade at a discount) or finding a work around that is just more work, and work-around’s invite errors.
If you run a payroll I feel sorry for you. QB stops supporting its’ versions after three years (from what I understand) so that means that every three years you have to buy a new version, not an upgrade, but a new version. That makes no sense to me, other than increasing Intuits bottom line of course. I have to admit though that I have no experience with payroll, but it seems to me that you are telling the payroll module what the hours worked/salary is and the payroll application is doing the computations based upon the updated requirements that the payroll module keeps- so why would you need to upgrade? If I hit this snag (needing a payroll) then I will consider an outside payroll service before I get locked into buying software that I don’t need to buy every three years.
And that is another thing to think about, new versions. Make sure you need the aspects of the new version, wait to buy and haunt the forums looking for problems with the new versions before you do buy. Call me cheap or frugal or whatever you want, but want and need are two different things. Make sure the new version has what you need as opposed to what you want.
And for a little more read the page “Hey Intuit!” where I compare Quicken and QuickBooks and their feature sets and wonder why they are different.
