Rating: 
Summary: Abysmal Support Policies
Review: I have used older versions with some success.When reviewing the Intuit offerings on their WWW site, I reviewed their support policies. Their support policies are unacceptable to me. a. Their "free" support essentially covers installation and confirmation of known problems. They advise, If you call they require your credit card info first and then the "technician" will determine if the call is covered under their free support policies. Their policy should be insulting to any thoughtful person. b. Their 12 month pay support option for QuickBook Premier cost more than the product. c. They claim to support their message board (Their claim is in writing in the board display area) ... yet a cursory look at the pleas for help on the board shows posts that exist for weeks/months with no response. Microsoft will eat Intuit alive should MS decide to pursue development of Money to a full feature accounting/inventory system. Avoid Intuit Products / Policies ... especially Quickbooks! I'm off to explore other software options ...
Rating:
Summary: Software getting worst
Review: As a user of Quickbooks for seven years, I found that each newer versions of Quickbooks worst than the previous versions. If you download the update patches, it converts your data file so that it is no longer compatible with your accountant's version unless he install the patches also. If you upgrade to a newer version and find that it is not to your liking, you can't go back to an older version because Quickbooks converted your data files. The Tax Table updates are short of robbery. I am locked in with Quickbooks for now, but is looking for a different product.
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Summary: User Friendly - Absolutely Not. Look at SIMPLY ACCOUNTING
Review: I wish I had evaluated Simply Accounting, PC Magazine's choice, prior to purchasing Quickbooks. It's only $40.00 and you can get a free demo over the internet to evaluate. Quickbooks can probably handle any transaction or any expense, in any manner you choose. The developers have clearly designed Quickbooks to accomodate any possible way you might do business, and for a wide variety of businesses. Now that sounds very positive yet you do NOT want to buy this software. Why - it seems no one at Quicken ever thought about day to day use. You can, given some effort, find a way to record sales and expenses the way you want. But its highly unlikely you can record any of that information in a user- friendly or intuitive manner - highly unlikely!!!!! For example: I had a number of items I wanted to add to my Quickbooks inventory of products to be sold. For sixty items - all from the same supplier, all very similar, I was forced to key in every piece of data and make a number of repetitive selections about how to handle them. Even routine paste and copy doesn't work within Quicken, easily. Not only doesn't Quicken easily allow pasting, it doesn't remember a thing you did previously. It was clear no one in the Quicken design team had ever tried entering 60 items into an inventory. In fact, I don't think you could make that simple task more difficult or less intuitive to do than what Quicken has created in this software. Another example of bad design: my business does phone and internet sales. Quicken provides/recommends a form for such sales. On that form you can put in buyers name, address, (no email/phone though), and the items purchased. That sounds OK - perhaps less than perfect but things get worse. Processing the credit card is disastorous! There are no provided fields for credit card or expiration date. I even subscribed to Quicken's merchant services (meaning credit card processing service). When you are ready to process the order you click "process credit card" (a Quicken exclusive for 2003) and you have a new screen with the amount of the sale entered for you from the preceding form but (if you can believe this) the fields are blank for the name/address of the purchaser you just filled out in the previous screen. So now you but you have no choice but to ask the customer for that information all over again. And NO ------ you can't start with the credit card screen first nor can you see the first screen. Now, what is even worse ------ is once the order is processed you have NO record of the credit card number used!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I find it impossible to believe that Quicken ever, even for a single minute, tried to see if this was a useable solution for those of us who sell a product and take credit card payments in full at the time of sale. To get around this ------- I write out everything long hand on a piece of paper, file a hard copy and then enter it in Quicken!!!!!! Uselsess software!!! Quicken also provides only paid support - so good luck with problems and I really doubt Quicken wants to know about problems. Their sole focus seems to be on selling you additional services. Also, be aware, every aspect of the program is laden with features that are really advertisements for additional Quicken services that will probably work poorly but you can never turn them off, even if you purchase them. The links within the program remain displayed. I wish I had evaluated Simply Accounting, PC Magazines choice, prior to purchasing Quickbooks. It's only $40.00 and you can get a free demo over the internet. I don't know if it is better but it would be hard for it to be worse than Quickbooks and at least you can try it out for free. The fact that there is NO SUPPORT without a fee keeps Quicken insulated from customer problems and this alone, given what little feedback they get, may explain such a poorly designed product. Hear no evil should be Quicken's motto. UPDATE: December 2003 Untuit had an online survey of some of its customers during November 2003 which I participated in. As can be imagined, my comments were not overally kind. To my surprise, I was contacted by Intuit, weeks later for an in depth interview over the phone. I was contacted by a "director" of the corporation who spoke with me for over an hour and a half concerning my complaints. Yet I was offered no solutions other than a call back from a product specialist which I received at the day and time promised. What is interesting is that in both cases I talked with very personable, intelligent individuals. Yet every issue I raised regarding the lack of user friendliness in the Product was or could not be addressed. In the end, I concluded my final conversation with Intuit (via the product specialist) with the remarks that I had talked with two Intuit representatives that where both clearly intelligent, motivated, and personable. Yet at the same time I was an unpaid "beta" tester of a product that was clearly not user friendly, at least in my case.
Rating: 
Summary: User Friendly = YES!! Scalable with your business = NO!!
Review: I have the strange task of developing a piece of software that integrates into Quickbooks. I had also worked with Quickbooks for over 2 years on a daily basis as a bookkeeper. Quickbooks certainly is not going to last in the marketplace, unless they revise the whole data engine. They have some strange proprietary server that only allows x number of connections. The worst part being, transfering data from any computer other than the one where the file resides, means you can go make a pot of coffee while you wait to find a transaction. So.. the core of the software itself is outdated--as was mentioned--it roots from a simpler time when the software was made for the small business user who had only ONE computer. And at that time, it was probably the best package available, and because of that, more accountants know how to use Quickbooks than any other package. Unfortunately, times have changed, and almost every business has a small network of computers. Quickbooks simply does not work well over networks. At first, you will think I am nuts, but just wait until you have about 3 years of data. Anyway, its still very user-friendly, but Intuit needs to overhaul the core. It's too slow for daily business activities.
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Summary: Lacking Compatibility Mac/Windows
Review: If most other windows applications can be made cross platform by using a C compliler then why is Quickbooks neglecting to keep their windows version and mac version fully compatible with one another and have identical features? Quickbooks could be great but they suffer from windows arrogance. Having developers on the mac side would dramatically improve their user interface since Mac sets the standard that windows has always copied and rather poorly I might add. Check out the new G5 64 bit Macs. They run faster, cooler and quieter than any wintel box I have ever had. I work with Apple and Intel. I expect my software to do the same. Microsoft is smart enough to do so. Why is Intuit so blind?
Rating: 
Summary: I like it.....so what!
Review: I have been using Quickbooks for almost 7 years. I bought my first copy in 1996. Every two years or so I upgrade. Now I have the 2003 edition and the same quality I have come to expect from Q books was right there. This is a very intuitive piece of software and I was not disappointed. Any gripes that are not about the software but about the Intuit corporation are inappropriate and detract from such an innovative piece of code.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of money.
Review: I tried QuickBooks Pro 2003, and it is very hard to work with. I have a good knowledge of accounting and finance, but unfortunately my accounting background did not help. Waste of money.
I have to look for something else. Also, it performs very poor in a multi-user environment. thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: Reality and QuickBooks
Review: I'm a CPA and QuickBooks advisor, and I like QuickBooks. My clients like QuickBooks, too. I got it when it came out in 1991 and have used it ever since. I make my living working with QuickBooks, but I am trying here to be objective and tell you what I have learned over the years. I find that it is stressful for users to get used to QB and adapt to it. Even people who have wide computer use experience can have trouble, despite, or perhaps because of, that experience. You need to be patient and determined. I do fault Intuit for implying that it is easy to pick up. Furthermore, accounting is not a trivial subject that you can pick up in a couple of weeks or months. If you are not an experienced bookkeeper or accountant, you will have a learning curve with QuickBooks. Having said that, however, I did work with a Spanish-speaking immigrant who is an electrical contractor, and in spite of the language barrier and his lack of experience, he caught on and after a couple of months was (and still is) using it happily. If you have no accounting background, you will probaby need help with QuickBooks, and help will reduce your frustration level significantly. I have clients who use the QuickBooks merchant service and QuickBooks credit cards, and they are very happy with them. I recommend them if you have high volume. But I also have clients who use just the basic software, no payroll, no merchant or credit card service, and their volume is small enough that they are also pleased. If you have no more than 5 employees you can easily do payroll without the payroll service, and even in 2003 you are not forced to subscribe to the payroll tables. No one can afford to give away our services if we are to stay in business. And neither can Intuit. Consider all the costs involved in running a large call center. Why should those who don't need the support pay for it (as would be the case if support were "free"--included in the purchase price)? For those who are willing to take a bit longer to do manual payrolls, from within QuickBooks, we can do that without paying for payroll tax tables. We may not get all the bells and whistles that come with the payroll tax tables, but at least we can manage to get it done. As with everything else in life, there are tradeoffs to QuickBooks--cost vs convenience. Those who are truly small can manage quite well with Quicken. You shouldn't move up to QuickBooks unless you can afford not only the software but also support. I hate to say it, but if you're having trouble, you need to bite the bullet and get the support so they can walk you through your problems. One thing I have learned in my years with QuickBooks--if there is a problem, it is me almost all the time. I may not be looking at a situation right, or there may be some quirk about using the system, but 99% of the time it is me or my client. QuickBooks is very stable and I have had only one problem in the last couple of years that I blame on Intuit. I do sometimes find that Intuit hasn't thought through some feature or process, but these are the exceptions. The multi-user version is a bit slow, but the program has many features (you might call it bloat-ware but there is also the need to remain competitive and offer the features other accounting software does). The on-line help (the How-do-I buttons in almost every screen) is excellent and you need to explore it extensively. You need to get help when you set up QuickBooks. Especially with payroll. I hear from people who are just getting started with QuickBooks and they don't really want to pay for help in getting started up. And I hear from people who have been using QuickBooks for several years and their payroll and sales taxes are completely messed up. I have even come across people who have never set up and paid state unemployment taxes, because they didn't know they were supposed to. If you are going into business, you really need to find out about the taxes you need to pay so they don't come along a couple of years later to take a bite out of you when you don't expect it. I also find it very frustrating dealing with Intuit--submitting questions or comments. They do not respond. I wish they would.
Rating:
Summary: I like Quickbooks!
Review: I do the books for a small business using Quickbooks Pro 2003 and I love it. The program is logical and elegant. In most cases I'm only limited by what I don't know or have forgotten about the program. My only knock is that I would appreciate a broader search feature, but I am not unduly troubled by the minor limitations it has now. I find everything I need with relative ease.
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Summary: I can't believe I used Quickbooks for our 2003 fiscal year
Review: .
Pencil and paper would have been faster and caused me less frustration. Yes, the user interface is at times maddening, but this doesn't make Quickbooks the worst program I've ever used - it's the critical numerical errors that earn it this title. Try the following: Set up chequing accounts in two different currencies (US and Canadian in my case). Enter some transactions from within the ledger in either. Note that if you enter more than one transaction the balance is wrong until you shut the ledger window and re-open. That's right, it cannot ADD or SUBTRACT correctly ! Once you've got some history try to make a balance sheet. Select the historical date on which you'd like to make your balance. Note that for some accounts it will use this date, for others it will use the current date, and for other accounts it will just make up a number ! Fantastic ! Here's the best. Let's say you want to do something really obscure like ... search for a past transaction based on some text. Guess what ? You can't ! I'm absolutely serious. Go to the simple find window (you won't do any better in the advanced find window). Here you will see you are only allowed to search by amount, invoice #, date and customer:Job (a fixed drop down menu). OK, so you figure you can live with this and you make your selection. NOT FOUND. Hmmmm, looks like you selected the wrong transaction type ... was that a cheque, credit card, PO or one of 8 other types of transaction you want to search for ? You'll have to try each one separately ! As an added bonus, each time you try a different one your search criteria are erased and you have to re-enter them ! If this small selection of problems doesn't scare you off purchasing this dud, then perhaps you should consider the technical support: PAID ONLY ! Yes, you have to PAY them to report their bugs ! This product represents capitalism at its worst - big advertising budgets and lousy products dominating the market. But there are alternatives. I haven't tried them yet but I'll be trying them soon - I can't imagine they could be worse.
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