QuickBooks 2004 The Official Guide

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Summary: Help pages online - not a guide!
Review: I agree with the guy who said it's not a guide. Don't buy if you are confused by Quickbooks interface and plan to learn how to use it properly from financial point of view. To get the guide, simply print out the help pages.


Rating:
Summary: Reference Book Only - Don't buy to learn to use Quickbooks!
Review: I bought this book to learn how to use QuickBooks properly after my accountant noticed a few major issues with how I tracked things in my company file. I found this book worthless for a beginner trying to learn how to use the product. Also, it doesn't seem to provide significantly more detail than QuickBooks online help. The only thing I've used it for so far is learning a good account naming scheme...

Rating:
Summary: Good overall resource but has some drawbacks
Review: I decided that January 1, 2005 was a good time to start using Quickbooks Pro for my small business. I'd been using MYOB FirstEdge, but found it was rather limited in some areas. Whenever I think about starting to use new software, I browse around on Amazon for a good book on the package in question. This book stood out as probably a good resource and I was not far wrong. However, I have a couple of complaints. Firstly, the author's instructions on how to enter beginning balances is vague at best. Secondly, her discussion of complex issues such as how to set up Quickbooks for sales tax recording and reporting, is somewhat lacking. The book that came with the software actually does a better job at explaining Quickbooks' rather quirky method of sales tax accounting.

By all means buy this book. It has some really helpful material and is worth the purchase price. But don't pre-suppose that this book is ALL you will need in order to start using Quickbooks efficiently.

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Summary: Comprehensive Treatise on QuickBooks Pro 2004
Review: Ms. Ivens writes clearly, properly, and intelligently on QuickBooks software. The screen shots are legible, unlike those in some other computer books. The index is detailed, and thus useful. I counted only two typos in the 572 pages.

My company, Transpower Corporation (a commercial and custom software manufacturing and systems engineering company in metropolitan Philadelphia), did its first QuickBooks installation in 1999. I purchased Kathy's book QuickBooks 6.0--The Offical Guide; this helped to make the installation go smoothly. It's been five years since, and QuickBooks has changed considerably. So I purchased both of Kathy's current titles, QuickBooks 2004--The Offical Guide, and Running QuickBooks 2004 Premier Editions. Both are excellent and I recommend them to all computer consultants operating in the small business space, which QuickBooks has taken over by storm. (Unfortunately, QuickBooks is not so applicable to medium or larger businesses because 1) there is a five user limit for Pro/Premiere editions and a ten user limit for the Enterprise edition, 2) it does not work with Windows Terminal Server, and 3) it allows only seven custom fields). After reading both books, I've come to the conclusion that for most small businesses the Premiere editions (with their specialization) make more sense than the less expensive Pro edition.

Kathy provides many useful tips in her books. They go way beyond what is supplied in the manuals shipped with the software.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Resource
Review: This book has the most accurate information on all the Quickbooks features, and the explanations are so easy to follow that it's like having a private tutor. No matter what you need to do, this book has instructions, even if you don't want to do things the way Quickbooks normally works. These workarounds, along with all the "insider" information and tips, make this book an incredibly useful, wonderful, guide to getting everything you need out of Quickbooks.

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Summary: This book has everything you need
Review: This book not only has clear explanations about how to perform every bookkeeping chore in Quickbooks, it also explains what's going on in the background so you can understand how your profit and loss numbers accumulated. Beyond that, this book has important and useful information about workarounds for all the Quickbooks functions that are annoying if you or your accountant don't want to do things the "Quickbooks way". The explanations and tips about setting up sales tax, overcoming bank reconciliation problems, tracking inventory, and managing customers are beautifully written and easy to understand. My accountant said he learned from it and took what he learned to his other Quickbooks customers. This book lets you get the most out of QuickBooks, and shows you how to run your business properly.