QuickBooks 2001

Price: $74.99
  

Reader Reviews
I'm a sole practitioner CPA and maintain about 20 separate sets of clients' books in my office. Since both Intuit and Peachtree have "professional advisors programs" which aggressively solicit CPAs to shill for their software, I should also state that I'm in no way affiliated with either of them, nor any other software company (the fact that I must mention this demonstrates where the accounting profession is headed, but that's another story). I realize that I'm swimming upstream here, but, in a word, I detest Quickbooks. My clients who use it routinely bring me sets of books which they have messed up so badly that I run up big fees unraveling their errors. The reason, in short, is that Quickbooks is not a legitimate double-entry self-balancing accounting package. I believe that it's merely a dressed-up, aggressively marketed version of Intuit's checkbook program, Quicken. Because of this, it's far too easy to make serious errors which the software will not detect. Just one example: A single push of a button will convert your books from cash basis to accrual basis. A client brought me his books which had a cash-basis balance sheet, an accrual-basis P&L, journals and ledgers which were some of both - and he had no idea why nothing balanced (if you don't know what I'm talking about, that's all the more reason to avoid this software)! I keep a current version of Quickbooks on my computer ONLY as an accommodation to my clients who refuse to switch. Both Intuit and Peachtree have rotten tech support. Both gouge their customers mercilessly for annual payroll updates. Nevertheless, I do my best to get my clients to start with, or to switch to, Peachtree. It's by no means a perfect solution, but it's at least a "real" double-entry system, therefore much more idiot-proof, more powerful, and generally bug-free. The learning curves of the two programs are now roughly equal, since Peachtree has added an optional interface for non-accountants. Finally, I'm not bashing the company, just this product. I've been using Intuit's professional tax return preparation software (ProSeries) for many years, and I'm completely satisfied with it. But my bottom-line professional opinion here is that Quickbooks is simply not what it claims to be. Use Peachtree, use MYOB, use ACCPAC Simply Accounting - any of which are preferable to this over-hyped and under-powered dog of an accounting program. Comments (2) | Permalink | (Report this)