bit-tech Shopping: Intuit QuickBooks Pro 2008 (Full Product)

• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Windows XP

Rating: 4

Time with product: 2 Years

Strengths: Relatively easy to learn, and easy to use for basic accounting and reporting.

Weaknesses: Multiple problems running QB in Windows Vista; the problems are worse under Vista 64-bit. QB has a built-in PDF creator that causes printing problems and application failures.

Summary: QB is advertised as a Vista ready product; this is a bit of a stretch. I suggest reading the user forums. As noted simply trying to print a report can cause QB to crash. You need to use Task Manager to kill the application. Intuit provided a "fix." However certain step must be repeat each time QB is used (deleting the QB PDF creator from the printer list.) It has a decent range of standard reports that can be tweaked (time periods, accounts, clients, etc.). Creating custom reports is not trivial which is why there are so many firms providing QB help (much more expensive than the software). The file import functions supports .iif files (Intuit Import File). These are essential tab delimited file provided by some banks. The iif files are unable to recognize existing vendors, and other key information. Expect to spend time cleaning up data after an .iif import. I've been using QB since 2003; this is the most unstable version. Maybe the problems are Vista related, but it has been a couple of years since Vista hit the market. Intuit really doesn't have any excuse for not working well on Vista 32-bit or the increasingly popular 64-bit.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Month

Strengths: VERY EASY TRANSITION FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONQUICK INSTALL

Weaknesses: TOO MANY INTERRUPTIONS/POPUP WINDOWS OFFERING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON OTHER PRODUCTS/SERVICES.

Summary: I USE QUICKBOOKS PRO TO MANAGE THE FINANCES OF SEVERAL CLIENTS. FOR SMALL COMPANIES, THE DESKTOP VERSION IS MUCH MORE COST EFFECTIVE THAN USING QUICKBOOKS ONLINE, ESPECIALLY IF THERE ARE MULTIPLE ENTITIES INVOLVED.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1 Day

Strengths: ease in following flow charts, entering sales and purchases, and tracking cash flow

Weaknesses: Slow to load up. Apparently companies created in or upgraded to Pro 2008 cannot be viewed by early versions of QuickBooks.

Summary: I was trained on QuickBooks Pro 2006. QuickBooks Pro 2008 is very similar. It really has a nice tutorial. The Startup and Quick Reference Guide I found very helpful as it contains info on installation, Setup, Key Concepts, Essential Tasks, and New Features. Each section in the little book are easy to find since each section has its own color tab. In the Essentials Tasks chapter, it has sections that cover: Setting Up Your Business, Money In, Money Out, Managing Your Business. At the end there also is a Frequently Asked Questions section and Index.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 2

Strengths: De facto standard accounting software

Weaknesses: * Price* The old glitches and functionality limitations seem to migrate from one version to another without ever being fixed.

Summary: I purchased this software after my academic version of QuickBooks Pro 2007 ran out of 3 allotted activations. The very "gotcha" practice of selling the software that relies on activations without clearly stating the number of activations allowed right on the box is unethical, but with competitors consistently delivering immature products, Intuit seems to get away with its inferior business practices. The same is true for the company's support and product upgrade philosophy. I wonder how long this business model will work. This is an OK product, but if you are using version 2007 or 2006, do not bother spending money for an upgrade, unless you too were unfortunate enough to exceed your activation count.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 3

Strengths: powerful tool, lots of features.

Weaknesses: not always intuitive to use, not the best user interface.

Summary: Quickbooks has a lot of features for my business, and I will not use most of them. I am not an accountant but I needed Quickbooks for my small business. I had to read a couple of tutorials before I could start using this powerful tool.