QuickBooks Pro 2010



nearly all small business owners at one time or another have wondered if they should use QuickBooks or if they already use it, they may wonder is it the best? In all fairness, QuickBooks Pro has earned quite a bit of its hype, along with our TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award. It is a good and affordable accounting solution for small business owners.

This accounting software can provide most of the tools that small businesses need. They also offer many additional services (fee based) such as payroll services, credit card processing, POS systems and banking supplies. All extra services are compatible with their programs. Intuit also allows five users to use one copy at a time, which is a great money saving bonus.

This software is offered in several versions, including an online version starting at less than $10 per month. Intuit also offers Simple Start, Pro, Premier and Enterprise Solutions. We looked at the Pro version, which is the most affordable option for most small businesses. This program can handle all basic accounting features. It includes many useful tools that extend beyond basic bookkeeping such as document management, auto-check signing, email creation and invoice customization.

Ease of Use:

We found QuickBooks Pro to be the easiest accounting software to learn to use. It is even easier to use than Peachtree. When you first install this software it will take you through the set up process for moving your company data into the program or you can start fresh or view a sample company to experiment with the software. We looked at the sample company for this review and found everything incredibly easy to figure out and to top it off this software is “good looking,” meaning the interface looks up to date and the icons and links make sense and are easy to figure out. Even their additional tools, such as email campaign creation and custom invoice creation can boast a zero learning curve.

Help/Support:

This software comes with help files and Intuit offers support online. On the Intuit website you can find updates and downloads, installation help, FAQs and troubleshooting. For telephone support they offer two service plans, a month-by-month plan and an annual support plan. Their support plans include online data backup, data recovery and 24/7 telephone support.

Accounts Receivable:

The accounting software can do just about everything we were looking for and offers many customization tools that other software programs do not offer, such as highly customizable invoices and the ability to scan checks into the software. It also works with UPS and FedEx for shipping.

Accounts Payable:

With the addition of a credit card processing service you can easily accept credit and debit cards. It can also print checks onto a variety of check paper stock and it can apply electronic signatures to them.

Payroll:

This program works with Intuit’s payroll service and can be used to manage all kinds of payroll functions including pay schedules, pay periods, statuses, tax information and employee profiles.

Inventory:

This accounting software does provide basic inventory control. It doesn't however have as many options as their Point of Sale (POS) software does. If you are looking for a retail solution you may want to look at their POS software. This software can track inventory, set inventory levels, manage backorders, set re-order points and more. However, it cannot support product images yet.

Banking:

This program is compatible with over 3000 financial institutions. This means that you can securely download your bank credit card transactions and other transactions. Of course, like all other accounting programs additional fees apply for electronic transfers, electronic deposits and automatic payments, but the software is capable of handling these types of transactions.

Time Billing:

This accounting software can calculate time billing, including the ability to track time, mileage and expenses. It also includes a variety of reports for time spent on jobs and mileage per vehicle. To help keep your time billing accurate it can automatically link to job time schedules and load the information into an invoice.

Job Costing:

With this software you can track jobs, set them as active or inactive and create job estimates. It also provides numerous job cost reporting options; however, it does not seem to have the ability to drill down in a job report. For example, using some other products you can click on a customer name in a report and link to their profile or on an invoice number to access the actual invoice.

General Ledger:

QuickBooks Pro comes with a few general ledger reports and it can create reports most often used by accountants such as an audit trail, a journal, a general ledger and tax reports. The general ledger reporting options are not extensive, but we feel they are sufficient for most small businesses. If you need more traditional accounting functions Intuit does offer an accountant version.

Fixed Assets:

Intuit software can track fixed assets for tax and general inventory purposes. It can even track purchase price, whether the item was new or used when purchased, sale price if you choose to sell and depreciated value for tax purposes. However, the Pro version does not include the fixed asset manager; this module is available in the accountant and enterprise editions only.

Conversion and Updates:

This accounting software can import Excel and CSV type files.The values that can be imported include customer, vendor, item and chart of accounts. If you are importing from a Mac program, you can use Intuit Interchange Format type files. They even provide a toolkit to help you import your company information easily. If you want or need to upgrade to another version, Intuit has made it very simple.

Reporting:

This small business software can create a wide variety of reports and lists. It also can create graph reports and has a useful and customizable company snapshot screen which shows a good collection of general reports such as sales reports, account balances and expenses. All in all the Pro version provides over 100 reporting options.

Summary:

QuickBooks Pro is excellent, intuitive software for accounting. We liked how easy Intuit makes it to move data into the software, even from Peachtree. They also offer good support documentation so even people that are not familiar with accounting terms can learn to use the program and manage their company more efficiently than they could have ever imagined in very little time.