Review by Bob Feeser

Having to comb through multiple records and screens, and even different programs to get up to date when a customer calls is cumbersome in the older versions. I would often let the answering machine take the call and then I would return it once I was able to bring up the customers history including emails. Now it is all integrated into QuickBooks; smart move Intuit.

Of course they are in to it to make money. (No pun intended) so payroll now includes paying only 1 employee instead of 3 like it used to. It is now $2 per employee, per month for each additional employee. However that is a lot cheaper than a payroll service.

For those who are angry at Intuit for the challenges of setting up the installation, all I can say is what else is there? Hey I get frustrated like the next guy but I have been using Intuit products since their inception. (I am an old late 80s DOS guy to start) They have always been way ahead of the curve in making easy to use intuitive products; hence the name Intuit. I was frustrated with Qbooks 2013 in the colors they chose to display. It was hard on the eyes, next to 2010, but then they corrected that pretty much with an update.

I love QuickBooks. I have been running my company with 2010 QB Pro and there isn’t anything I don’t love about it. I could get critical and say when I am sending a customer an email it locks me out of being able to go anywhere else other than that window. That is one of the advantages of 2014 thanks to its greatly enhanced email functions.

QB 2014 also sports a calendar with reminders. I often use my tasks option in Outlook for running my business. So doing this in QuickBooks will seem like second nature to me.

QuickBooks in years past kept me so organized that when I got into a dispute with a business associate over some numbers he was blown away at how easily I could provide reports that substantiated everything I was saying. Consequently I got paid for what we agreed I would be paid for.

One important tip is that if you are running more than one business you may want to keep your old version as well. Be sure and back up your company files before loading a new version. When loading any new version of QuickBooks it asks you if you would like to keep the old version, or overwrite it. I keep the old version AND I choose not to have my company file updated to the new version. That way I can keep two versions of QuickBooks open at the same time. It is tedious to have to close one company, and open another every time a customer has a question. So by having two versions running concurrently, you can click on either tab and have instant access. You also can have one version running on one machine, and another version running on another if you have more than one person in the office, and each one assigned to a different company. It saves money that way not having to pay for two new versions when the old one works fine.