Review by J. Friedman

I used to keep a Windows machine running after I switched to Mac, just to keep using QuickBooks. The full version of QuickBooks for Windows is a godsend for small businesses, with just about every feature every small- to medium-sized business needs.

The Mac version is pared down, though. I’m not going to go through all the features it has and doesn’t have. For a business investment like this, you really need to go look at the full list of features yourself on the Intuit website.

What I wanted to impart here, though, is that QuickBooks for Mac 2013 provides an easy, intuitive bookkeeping interface and it’s very fast. No chugging through calculations or report generation. Everything I’ve tried pops up very quickly and accurately. You can customize report forms easily–both for data and for look. You can easily track multiple accounts. It doesn’t do payroll–go to Windows for that, or use an online service.

I use QuickBooks now to manage my own freelance business as well as the finances of a small nonprofit organization I run. It’s easy to set up invoices and create product or service entries that track to specific types of income or expense lines. It’s easy to mark the invoice paid when the check or online payment comes in. It’s easy to keep your check registers up to date. And, of course, you can wrap it all up and just give your QuickBooks file to your accountant at the end of your fiscal year and he or she can import all the data and take care of your filings.

Simple and fast. Just make sure you check the feature lists online to be sure it does what you really, really need.