Would you recommend QuickBooks to your clients?

Having used Quickbooks myself, for a small nonprofit/charitable organization with complicated accounting requirements, it is a good way to get the non bookkeeper started with keeping accounts.  I would make the following comments about strengths and weaknesses.

General:  There is a lot of work to encourage users to do things like enter invoices into the system, then print them, so that they are recorded correctly.  That is, the intended user base is the small businessman who writes the invoices & cheques himself, or gets his wife to do it for him.  The system is based around getting the bookkeeper to enter these vouchers with a small amount of additional information, then post automatically.

Warning - there is a lot of function, needed by all but the most basic level bookkeeping, which is charged for as an extra. 

There was a prior comment about data import.  It can be done through a CSV file, (I have done it), but it is sufficiently complicated that you should get an IT person to set it up the first time - from then on it is fairly straightforward.  If you need help, my e-mail is mrtrub1944y@yahoo.com

If your users are already using Quickbooks, they will probably want to stay with it.  For a new user, there are probably cheaper alternatives with better support.

-- MoFromMelb

mrtrub - The only way I know how to do it is with an application from BigRedConsulting. Do you know a way of doing it without third-party software?

I am a Quick Books User based in Kampala Uganda East Africa. I often recommend QB to my propects as it is user friendly. The previous versions especially for the Pro and Premier would not accomodate the number of digits applicable in Uganda for example our digits exceed 12 and this was a problem for the SME's.

Apart from that it has great reports and it's capability to transfer reports to Excel are second to none among the SME software category in Uganda for example Tally and others.

I will continue to recommend it to my prospects in the SME sector in Uganda.

Arthur

arthur@kammassociates.com

I have recently evaluated QB and Sage amongst others for a small business in London.  I was not impressed with complexities presented  by most of the standard packages.  I came across Solar Accounts by chance.  It immediately appealed, very straightforward and smooth.  Quite a step ahead of the competition. And the functionality is much more flexible. 

you simply prepare an iif file , though i would not recommend it for huge amonts of data - if you want a pointer let me know

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IIF files are OK to transfer existing QB data to a new QB file. I would not recommend IIF for creating new data as it takes time and there are various pitfalls.

www.qsoftware.co.uk (previously QODBC.com and QODBC.eu) have a table list and then individual tables which give the data layout for QB. Ensure when looking at "tables all" it shows "(UK VERSION). This information is available without purchasing their product.

www.quickbooks.com although the US site, it does provide valuable information on the Intuit Interchange Format (IIF) 

Excel can read and write IIF files.

The way to do it is to export a list in QB to IIF, open in excel  and look at the data format. Create your data but be very careful. Backup your QB file then import the IIF back into QB. You cannot import transactions via IIF.

Overall I do not recommend the IIF file route for new data as there are many pitfalls and takes time. I would suggest you go the OBDC data route which is an industry standard using Qsoftware product QODBC (see above) which costs £175.

Hope this Helps

Chris Garrett

CG Associates

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