QuickBooks Basic 2002

Write and print checks onscreen by easily selecting names of vendors from drop-down lists and prefill areas that you use often. Track customer payments, expenses, and liabilities. With each transaction you enter--from writing a check to recording a sale--QuickBooks automatically updates your accounts to reflect the latest activities. You can use a new "Paid" stamp on invoices so you can easily track which customer invoices are paid and unpaid.

An improved help and support center gives you the help you need through the use of a more powerful search tool. Type your question on the help screen and QuickBooks will search the help database to find your answer. Using QuickBooks Online Backup Service, you can automatically back up your critical QuickBooks and PC files online. Also, you can do online banking, pay bills, and accept online payments from your customers. Other features include the ability to create invoices and purchase orders, track inventory and sales taxes, customize forms for e-mails, and much more.

BOTTUM LINE: Realize your short comings and plan ahead, keeping books for a company is'nt just balancing a checkbook and keeping track of your credit card bill. If you are truely going to get powerful and useful reporting, which can propell your business forward, you'll have to put some time into learning to keep your books.


Not easy to learn, not intuitive (no pun), but does the job   November 22, 2002
Dean Gibson (Seattle, WA USA)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful

I've been a software developer for 40 years, and I wrote a General Ledger program for the PC 15 years ago. So then, why did I buy QuickBooks? Because I wanted to accept credit card payments, and QuickBooks is a LOT cheaper than one of those dumb credit card terminals. However, QuickBooks was written by the "be reasonable - do it our way" school of software development; the program is NOT intuitive (no pun intended), so the learning curve is significant. The program starts out in "interview mode" and asks you questions without telling you the impact of your answers. Once you get your company and chart of accounts set up, the program is quite flexible. I found the program's "Help" facility one of the best I've seen in PC software.

So, after reading all these negative reviews here, I decided to get a copy of Peachtree Accounting 2003 and compare it.

1. QuickBooks offers subaccounts (very useful); Peachtree doesn't.

2. QuickBooks doesn't require account numbers; Peachtree does. This makes QuickBooks much easier to use, and easier for non-accounting types to learn.

3. Working with the Chart of Accounts is much easier in QuickBooks than Peachtree.

4. Reports seem easier to set up in QuickBooks than Peachtree, although that could just be my experience.

5. Peachtree offers a brief accounting tutorial; QuickBooks doesn't.

6. Peachtree installation is easy and straight-forward, but it won't install common files on a Samba-based network drive, and downloaded updates are only stored on the local drive. QuickBooks works fine with Samba-based network drives, and makes a point of putting downloaded updates on a sharable drive.

7. Reinstalling QuickBooks after you've updated the program is a pain, as your company data file cannot then be read by the freshly reinstalled QuickBooks. Unfortunately, the only way to re-update the software is to load a company file. So, you've got to load one of the sample files, upgrade, and then load your company file. Confusing and DUMB.

I'm not at all impressed with Intuit as a company (especially TurboTax), but this program is significantly better than Peachtree (the only other program out there I know of that can process credit card payments online).


It's official...I hate this product!   November 15, 2002
lisam5305@yahoo.com
18 out of 18 found this review helpful

I used QB 99 for years and decided to upgrade to this mainly because we got a new computer. All I can say is trying to set up your company is a guaranteed headache. It's very complicated, and 75% of the time it won't let you do what you need to do. 90% of the "features" I would never use. I'm canning this and definitely going to search for a simpler accounting software. Did I mention the fees? Yes, Intuit will charge you fees for just about everything under the sun, including tax tables (essential for doing payroll), tech support, and all of their other "services".


PASSWORD   November 12, 2002
ROBERT DYER (usa)
6 out of 12 found this review helpful

This isn't so much a review, but I had a problem yesterday and was told to write to quickbooks. This is the only site I could find. I recently installed the updated version and have been using since 10/21.I turned my computer on last night and before I could go into quickbooks it wanted a password. I never enter passwords.I called tech support and they insisted I entered a password, as I am the only person who uses the program and the computer is in my hame I have no need to use passwords.I then shut down the computer and restarted it and I was able to go into quickbooks.I would like someone to tell me why this happened.The tech support people were of no help.