While Intuit's annual upgrade to QuickBooks arrives with the usual marketing hype, the 2004 version of the venerable small-business accounting package indeed offers new features enough to qualify as the finest QuickBooks yet. Moreover, Intuit's bolstered the usual Basic ($200), Pro ($300), and Premier ($500) editions with new industry-specific versions for retail, services, and manufacturing firms. QuickBooks 2004 is a family of accounting products and services that will serve a small business well.
Some Things Old, Some Things New
As ever, QuickBooks Basic is an entry-level choice for small proprietors accustomed to paper or spreadsheet ledgers. Stepping up to the Pro version lets you customize and e-mail forms and reports, print shipping forms, and import and export Microsoft Excel data, while QuickBooks Premier can create purchase orders, budgets, forecasts, and business plans for loan applications.
A new Cash Flow Projector in the Pro and Premier versions helps small businesses predict cash flow in advance and experiment with what-if analyses. This is a worthy addition that's easy to understand and use. A less stellar but still welcome new Business Checklist serves up information about local, state, and federal requirements and provides helpful data on incorporation, partnerships, permits, and licenses, as well as finding funding and tax and insurance help and managing business finances.
A new Loan Manager stores loan information, calculates amortization, and breaks down principal and interest. Also, a Vehicle Mileage Tracker monitors mileage and expenses in the standard way, and alerts you during invoicing when there are miles to be billed.
In the Premier edition, a helpful Fixed Asset Tracker monitors assets by name, serial number, acquisition date, and disposal date to help with taxes. The program now supports up to 100 price levels, which should give businesses better control over prices and the discounts they apply.
To save time and postage, you can now generate and e-mail purchase orders, sales orders, sales receipts, credit memos, and reports from within QuickBooks. A new packaging-slip and shipping-label feature automatically enters information from invoices so you don't have to retype it.
Integration with Microsoft Office has been improved. You can import list data from Excel by assigning a spreadsheet column to a QuickBooks field, and export QuickBooks reports to Excel spreadsheets complete with formulas and formatting.
Intuit continues to offer powerful supporting services, from an outsourced payroll plan to Section 125 plans and a Pay Along the Way Workers' Compensation Service, that make it easier for small business owners to administer employee benefits packages and stay in compliance with federal and state employment regulations. Other options include an Employee Organizer that provides employee data, guidance for the hiring process, and information on employment laws; e-mail billing and payment acceptance solutions; credit-check services to extend credit to customers and vendors and manage the collection process; and QuickBooks Merchant Account Service (MAS), which lets businesses process and authorize credit-card payments from within QuickBooks.
To Be Specific
Besides adding new features to the generic version, Intuit is also expanding its product line by adding half a dozen industry-specific editions of QuickBooks Premier, with built-in features geared toward accountants; contractors; manufacturers and wholesalers; nonprofits; retailers; and professional service suppliers. These custom-tailored versions of QuickBooks reduce initial setup time and provide important extras.
Arguably the most important of the new versions is QuickBooks Premier Manufacturing & Wholesale Edition 2004. This product is designed to address companies' neesd to monitor order management, perform inventory tracking, apply flexible pricing, and create manufacturer and wholesaler-specific reports. Interestingly, while the product supports assemblies, it does not support LIFO or FIFO, or work in process, which may or may not be important to a business.
The Retail Edition offers features that help retailers track sales, keep tabs on vendors, and create financial reports. It also works with QuickBooks Point of Sale Version 3.0 to create a PC-based point-of-sale solution that can ring up sales, process payments, oversee inventory, and help manage sales and customer relationships.
For service businesses, the Professional Services Edition offers flexible billing rates that can be set by client and alerts users of any outstanding time or expenses to be billed during invoicing.
I encountered no problems installing, configuring, and running QuickBooks Premier 2004. I found the program to be much like last year's, with an intuitive interface that relies on accounting flowcharts and organized pull-down menus. The program was easy to navigate and use, and the Fixed Asset Tracker, Loan Manager, Vehicle Mileage Tracker, and adjustable price levels all worked as I expected them to. I was particularly impressed with how simple the Cash Flow Projector was to use and how clearly it presented information.
One caveat for upgraders: I discovered during installation that if you upgrade a single copy of QuickBooks on your network, you must upgrade all of the copies to use the software's multiuser features. Five-user "value packs" of QuickBooks Pro and Premier retail for $749 and $1,500, respectively. Intuit offers several support options, including a $399 Ultimate Support Plan that allows an unlimited number of phone and e-mail queries over 12 months.
It's no surprise that QuickBooks remains a powerful small-business accounting solution for 2004, nor that users of last year's version who've been getting along without loan-management, mileage-tracking, or cash-flow help don't really need to upgrade. Yet not only are the new features convenient, but the industry-specific versions' capabilities are tempting ways to meet your company's needs. This is one upgrade that's hard to skip.
