"Accounting is one of the oldest software categories around," says Intuit Inc. cofounder and chairman of the executive committee Scott Cook. "It's also the software category that suffers from being most frequently returned [by dissatisfied buyers]. This is because the software industry thought the software should be about accounting, not the business."
By contrast, Cook boasts, Intuit's popular QuickBooks "isn't about credits, debits, and journal entries -- it's about writing checks, processing payroll, and keeping track of sales and inventory. QuickBooks provides small business owners with what they want to know, [rather than] try to teach them something they don't need to learn."
The new QuickBooks 2004 product line takes that customer-centric approach to new heights, with a slew of specialized bookkeeping and business management systems for companies with 250 employees or fewer. Besides new features for QuickBooks Basic ($200), Pro ($300), and Premier ($500), there are six industry-specific versions of the last -- for accountants, contractors, retailers, and nonprofit, professional services, and manufacturing and wholesale operations.
There are also QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions versions for each of the above half-dozen specialties. Designed for the upper end of the small-business spectrum, these packages ($849 for accounting, $3,500 apiece for the others) support databases of twice as many (29,000) inventory or service items and customer, vendor, or employee names and allow up to 10 simultaneous users. They also offer extras like faster report generation, the ability to search and filter customer lists or combine financial reports from multiple companies, and extra help with HR concerns such as employee information and compliance guidelines.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there's QuickBooks Online Edition, a browser-based service priced at $19.95 a month for one to three users; while it lacks the inventory and point-of-sale functions of the desktop editions, it's securely available from any location, with weekly slipstream and quarterly major upgrades instead of annual revisions.
Speaking of selling, QuickBooks Point of Sale 3.0 is a complete PC-based system that handles front-office workflow for small retailers, ranging from ringing up sales and processing payments to inventory and customer relationship management. It's available in three levels -- Basic ($800), Pro ($1,000), and Pro Multi-Store ($1,300); adding $700 to any of those prices buys a hardware/software solution with cash drawer, bar-code and credit-card readers, and a receipt printer.
Checks and Balances
As before, QuickBooks Basic is designed for small business operators making the move from paper- or spreadsheet-based accounting; it helps organize information quickly and easily. The Pro version adds the ability to customize and e-mail forms and reports, print shipping forms, and import and export Microsoft Excel data, while QuickBooks Premier lets users create purchase orders, budgets, forecasts, business plans for loan applications, and per-item price levels.
New features for 2004 include a Cash Flow Projector with an "available to spend" report that helps small businesses predict cash flow weeks in advance, and a New Business Checklist that consolidates information about local, state, and federal requirements.
Companies can now select from as many as 100 price levels to control the exact prices or discounts they want to charge each customer for items. And QuickBooks Premier's new Loan Manager, Fixed Asset Tracker, and Vehicle Mileage Tracker modules help manage important information.
Other additions focus on the business-specific editions. For instance, the Manufacturing and Wholesale editions emphasize order management, simple inventory tracking, and manufacturer- and wholesaler-specific reporting. The products can track what customers have ordered, which items on each order have not shipped, and which customer orders are still open, with more than 10 customized reports for areas such as profitability, order management, sales volume, and purchasing.
The Retail versions include a daily sales form, an Expert Analysis Tool tailored to 25 retail categories, and different specific reports. The Professional Services packages focus on hourly billing instead of product sales, with the ability to set up flexible billing rates by clients and alerts for outstanding time and expenses when creating new invoices. And the Premier and Enterprise Solutions Accountant editions provide Adjusted Trial Balance, Loan Manager, and Reconcile Discrepancy reports to help manage clients' QuickBooks files.
