QuickBooks Pro

With an easy-to-use graphical interface and a comprehensive set of applications, Intuit’s QuickBooks has been called must-have software for home-based and small businesses.

Pros

QuickBooks Pro is the mid-range accounting software offered by Intuit. It has more features than the basic QuickBooks package but is not as customizable or industry specific as QuickBooks Premier. This makes it ideal for small businesses that need to do more than track sales and expenses but can do so with fairly generic forms and reporting options.

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Business Software Reviews

Microsoft Vista QuickBooks Pro

QuickBooks Pro takes little time to install and has a fairly intuitive setup process. Users upgrading from earlier versions of QuickBooks Pro can simply import the data from the older version, saving even more time. Also, more recent incarnations of QuickBooks have the ability to share data with many other programs.

Mac users can find a version of QuickBooks designed to work with Leopard (the Mac operating system), and the newest PC-oriented release will run with Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Cons

If you are coming to QuickBooks Pro from one of its competitors’ programs, setup is going to be a pain. While QuickBooks make it easy to import data from older versions of QuickBooks, users coming from other applications will have to either re-enter their data or export it to another file and then import it into QuickBooks from there.

Other detractors are the added fees for services, particularly ecommerce features like the Web Site Builder (with hosting) and the Merchant Account (for processing credit cards). These additions are optional, but they can significantly add to QuickBooks’ price tag, which is already slightly higher than some of its competitors.

Expect to pay for support, too. After the initial setup, during which there are free help options, support for QuickBooks can only be accessed on a subscription or pay-per-use basis. Fees are quite hefty, so depending on how much support you need, you could add hundreds of dollars to your purchase price.

The Gist

Despite the expense, QuickBooks Pro remains one of the most popular accounting programs for home-based and small businesses. A host of applications allows the user to perform virtually all of their business functions with one program, and a graphical interface makes it easy to do so.