Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

QuickBooks 2001

I have been using QuickBooks Pro 2001 for one of our corporations for about a week now. It is a good improvement from earlier versions and definitely worth upgrading, especially for those of you using pre 1999 versions of the program. The transfer of data from the 2000 version to the 2001 one went smoothly, including the online banking info. The only problem I have experienced so far has been the disappearance of the addresses for several vendors when I was preparing checks.

I will be adding several articles on the effective use of QuickBooks and Quicken to my main website over the next few months. I am also planning to produce a new video, this time focusing on QuickBooks. When I produced my earlier one on Quicken, it was also applicable to QuickBooks because the programs were very similar. Since then, each year’s version has veered off so that the two programs have become very different from each other. The changes have been so drastic in some respects that I will be transitioning many of my clients from Quicken over to QuickBooks.

Trying to capitalize on the web-based accounting trend, Intuit has started its QuickBooks for the web. I haven’t actually tried it out; but from Intuit’s own description, it seems like a feeble program. It doesn’t allow anything more than the most basic bookkeeping. It doesn’t allow the printing of checks. Its data files are not compatible with the regular QuickBooks. What were they thinking at Intuit? They definitely should have asked me for some advice before putting out this not ready for primetime program.

If you are in the mood for web-based accounting, I still think NetLedger is the best one out there. Their program accepts QuickBooks data files. In fact, they have a comparison between their program and the new QuickBooks web service.

KMK