Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

Q:

Subject: Quickbooks on your wesbite…

Kerry,
 
You mention to stay away from Quickbooks Online and Quickbooks Simple Start, however, it seems in 2007, Intuit has only three options for Quickbooks now, QB Simple Start (I believe it replaces Basic and is $80), QB Pro ( $169) and QB Premier ($319).  Which would you suggest I use then?

A:

It was pure greed on Intuit’s part that made them drop the relatively inexpensive Basic version of QB, which was perfectly suitable for most users.  So, now you are correct that the least expensive version is the Pro, which is what you should buy.

I don’t even consider Simple Start to be a version of QB, so stay away from it.

Having just finished a messy partnership return for clients who use the online version of QB, my disgust and hatred of that service is at an all-time high right now. The “convenience” of having the file simultaneously available to several people ended up costing the clients a lot of money for the extra time it took me to clean up the data over what it would have been if I had been able to work on a normal desktop version of QB.

Of course, any decision as to which accounting program is best for you should be made in conjunction with your personal professional tax advisor; so be sure to check with him/her first.

Good luck.

Kerry Kerstetter