Quickbooks Sucks!

Winchester

I have Quickbooks Pro with Payroll and I am actually just using Payroll.

The menus suck. Navigation sucks. Interface sucks in general. It is ironic the company's name is Intuit, because the program is far from intuitive.

Do people actually use quickbooks to keep their books in order? How long did it take you to figure it out?

I'm the guy everyone comes to with their computer problems, I can usually figure software out very easily as I go along.

I can figure my way around photoshop or any other adobe, macromedia, or microsoft program, or any windows programs in general, I can write PHP scripts and JAVA programs, I can use PHP with MYSQL, I am fluent in HTML and CSS. However, I can't use quickbooks!

Anyone have a more simple program out there they use?

I don't really have a lot of time to invest in studying "quickbooksanese" to figure this program out to use effectively...

I have trackIt: Expense Edition for my blackberry for around $20 and it's way better than quickbooks any day, and I use it daily. I just wish I had something like it for my computer so I don't wear my thumbs out. Also something with payroll would be nice too...

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Ryan

ChainsawCharlie

I'm about as dumb as they get where computers are concerned, but I breeze through quickbooks.

Maybe you're just overqualified?

Winchester

Hmmm... Do you use the Pro version?
Maybe whoever designed the interface has a completely different thought process than I do

Anyone else have a problem with quickbooks or is it just me? Maybe I'm retarded and never knew!

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Ryan

wirenut1110

I've used Quickbooks Pro for that last 10 years now and I love it. I'm using QB Pro 2008 now.

For me it's very easy to use, once the data is entered. Payables, receivables, estimates, reports, accounting, memorized transactions, etc.

Invoices, estimates, etc are all customized and professional looking.

I used to not assess finance charges but I definately do it now with one click.

What are you having problems with? Maybe we can help you? What year version do you have?

Grumpy

Garbage in = garbage out.

Quickbooks is the standard. Perhaps use your accountant, or an oustside payroll firm like paychex, and let them manage your numbers. It really doesn't get any easier than quickbooks for self financial management.

ChainsawCharlie

I'm running Premiere 07.

Tiger

QB Pro 2008. Love it. It's very intuitive. If you start to do something & get stuck, go to Help. It has a feature that will often help you with the task you're working on.

I'm no expert, but anyone you pay a bill to (subs, suppliers, phone co, etc) is a vendor. Click on Vendor, then New & input the information. For all your customers (if you don't import) click on Customer, then New, then input the information. The checkbook has a Wizard to set up to your last balanced bank statement. Input information for estimates, invoices, pay bills, make deposits. The Home page has all the icons to make it easy.

Like any new software give yourself some time, but this software is a winner. I know a contractor running multiple trucks on multiple jobs/day using QB.

Winchester

It's Pro 2008, I think. Basically having a problem with everything. The whole program is poorly designed.

For example I screwed up trying to print a paystub and created two paycheques. To delete a paycheque you can't just click it and press delete. You have to open the paycheque and then there is a menu on the window the paycheque pops up in. Bu NOOO, they wouldn't have the delete option in this window, you have to go back in the main menu while this window is open, and click on "edit" then delete this paycheque.

WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LET YOU PRESS "DELETE" KEY WHILE SELECTING THE CHEQUE? IT AIN'T THAT HARD. Don't try an tell me that it makes it safer, they could always ask "Are you sure you want to delete this? YES or NO?"

Basically that problem carried over to anything and everything else I ever wanted to do in the program. They make it overcomplicated, and unintuitive. I do my invoices and estimates in Excel now, and prefer it any day to Quickbooks at this point.

I downloaded my bank info and can't figure out how to get it into quickbooks. Do I need to add a payee into the system for every transaction? Can't they just use the payee name already showing up on the statement?

Attached Files

Estimate 00000 - Example.pdf (60.9 KB, 92 views)

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Ryan

dwpayne

Any new accounting system will take some time to get familiar with. Quickbooks certainly has it's drawbacks and limitations, especially with regard to system security, but it is actually very powerful once you learn your way around it. But you are right, it could be more intuitve for first time users. It does a lot more than most people need which is why you can get lost in the menu options.

They also have an optional integrated payroll service that is very similar to Paychex in that they will take care of most of your payroll tax reporting and make the tax payments as well. You upload the payroll data and fund the liability by EFT, and they take care of the rest. I have a couple of clients that use it and they are generally happy with it. It's a good service for a contractor that does their own bookkeeping. There are only so many hours in the day after all.

GregS

The two accountants I work for both despise Quickbooks for the same reason.. It allows you to delete transactions with no record. So everything else that referenced that deleted transaction suddenly makes no sense.

They all prefer Simply Accounting.. I'm sure it's available in the US too.

Winchester

Thanks, I will look into simply accounting.

edit: Downloading the trial version

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Ryan

dwpayne

It takes some basic accounting knowledge and discipline to use QB effectively, but it can be done. I say "discipline", because just because you CAN do something in QB, like delete a transaction, it doesn't mean you should.

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Doug

firemike

Just upgraded to 2009 Premier, been using QuickBooks since it was Quicken for Small Business. I don't know diddily about accounting, but it is so easy to set up that everything is in the right spot come quarterly or year end time. My accountant just tells me where to put the numbers if I already don't know and she does the rest. Like any program, it has it's learning curve. My accountant recommends QuickBooks to all her smaller clients that do their own inhouse book keeping because it is so simple.

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-Mike-

Mike Finley

Keep in mind you are a dumb ass contractor not an accountant geek! Think about an accountant trying to figure out how to scribe some molding or figure out a cut up roof equation!

Quick books is actually very liberal in what you can do, deleting checks and going willy nilly all over your books with ease is actually freak'n quite dangerous, think about how easy it would be for an unscroupolous employee to delete any trace of their emezzlement without a trail.

Quickbooks is actually regarded by major accounting professionals as way to liberal in letting you change and delete things. Real accountants want trails in your books not somebody being able to take an eraser to the ledger.

Quick books has a learning curve on how to delete things because it's still an accounting program not a contractors simple to use thing a ma bob to run the business on.

You usually need to think about a void instead of a delete. The check or whatever just gets voided instead of disappearing into thin air. It's not about safer, it about accounting practices and Quickbooks sure as hell ain't know as being a stickler, it's known for being lax.

There is a thing called GAP and it's about 2000 pages now for how accounting principals are supposed to be applied. Kind of like our code books.

So stop your bitch'n and stick to it, you'll get it figured out, we all go through the same thing until we learn a little accounting knowledge to go with what we are doing and why.

Grumpy

That's not true because when I want to change various transactions that are linked up it always gives me various pop ups saying do I want to do this or even many times saying I can't do this unless I go through and manually unlink transactions.

shanekw1

All of my accounting courses taught us to use Simply Accounting, I tried quickbooks and was like "WTF? This is the most confusing **** I've ever seen."

Not that S A is easy to set up or anything, but it seems to be laid out more sensibly.

And, not to be an a55 or anything, but what Mike was referring to is GAAP, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (guess I'm a bit of an accounting nerd)

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GregS

I have no first hand experience with QB myself. I am just passing along what two completely unrelated accountants have told me when I asked them about it.. and they both said exactly the same thing which stuck with me.

ottagosoon

He's right. If you print check 1001 and then just delete it, your books would read 1000, 1002, 1003 and so on. your account's finger will get stuck between check 1000 and check 1002. The ledger needs to show check 1001 in some way. like "VOID". In accounting when you make a mistake you need to show it. In construction you can just cover it up.YEA Me!

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Can't Say That Here!!!

Winchester

All my cheques are written from a chequebook. I just print the paystub that I attach the cheque to in QB.

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Ryan

mahlere

i believe it's the indian and not the arrow....