Price: Street - $189.00. Upgrade, Street - $99.00

Support:

QuickBooks offers a complete support network, which you can access by phone or the QuickBooks web site. You’ll find offers of training and help through QuickStart, support services, training seminars, learning guides and advice from Certified ProAdvisors. There is advice on tax preparation using Quicken Turbo Tax, how to obtain a QuickBooks credit card, how to pay bills online from any U. S. checking account, how to order and use checks, forms and supplies, designed to work with QuickBooks. Interestingly, there is a way to extend the power of QuickBooks by using the E-Stamp, almost making trips to the Post Office obsolete.  For the latest list of QuickBooks services, choose “Phone Directory” from the onscreen “Help” menu or go to “www.quickbooks.com”. 

QuickBooks Pro 2001

By Charlotte Semple, LACS

 QuickBooks Pro 2001 is the latest version of the Intuit QuickBooks financial management program. It is advertised as the fastest easiest way to manage your business. Guaranteed! Even the most novice users will find it quite easy to use. All the buttons that you would click on are self-explanatory. If you do not have a book or a manual to use for reference, don’t despair. You will find that the “Help” button, at the top right of any of the screens in which you are working, is the best button, ever, to click on.  There is also a Search Index to assist you when you find yourself stuck on something. So, go for it!

Installing QuickBooks Pro 2001 is quite easy, really, just following the onscreen instructions. When QuickBooks Pro 2001 opens it presents a very colorful full screen, the main part of which is devoted to “Company” (Company being the word used by QuickBooks when referring to your QuickBooks Records). In the same bar as Company is a Navigator pull-down menu that duplicates the Navigators section to the left of the main Company Screen. Inside the Company screen are five sections: Related Activities, Memorized Reports, Company Solutions, Reminders Overview and a group of activity buttons. 

Related Activities gives information on how to launch a Web Browser, write various types of letters, synchronize contacts, design Income and Expense Graphs, and how to create a Web Site. The only thing is, your company must have customers, active, or non active, to render any of these activities useful to you.  Memorized Reports helps you to set up various reports that you may wish to use regularly for your company records. These reports are “memorized” into an easily accessible list. One chooses a certain report, a Profit and Loss Report, for instance, from the list, sets a date range and prints out the report. You don’t have to create a new Profit and Loss report format every time you need one. It is there on the list. The Company Solutions section contains useful information on how you can make regular Backups easy by automating them online, locate a Intuit-certified accounting professional, produce great looking business letters online, and purchase checks, invoices, and business forms specifically designed for QuickBooks Users. The only redundant activity in this section is how to create a web site.  The Reminders Overview section shows you how to set up a “To Do Notes” file, and how to display an Alert to remind you that you need to take action on a certain activity that you placed in the “To Do Notes” file.  For instance, if you have a certain monthly payment to make at a certain time each month, the Alert will remind you to do just that. 

The Navigators section to the left of the Company screen duplicates some of what is contained in the Navigator bar across the top of the screen. Of the eight Navigators listed, four of them, “Customers” “Vendors”, “Employees” and “Business Services” were not evaluated, as they I do not presently use them for LACS. However, they would be very much in the realm of a developing company, and I will plagiarize a bit here for clarity and general information for this review. 

 The “Customer” Navigator shows you how to: add customers into an easily accessible file, keep watch over their payment track record, set up a customer credit card payment schedule, watch customer communication improve by creating a Web Site for your company, and, if you travel, how to access up-to-date- sales info from your office. The Featured Service of this Navigator shows how you can make it easier for customers to pay you online, downloading payments directly into QuickBooks with no special hardware or dedicated phone lines. You can also add convenience for your customers and get paid faster by accepting credit card payments. 

 The “Vendor” Navigator shows you how to: add new vendors to an easily accessible list, keep track of debts owed, with balances and due dates, keep watch over your own payment track record, obtain information on hiring professional service providers to complete projects, if you are short on time and staff, get the best prices on office supplies by buying them through QuickBooks, and how to manage printing projects online.  

 The “Employees” Navigator shows you how to: create an employee contact list, set up a payroll with taxes, compensation and benefits, print paychecks and pay stubs, send payroll data to Excel, create a payroll check register, and create related memorized reports. QuickBooks offers two ways to set up a payroll and stay compliant with changing payroll tax laws: a Basic Payroll and a Deluxe Payroll. The Basic Payroll Plan provides updates to both Federal and State tax tables, and Federal tax forms as they change, and downloads them over the Internet. This plan replaces the QuickBooks tax table service that is available with QuickBooks version 6.0 and 99. The Deluxe Payroll Plan is a comprehensive solution that is 100% integrated with QuickBooks, and provides all the services of the Basic Payroll Plan, plus makes Federal and State payroll deposits, files Federal and State payroll tax forms, prepares and prints employee W-2 forms, mails them to you, and provides updates of Federal and State tax tables.  Can’t beat that!

 The “Business Services” Navigator has several sections to work in: “Customers and Sales“, “Vendors and Purchasing”, “Employees”, “Banking and Finance” and “Technology Solutions”.  The “Customers and Sales” section shows you how to send Invoices via the Internet with “FaxPlus”, send thank you letters, flyers, promotional postcards and full color brochures with “Eletter”, share accounts and sales data with your sales force in real time from any location using “Upshot.com”, create and manage a unique professional Web site to enhance your professional image, and attract new customers and better service existing customers with ”QuickBooks Site Solutions”.     The “Vendor and Purchasing” section shows you how to save time and ensure accuracy with customized QuickBooks checks, business forms and deposit slips, and search vendor catalogs, comparing prices and buying products through QuickBooks Shopping Source powered by Metion (you’ll have to go on the Internet to find more information on “Metion” as this was not in the available program). For “Employees”, besides the two QuickBooks Payroll Plans, QuickBooks offers a Service.com Deliver Manager to help increase net profits by capturing and reporting time and expense tracking information using the Internet. The “Banking” section offers a quick way to get the small business loan your company might need, and shows you how to compare rates, getting a decision in minutes, and have funding in less than 24 hours using SierraCities.com. You can also Insure your business by applying for insurance online, and save up to 15%, or more, on coverage from top-rate carriers. The “Technology Solutions Services” section shows you how to create print projects, request quotes from qualified printers, and manage production online from your desktop, using, “Impresse.com”. You can also create a QuickBooks Web Database, sharing information with employees, vendors and customers over the Internet. The QuickBooks Support Network (QBSN) offers a variety of support options to help you get the best from QuickBooks. 

 Of the four remaining Navigators  “Company”, “Banking”, “Reports” and “Info and Support”, the “Company” Navigator would be used by anyone using this program as it brings you back to the main screen when you are finished working in the other Navigators. The “Reports” Navigator duplicates what is in the “Reports” section of the main screen. The “Info and Support” Navigator will be dealt with at the end of this Review.

 The “Banking” Navigator presents another colorful diagram that shows how the various banking activities, writing checks, performing online banking, transferring funds, making deposits, entering credit card charges, relate to one another in making a reconciliation report.   You can click on checks, transfer funds, deposits, getting a form that is self explanatory on how to fill out, or click on online banking and credit card charges and get information on how to set these services up for your business. You are shown how to create new accounts, print checks, set default account preferences, create check and deposit detail and missing check reports, and set up memorized reports. You have ready access to your bank account information day or night.  You can protect any investments you may have made in your business with Liability Insurance, and, if you suffer excruciating headaches while trying to figure out your business taxes, you can turn to Turbo Tax.  Online too!

The best way to become familiar with this very powerful program is to just jump in.  Click on the various buttons in all the Sections, Navigator and Icon Bar, surfing though all the pull-down menus, reading through the Help pull-down menus in each section, and even the “How Do I” pull-down menus where you see them.  In the File pull-down menu there is an Easy Step Interview that is very helpful. You should include Backup in your planning, even if you only use the program for your personal banking or financial management.

Intuit advises that you make two backup floppy disk copies of your “QB Company” files for safety.  They also advise that you keep one of these copies in some other safe place than your work place. Click “Backup” and a window pops up. There are two sections in this window; one explains that “Backup” compresses the data of your “QB Company” file into a compressed file that is smaller than your working file. The second section explains how to backup your current “QB Company” as: (your company name), and where: (in this case a 3.5 disk or other removable storage media). Remember to make that second Backup disk copy of your company files.

Any business, or organization, no matter how small, or big, will find QuickBooks Pro 2001 easy to use in organizing their financial affairs. It is a very complete powerful business-oriented program from which a wide variety of reports, graphs, charts and records can be generated. If you just want to manage your checkbook, investments and personal finances, Intuit’s Quicken may be a better choice. For managing the Los Angeles Computer Society’s “books”, QuickBooks is our choice. At, http://www.intuit.com, there is a QuickBooks Pro 2001 guided tour, which is a good way to get a “feel” for how it works and what it can do for you. While on the Web site, you will find that Intuit offers a Free Trial by mail. It is worth the try.