We no longer used except for Historical information and Audits.
Pros
Easy to make adjustments to transactions
Integration with 3rd party Payable program
Easily to tie back to aging reports
Cons
Cost Allocation
integration to payroll programs
better audit trails
Likelihood to Recommend
Auditors typically ask for Aging reports. This has almost been pitched perfect when tying back to the Balance Sheet. Also, very easy when mistakes are made to easily "delete" or edit a transaction. However, this does not leave a very "sound" audit trial if someone needs to understand the history of the transaction.
VU
Verified User
Director in Finance and Accounting (11-50 employees)
QuickBooks is good for itemizing and billing. It creates space for communication between the program, the user, and the customers via email. While it is more "old school", we find it pretty intuitive and easy to adjust. The reports in the program allow for the user to adjust and track accordingly.
Pros
Batching
Invoicing
Statements
Receiving
Cons
Easier access.
Multiuser programming at a better cost.
Statement amounts listed.
Likelihood to Recommend
While this program has served us well, I feel there are many updates we could hope for. The program is becoming obsolete, as the company seems to be phasing out the software. Although we find this to be the case, we have enjoyed its use for over 15 years. It stores a wealth of knowledge that is easily accessible to us.
We have a number of clients that use QuickBooks Desktop Premier and we will bring their file into QuickBooks Desktop Premier Accountant. This program helps our clients understand their sources of income and different classes and projects.
Pros
Projects
Inventory
Class Allocation
Likelihood to Recommend
If clients have a lot of inventory we have them use desktop more than online. It is a smoother process and there are less errors
VU
Verified User
Partner in Finance and Accounting (1-10 employees)
We use QuickBooks Desktop Premier to prepare bookkeeping for select clients, restore bookkeeping files prepared by other clients, and to enter year-end journal entries for our clients who prepare their own bookkeeping.
Pros
Makes it easy for our clients to enter bills and payments
Clients can easily record sales and payments received
Easy for clients to reconcile their own bank accounts
For clients with multiple businesses, QuickBooks Desktop Premier allows them to create separate files to track each of their businesses separately
Cons
When entering year-end entries for our clients, it is frustrating that AR and AP need to be the first line of a journal entry. This makes it so you can't adjust both AR and AP in the same AJE
It is easy for our clients to make mistakes when filing their GST returns with QuickBooks. If balances aren't cleared, GST paid and collected can be doubled up in subsequent filings, resulting in incorrect GST returns being filed.
Some functionality is catered to unsophisticated users to make it easier for them to track data (AR & AP specifically), but any errors or incorrect entries in these accounts are very difficult to correct. For accounting purposes, a simple journal entry can correct the ending balance, but it is very difficult to have the AR and AP reports reflect the updated balances.
The new subscription prices are very high, so we have been referring more of our clients to QuickBooks online. This allows them to invite us as users to their account, while also saving money every month. It is disappointing that users can no longer buy a perpetual license for the product and must now pay more for a 12 month subscription than they used to pay for a perpetual license.
Backwards compatibility between desktop files would make it much easier for some of our older clients to continue using their old QuickBooks Desktop Premier versions each year so they don't have to learn an updated program. This would also allow us to prepare journal entries for our clients with older desktop versions and still have them be able to restore the updated file to their version of QuickBooks Desktop Premier.
Likelihood to Recommend
VU
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (1-10 employees)
We use QuickBooks Desktop Premier for, essentially, just basic bookkeeping. We have an extensive customer list, we do basic invoicing, and use accounts receivable. We also have an extensive vendors list, use accounts payable, and do a reasonable amount of purchasing. While we do not use/track inventory, we do use an items list, with which we purchase against and bill from. Finally, we also process payroll.
Pros
We really appreciate the depth of customer info that is tracked.
Adding bills to accounts payable is quick and easy.
Customer billing is also very quick and easy.
Cons
Payroll service got too expensive. It would be nice if there were pricing tiers. We dropped our payroll subscription, solely due to the price.
On another payroll note, something as simple as remembering the last pay date. While we no longer subscribe to QuickBooks Desktop Premier payroll service (so no tax table and forms updates), we still enter it manually. One thing we consistently see is that the prior period end date will randomly change to (usually) a prior date. Not a big deal to re-enter, but small things like that are frustrating.
Recently had an odd issue come up. We receive most payments proactively; not a receipt from a QuickBooks Desktop Premier generated invoice. We use Paypal for credit card processing, and when we enter receipts, we log the sales receipt against the customer, and we also include a line item for "credit card fee" - the charge by Paypal for use to receive the payment. We never know how much that fee will be; varies by customer payment method. We recently had a customer pay an invoice that we HAD generated from QuickBooks Desktop Premier. When receiving the payment, there was no where to add a line item to deduct that fee, ending in the net deposit to our checking. While there MAY have been a way to do this, it certainly wasn't obvious to us. Ended up just posting a separate journal entry.
Likelihood to Recommend
We really think that ANY typical business would be a reasonable fit for QuickBooks Desktop Premier. While not necessary, even a comparatively unexperienced accounting person could look at the "Home" screen and follow their nose thru typical daily accounting processes without much detailed knowledge. Reporting is simple, looking up customer info and prior transactions is simple, looking up vendors and prior payments is simple... all in all, quite straightforward. I really can't think of an instance where it would be 'less appropriate'.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (1-10 employees)
We use it to pay bills and keep track of our budget, expenses, income and liabilities and assets. It is great for setting up budgets. We love this feature. We can look back on previous budgets and then say we want to add 2% increase we can and plug the numbers in. Or we want to make one or two months $0.00 because we don't expect to spend in those months based on our history and we use it for the remaining 10 months. It works out great and is Excel ready.
Pros
Payroll-It offers a great and easy payroll service
Purchasing and codes for purchasing
Budgets
Cons
There has been issues in the past of creating PDF docs from the reports
Also creating spreadsheets where there is too much data to export is an issue
The online banking does not always line up with the cleared checks if they are the same amount as another check.
Likelihood to Recommend
Project management and purchasing have great reports to track what items were purchased for a project and the cost of the job. It also shows the amount of revenue on the job so you can determine if the job made the necessary return the company expected of if it was a loss. There are some really good job reports and tracking in QuickBooks Desktop Premier for this.
VU
Verified User
Account Manager in Finance and Accounting (11-50 employees)
We are a non-profit that receives a lot of designated donations. QuickBooks Desktop Premier handles that easily and efficiently. It is easy to track and create reports and make sure we stay in compliance with IRS guidelines.
Pros
tracks funds by class (that I can set up to match my needs)
provides excellent reports to make reporting easy and clear to our board
easy to use for bank reconciliation
Cons
I enter a lot of split transactions....it would be nice to finish the entry by just hitting enter instead of having to click with the mouse.
Likelihood to Recommend
I have found QuickBooks Desktop Premier to be well suited to all my needs. I have very little if any complaints. It is user friendly and able to do everything I need. I haven't come across a scenario where I have struggled to do what I need to do.
I enjoyed using my desktop version of Quickbooks. I had no real issues with it. They just stopped supporting my version so I had to upgrade. I prefer it so much more than the online version. It had a great layout and each section was easy to find. Help was just a few clicks away. I found the employment section to be my favorite part.
Pros
Employment - it makes creating paychecks a snap and tracks taxes.
Invoicing - they have a straightforward approach to creating invoices and you can even email them to your customers.
Customers - the program makes tracking customer information and balances easy.
Cons
It would be great if they wouldn't outdate or stop servicing versions so quickly.
They could make upgrading versions easier and cheaper. Smaller companies cannot afford to keep using them.
The could provide better customer service to their clients. We had trouble reaching people who could actually help with our issues, not just make notes into our account. We waited weeks to get issues resolved. That doesn't work for small businesses.
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Desktop is an easy-to-use software with good services. Their invoicing, employment, and vendor sections are all wonderful. These sections allow efficient tracking and instant business summaries and reporting. However, the pricing for additional services and upgrades and lack of good customer service makes it a less attractive software for small businesses.
We use QuickBooks Desktop to handle all of our own businesses accounting needs as well as use it for after the fact bookkeeping for all our corporate clients.
Pros
Invoices are easy to create
Accepting payments is easy to accept with the integration feature
Downloading credit cards transactions is seamless
Bank reconciliations are easy to do
Cons
Has a few bugs that would be great to fix
Auto update doesn't always work I need to push it through
Crashes a lot when creating an invoice or emailing invoices to customers
Likelihood to Recommend
For any small business QuickBooks Desktop is the best accounting software around as it handles all your needs and is user friendly unlike their online version which is awful all around in my opinion.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Finance and Accounting (1-10 employees)
We use Quickbooks Desktop Premier for all of our accounting and bookkeeping needs. We have two companies that we run our financials with Quickbooks. One, we use from invoicing to tax prep at the end of the year. The other we have a industry specifice program for running the business and invoicing but it integrates seamlessly via import to bring all of the financial transactions into quickbooks.
Pros
Invoicing
Receiving Payments
Financial Reports
Integrating with Accountant
Cons
Creating Statements (issue they cant resolve)
Price
Custom Reports
Likelihood to Recommend
I haven't found any other financial program that works as good as QuickBooks Desktop Premier. I really like how it integrates with our court reporting management software so we can accurately track the finances without extra work. It does lack flexibility when trying to export data for reports. Specifically marketing data that could make my life easier at the end of the year.
