QuickBooks Basic 2002 :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

An Accountant's Review

2002-11-12
As a small business accountant, I have used a variety of accounting software programs including QuickBooks, Peachtree, etc. Of all the programs I have used QuickBooks is the easiest for non-accountants to use. It's also the easiest for non-accountants to screw up. Therein lies the problem. QuickBooks does not teach you accounting. It provides you with a framework to keep track of your records. When it's set up and maintained correctly, it provides a business owner with tons of valuable data on the health of your business. I recommend QuickBooks very highly but I suggest that business owner's get help from a pro when they're setting up their company. I have spent numerous billable hours cleaning up poorly set up companies. Although that's great for MY business, it's not good for yours. It's much cheaper for you to start out with the right framework and training. Understanding the numbers side of your business is crucial to your success but don't expect a software program to be the magic bullet that teaches you everything you need to know. QuickBooks is a great tool and all my regular clients use it most successfully with a little help from their friendly accountant.

Waste of Time and Money

2002-09-08
As a previous owner I can say without reservation that this package was a collosal waste of my money but more importantly it wasted a lot of my time. No multi-currency support so forget it if you do any business internationally. Report generating capabilities are terrible compared with other products (e.g.MYOB). Also, to get the rebate you need to be a prior user of the product so you're out of luck if you are buying your first package.

Assistant Professor, CIS

2002-08-26
This is the first time I have used the software. I have not read the documentation or any books associated with quickbooks. I do know a little bit about accounting and the double entry concept. I was able to set up a trial company with vendors, customers and employees with all associated income, expense and equity accounts. I took a Friday evening and a Saturday morning to explore most of the menu items. I even tried the online version and will sign up and use it once it has most of the features I need for the startup company I am forming.
In a nutshell, I found it extremely easy to use. I like the merchant account, payroll service and credit card options that go along with the software and will sign up for them. I do not find the fees excessive and certainly reasonable for the time they save. I plan to come back and add another review in 3 months after it has been battle tested. The software has passed my initial testing with flying colors.

Very difficult (impossible??) program

2002-07-03
What? No option for no stars or negative stars?? I have used QuickBooks for several years at the request of the accountants I work with. The updated 2002 version (I used QB99) is, if possible, even more difficult to navigate. "Support" for the product is at additional cost. Online banking is three times what I pay for online banking with the major banks I use for that service and download into Quick Books is not supported by those same banks. This necessitates a great deal of additional input!!! Also, I cannot email statements or files without the Online Banking at the additional cost.

It's Fine for What It is

2002-06-29
Give a really fine lawyer a piano, and he very likely will not be able to make music. Give a dynamic entrepreneur a green eye shade, and you probably haven't made him into an accountant.

QB Basic tries to help all of us organize our bookeeping so that we can save some of the billable hours for which our accountants are so infamous. In general, Intuit has done a pretty fine job of it, given that the Basic edition is based on the assumption that its users will want a system, not a tool for teaching them accounting. When you have finished the month, quarter, or year, you can turn the results over to the professional so that he can stamp it for approval before you send it to your creditors. You probably will have saved lots of billable hours...

Love The Software - HATE THE COMPANY 2006-04-25
Quickbooks software is great - I really do love it, but if you need ANY TYPE OF HELP...forget it. Intuit, Quickbooks Publisher, is as custom UNFRIENDLY as companies get.

I have used quickbooks for years including several upgrades and additional services. I had a computer crash and lost the software - and everything else. I have the disks but since they are upgrade CD not the "full program" I can't reload the software onto my new system.

Help from Quickbooks? Not unless I am willing to pay $50-$149 the cost of buying the brand new software which I shouldn't have to do.

Quickbooks offers the worst customer service of any company I have ever done business with so if all you want is great software, then Quickbooks is for you. If you MAY EVER need any type of support, avoid all Intuit products; Quicken, Quickbooks, TurboTax and more.

Chad Currin

Realistic representation 2002-12-19
As a number of people here have mentioned Getting started can be a challenge, BUT that isn't necessarily the softwares fault. True accounting practices are NOT necessarily intuitive to the un-initiated. If you have no experience in the paper based world of keeping books then don't expect this software to make it easy for you to do it on a computer. This product does make is much much easier than it could be. If you've not had experience keeping books than get yourself a book on basic book keeping / accounting practices. Also buy yourself a book beyond what the manufacturer puts out as a 'manual'. I used Gail Perry's Using QuickBooks 2002 to train my wife to run QuickBooks and although it wasn't exactly what I'd call 'hand holding' it was thorough.

BOTTUM LINE: Realize your short comings and plan ahead, keeping books for a company is'nt just balancing a checkbook and keeping track of your credit card bill. If you are truely going to get powerful and useful reporting, which can propell your business forward, you'll have to put some time into learning to keep your books.

Not easy to learn, not intuitive (no pun), but does the job 2002-11-22
I've been a software developer for 40 years, and I wrote a General Ledger program for the PC 15 years ago. So then, why did I buy QuickBooks? Because I wanted to accept credit card payments, and QuickBooks is a LOT cheaper than one of those dumb credit card terminals. However, QuickBooks was written by the "be reasonable - do it our way" school of software development; the program is NOT intuitive (no pun intended), so the learning curve is significant. The program starts out in "interview mode" and asks you questions without telling you the impact of your answers. Once you get your company and chart of accounts set up, the program is quite flexible. I found the program's "Help" facility one of the best I've seen in PC software.

So, after reading all these negative reviews here, I decided to get a copy of Peachtree Accounting 2003 and compare it.

1. QuickBooks offers subaccounts (very useful); Peachtree doesn't.

2. QuickBooks doesn't require account numbers; Peachtree does. This makes QuickBooks much easier to use, and easier for non-accounting types to learn.

3. Working with the Chart of Accounts is much easier in QuickBooks than Peachtree.

4. Reports seem easier to set up in QuickBooks than Peachtree, although that could just be my experience.

5. Peachtree offers a brief accounting tutorial; QuickBooks doesn't.

6. Peachtree installation is easy and straight-forward, but it won't install common files on a Samba-based network drive, and downloaded updates are only stored on the local drive. QuickBooks works fine with Samba-based network drives, and makes a point of putting downloaded updates on a sharable drive.

7. Reinstalling QuickBooks after you've updated the program is a pain, as your company data file cannot then be read by the freshly reinstalled QuickBooks. Unfortunately, the only way to re-update the software is to load a company file. So, you've got to load one of the sample files, upgrade, and then load your company file. Confusing and DUMB.

I'm not at all impressed with Intuit as a company (especially TurboTax), but this program is significantly better than Peachtree (the only other program out there I know of that can process credit card payments online).

It's official...I hate this product! 2002-11-15
I used QB 99 for years and decided to upgrade to this mainly because we got a new computer. All I can say is trying to set up your company is a guaranteed headache. It's very complicated, and 75% of the time it won't let you do what you need to do. 90% of the "features" I would never use. I'm canning this and definitely going to search for a simpler accounting software. Did I mention the fees? Yes, Intuit will charge you fees for just about everything under the sun, including tax tables (essential for doing payroll), tech support, and all of their other "services".

PASSWORD 2002-11-12
This isn't so much a review, but I had a problem yesterday and was told to write to quickbooks. This is the only site I could find. I recently installed the updated version and have been using since 10/21.I turned my computer on last night and before I could go into quickbooks it wanted a password. I never enter passwords.I called tech support and they insisted I entered a password, as I am the only person who uses the program and the computer is in my hame I have no need to use passwords.I then shut down the computer and restarted it and I was able to go into quickbooks.I would like someone to tell me why this happened.The tech support people were of no help.