Intuit QuickBooks: Pro 2005 Full Version for PC (284178)

Pros: Easy startup, many features
Cons: Will cost you and cost you in the long run

I am a long-time Quickbooks user. No longer. This company is an absolute nightmare. I have been using the 2001 Pro version for a few years. I faithfully updated. Then they "retired" the 2001 version. However, the program doesn't know ...

Pros: Ease of install, good set of features
Cons: POOR customer service, Poor payment processing, lawsuits threatened to end problematic calls, Restrictive Software license

I bought a used copy of this software from a friend who was changing to an on-site bookkeeper. He had no problems that he told me about and said the Intuit Customer service was OK when he had to use them. I had planned on using it for the school store ...

Pros: You'll always have something to do if you ever become that psychotically bored.
Cons: Seems like a lot of money just to make yourself crazy.

I have no experience in accounting, but with 2 degrees in IT and a career in software, I figured "how hard could it be"? I let an accountant convince me it was the best to buy.

Now I wish I'd saved my money for something more sensible -like the lottery. I won't use that accountant.

This might be okay if you're a CPA, but I'll never know since I cannot understand how to use it properly. Also, the invoicing and other templates included are not very useful, in my opinion. I make far better and more flexible forms in Excel or Word.

Pros: Probably a good product if you can figure out how to use it properly.
Cons: Non existent support at only $50 a month!

I realize that this product is the leader in business accounting but there is little good to say about their support. You can't get any answers by calling without signing on to their expensive support plan. I needed to get an answer on what I thought would be a simple question. After 2 hours on the phone they could not help me. I got a letter in the mail a few days later welcoming me to the support plan. The letter noted that if I did not specifically cancel they would automatically renew me every month at $50. I canceled immediately, not counting the 30 minute hold time.

Pros: Easy to navigate, simple to use.
Cons: Extra fees make it much more expensive than the initial purchase price.

Forget about it if you have less than 5 employees. The Payroll Service requires an additional monthly fee and multi-level pricing on a per-item basis is disabled. Extra fees add up quickly for a small business.

Pros: There are no Pros since I was unable to open the program.
Cons: I was unable to open the program.

I have been a QuickBooks user for several years. Imagine my surprise when I loaded 2005, and I was unable to open the program. The error message said that I needed to have administrator rights to open the program. Guess what! I am a single-station user, so I have administrator rights.

I contacted technical support, and they acknowledge they have a problem, but as of today (1/31/05) they have no fix. So, I had to uninstall the program. I just spent $199 for a product that I can't return and doesn't work.

Pros: Other than it's the software my accountant uses: NONE.
Cons: Biggest cons: interferes with system performance; no longer easy to use.

I sincerely regret that I upgraded from my previous version of QuickBooks.

It used to be easy for the non-accountant small business person to use. Not so any longer: it's become quite cumbersome and unfriendly. There are so many layers now that I have to wade through to find what I need. And my right-brain logic doesn't align with the "logic" of the folks who re-wrote, re-designed and re-arranged this software, making it excruciatingly difficult to find what I'm looking for.

Also quite problematic: I no longer can move readily in and out of my graphic design software while running QB - it significantly slows down my system's performance. And - even if I quit QB, it continues to run in the background, slowing everything down, and sometimes hanging the system. To have the speed and performance I'm accustomed to, I have to reboot. This makes it rather difficult to do Time Tracking, or to run a spur-of-the-moment A/R report for a client.