QuickBooks Pro 2003

by Intuit

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000078UN2
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 18, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,194 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #7 in Software > Business & Office > Business Accounting > Payroll
  • #100 in Software > Business & Office > Business Accounting > Accounting
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

QuickBooks Pro 2003 includes everything found in QuickBooks Basic, plus advanced tools for managing your business finances. QuickBooks Pro 2003 includes estimating, time tracking, and integration with over 100 business applications. It's also multi-user capable so up to five people can work on the same file at the same time.

Choose from over 100 ready-to-use, professionally designed invoice, estimate, statement, and other form templates conveniently available on your QuickBooks CD-ROM. Now you can add color text, shaded boxes, multiple text comments, logos, and images, anywhere and in a variety of sizes. You can automatically create your budget using actual income and expense data, and enjoy greater flexibility and confidence when backing up your data.

With improved customer statements, you can now print the statements you need with the information you want.

Be sure to visit our QuickBooks Software Add-Ons Store for software products that have been developed by members of the Intuit Developer Network. QuickBooks software add-on s are applications that integrate with this and other packages of QuickBooks financial software to save you time and increase your productivity.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars UN-Intuit-ive, January 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: QuickBooks Pro 2003 (CD-ROM)

This is a perfect example of a good program gone from bad to worse... I started using Quicken when it first came out over a decade ago and thought it was great. I upgraded to QuickBooks and eventually to QuickBooks Pro '99 due to business needs. But I won't upgrade again.

I have used the upgraded editions with other clients and have decided NOT to upgrade for my own business use because of the following problems which have been brought to the attention of Intuit, but which have NOT been addressed:

1. LOUSY and expensive customer support, often for problems due directly to Intuit errors
2. Constant addition of fees for what should be basic accounting processes (pay roll, tax forms, etc.) AND lack of adequate notice that these fees will be encountered until after purchase has been made
3. Yearly upgrades that do not offer better program usability but DO cost more and more each year
4. Forced upgrades by "Dropping" of support AND cancellation of on-line banking capabilities for all "outdated" versions of the program (which are often better than the newer versions)
5. Lack of true versatility for business users - i.e. can't really change the invoice forms to work for a variety of businesses billing in a variety of ways
6. Lack of compatability with other commonly used programs - i.e. unable to import / export with most MS Word and MS Office functions

Finally, I object to a strong trend I am seeing with QuickBooks - It is becoming the exclusive realm of the "professional" bookkeepers. There are expensive classes, "QuickBooks" consultants and accountants who will gladly teach you how to use the program, set up your books for you and require that all your year end business records be submitted in QuickBooks - or they won't touch your taxes. All for a fee of course! If you can't keep your own books, then you shouldn't be in business and you certainly shouldn't waste your time with this product.

68 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor product, poor support, December 18, 2002

By 

Jon Kaplan (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: QuickBooks Pro 2003 (CD-ROM)

After buying the 2003 upgrade, we have had real problems. Although earler versions ran well and the computer fully meets system requirements, the 2003 version is extremely slow. When you put the cursor over the menu bar, it takes two seconds before it is recognized. Click on the item and it takes up to 5 seconds for the menu to appear. Call Intuit and they want your credit card to talk to a "software engineer." I understand how they can charge for company specific accounting questions, but charge for software problems? My advice, save your money and don't upgrade. As a long time Intuit/Quicken customer I am very disheartened with the company and their products.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars User Friendly - Absolutely Not. Look at SIMPLY ACCOUNTING, October 5, 2003

By 

"whomeverwhatever" (Hamden, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: QuickBooks Pro 2003 (CD-ROM)

I wish I had evaluated Simply Accounting, PC Magazine's choice, prior to purchasing Quickbooks. It's only $40.00 and you can get a free demo over the internet to evaluate.

Quickbooks can probably handle any transaction or any expense, in any manner you choose. The developers have clearly designed Quickbooks to accomodate any possible way you might do business, and for a wide variety of businesses.

Now that sounds very positive yet you do NOT want to buy this software. Why - it seems no one at Quicken ever thought about day to day use. You can, given some effort, find a way to record sales and expenses the way you want. But its highly unlikely you can record any of that information in a user- friendly or intuitive manner - highly unlikely!!!!!

For example: I had a number of items I wanted to add to my Quickbooks inventory of products to be sold. For sixty items - all from the same supplier, all very similar, I was forced to key in every piece of data and make a number of repetitive selections about how to handle them. Even routine paste and copy doesn't work within Quicken, easily. Not only doesn't Quicken easily allow pasting, it doesn't remember a thing you did previously. It was clear no one in the Quicken design team had ever tried entering 60 items into an inventory. In fact, I don't think you could make that simple task more difficult or less intuitive to do than what Quicken has created in this software.

Another example of bad design: my business does phone and internet sales. Quicken provides/recommends a form for such sales. On that form you can put in buyers name, address, (no email/phone though), and the items purchased. That sounds OK - perhaps less than perfect but things get worse. Processing the credit card is disastorous! There are no provided fields for credit card or expiration date. I even subscribed to Quicken's merchant services (meaning credit card processing service). When you are ready to process the order you click "process credit card" (a Quicken exclusive for 2003) and you have a new screen with the amount of the sale entered for you from the preceding form but (if you can believe this) the fields are blank for the name/address of the purchaser you just filled out in the previous screen. So now you but you have no choice but to ask the customer for that information all over again. And NO ------ you can't start with the credit card screen first nor can you see the first screen. Now, what is even worse ------ is once the order is processed you have NO record of the credit card number used!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I find it impossible to believe that Quicken ever, even for a single minute, tried to see if this was a useable solution for those of us who sell a product and take credit card payments in full at the time of sale. To get around this ------- I write out everything long hand on a piece of paper, file a hard copy and then enter it in Quicken!!!!!! Uselsess software!!!

Quicken also provides only paid support - so good luck with problems and I really doubt Quicken wants to know about problems. Their sole focus seems to be on selling you additional services.

Also, be aware, every aspect of the program is laden with features that are really advertisements for additional Quicken services that will probably work poorly but you can never turn them off, even if you purchase them. The links within the program remain displayed.

I wish I had evaluated Simply Accounting, PC Magazines choice, prior to purchasing Quickbooks. It's only $40.00 and you can get a free demo over the internet. I don't know if it is better but it would be hard for it to be worse than Quickbooks and at least you can try it out for free.

The fact that there is NO SUPPORT without a fee keeps Quicken insulated from customer problems and this alone, given what little feedback they get, may explain such a poorly designed product. Hear no evil should be Quicken's motto.

UPDATE: December 2003

Untuit had an online survey of some of its customers during November 2003 which I participated in. As can be imagined, my comments were not overally kind. To my surprise, I was contacted by Intuit, weeks later for an in depth interview over the phone. I was contacted by a "director" of the corporation who spoke with me for over an hour and a half concerning my complaints. Yet I was offered no solutions other than a call back from a product specialist which I received at the day and time promised. What is interesting is that in both cases I talked with very personable, intelligent individuals. Yet every issue I raised regarding the lack of user friendliness in the Product was or could not be addressed.

In the end, I concluded my final conversation with Intuit (via the product specialist) with the remarks that I had talked with two Intuit representatives that where both clearly intelligent, motivated, and personable. Yet at the same time I was an unpaid "beta" tester of a product that was clearly not user friendly, at least in my case.