Customer Reviews

QuickBooks Pro 2007 Small Business Financial Software [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(46)

 

 

I've been a Quickbooks user for about 10 years. The basic product is great, its always worked well for me with very few problems - however the company is heading in the wrong direction.

1st - Evidently they don't care if you are a loyal customer, when you upgrade you pay the same price as a new customer, the total retail price.
2nd - They force you to upgrade now by discontinuing support including payroll support for older versions of the program. So don't think you can buy it once every 5 or 6 years and keep using it, you're going to be forced to upgrade about every other year.
3rd - The payroll option is unreal at $199 per year! When I started using the program I was paying $49 per year, so what do I get now for my extra $150, Nothing. Its the same payroll tax downloads as 10 years ago. And get this,with their 2007 edition, if you don't subscribe to the payroll option, you can't use the payroll features at all, even if you wanted to figure it manually, it blacks out the entire payroll section. How greedy is that.
4th - As I said the accounting features are very good, but the last couple of upgrades they started adding in all these useless bells and whistles, mainly to sell things, so about once a month I get these popups wanting me to purchase checks and supplies at way too high prices. You can't turn the reminders off.
5th - Their customer service has always been terrible.

The basic problem is the lack of competition. They only have one main competitor, Peachtree, but Quickbooks dominates the market. This will not always be the case Intuit. As soon as I can find a good alternative, I'm gone. I imagine a good many over uses who are feed up with their lack of customer appreciation will follow.

As a long-time QuickBooks Pro user I was sent (unsolicited) a copy of the 2007 version. I paid more than the cost on Amazon and then when I went to install it on my computer that has run all previous versions with no problems, I got an error message (Error 1303) that stopped the installation. There is a fix for this on the Intuit Board, and although none of the conditions that Intuit claims cause this error exist on my system, I tried the fixes without ever being able to install the update I had just paid for!!! There is no tech support on weekends, others on the community board were having the same problem. One person reported that Intuit told them that it was a Microsoft problem and to call them. This used to be a company that wrote elegant, functional smooth running software but their poor support and buggy upgrades and increasingly sleazy marketing make me want to stick with the 2004 version that I currently run. Be very careful about upgrading to this version. I am returning my copy for a full refund.

The software is pretty good, and it's price is not unreasonable, but I am giving it 3 stars for the lack of an actual upgrade path (i.e. not paying full price every year for an upgrade). To me that seems not to be customer-friendly for those of us who need to keep current with QuickBooks Pro.

In addition, they need to find a way to make their patch/update process run more quickly. Regardless of the time of day it seems to be one of the slowest downloads that I know of (compare to MS, Firefox, Logitech, and Symantec for example).

I used to be a loyal Quickbooks user and recommended QuickBooks as the best small business software out there. However, over the past few years the program and the company have seemed to change. The recent strategy of QuickBooks has been to take advantage of the near monopoly that it has on the market in order to suck every last dime they can out of you as a customer. They haven't seemed to improve the program though over this same time period as it has become a huge, bloated program, loaded with advertising, that is constantly making you download and install updates. One recent "update" actually removed a feature of the program that had been standard since I have been a user. That feature was the payroll tax return generator that now is only available by paying an extra $200 a year. Funny how that feature was removed right before payroll tax returns were due for everyone in January. Unfortunately, the program may still be the best option out there for small business, but just get ready to be nickle and dimed. There is no telling what else they have planned as a future "subscription" feature, even though you already paid for the program.

I have been using Quickbooks in one form or another for several years. While QB seems to do the job, the support offered by Intuit is pretty dismal. The customer service reps don't seem to have a clue. I just spent over an hour, mostly on hold while they tried to figure out my problem. It took a second call to a different department to finally get it straight.
BEWARE of the payroll services offered! DO NOT install any upgrades unless you know exactly what you are installing!I purchased the 2006 Enhanced payroll in June 2006. Recently they sent me a 2007 upgrade disk as part of my subscription, which I promptly installed. After installation I found that I no longer had multi-user functionality. After all that time on the phone, they informed me that it would cost me another $200 for an additional seat for the 2007 program. Once the 2007 is installed and your data is converted, it's no easy task to go back to 2006. (The 2006 version's license was good until 2009!!) I feel like I was the victim of some sort of bait and switch scam.
Intuit needs to rethink their policies that strive to squeeze every nickel from their customers. I'll be shopping around for different accounting software .

I'm a sole practitioner CPA and maintain about 20 separate sets of clients' books in my office. Since both Intuit and Sage (Peachtree By Sage Complete Accounting 2007) have "professional advisors programs" which aggressively solicit CPAs to shill for their software, I should also state that I'm in no way affiliated with either of them, nor any other software company (the fact that it's necessary for me to mention this demonstrates where the accounting profession is headed, but that's another story).

I realize that I'm swimming upstream here, but I truly despise QuickBooks. My clients who use it routinely bring me sets of books which they have messed up so badly that I generate hefty fees by unraveling their errors. The reason, I believe, is that QuickBooks is not a legitimate double-entry self-balancing accounting package. I strongly suspect that it's merely a dressed-up, aggressively marketed version of Intuit's checkbook program, Quicken. Because of this, it's far too easy to make serious errors which the software itself will not detect. A few examples:

A single click will convert your books from cash basis to a sort of quasi-accrual basis. A client once brought me his books which had a cash-basis balance sheet, an accrual-basis P&L, journals and ledgers which were some of both - and he had no idea why nothing balanced (and if you don't know what I'm talking about here, that's all the more reason to avoid this software).

Another issue is that no QuickBooks accounting period is ever really closed. This "feature" allows my clients, many of whom don't really know what they're doing, access to prior years' files, all the way back, in order to "fix things." Consequently I constantly must check to be sure that prior years' balances, for which tax returns have already been filed, haven't been altered. This lack of program control over prior years' data is an inexcusable security defect.

Out-of-balance conditions are often forced to an account called "Opening Balance Equity," an account which frequently has entries appearing from nowhere. It's simply a program-generated force-balanced "plug," which is unidentified and untraceable. Beware the OBE account!!

Both Intuit and Sage have terrible tech and customer support. Both companies gouge their customer bases unmercifully by means of expensive annual payroll updates and discontinuance of support for older versions of their software. Nevertheless, I do my best to steer my clients toward Peachtree. It's by no means a perfect solution, but it's at least a "real" double-entry system, and therefore more idiot-proof, more powerful, and generally bug-free. The learning curves of the two programs are now roughly equal, since Peachtree has added an optional interface for non-accountants.

Finally, I'm not bashing the company, just this product. I've been using Intuit's professional tax return preparation software (ProSeries) for many years, and I'm entirely happy with it. But my bottom-line professional opinion in this case is that QuickBooks is simply not what it claims to be. Use Peachtree (Peachtree By Sage Complete Accounting 2007), use MYOB, use the new Microsoft package - any of which are preferable to this over-hyped and under-powered dog of an accounting program. I keep a recent version of QuickBooks on my computer ONLY as an accommodation to my clients who refuse to switch.

I originally reviewed QuickBooks 2001. As far as I can see, six years have changed nothing significant regarding QuickBooks Pro. One can hope the new upscale versions are better; me, I'm not going there unless forced to by recalcitrant clients.

I have been a QuickBooks user for over 10 years, but Intuit is quickly gaining a reputation for trying to squeeze every last penny out of their customers. QB 2007 adds to that legacy. I upgraded my QB 2004 Basic to QB 2007 Pro and quickly found that I couldn't do ANY payroll unless I subscribed to their $199 tax tables (more than I paid for the product itself)! In QB 2004 you could at least write payroll checks by entering the tax information yourself, but in 2007 even that option is gone. The Payroll section is completely useless without the subscription. I have never heard of an accounting system without ANY way to write payroll checks and keep track of taxes. As a small business with only a few employees, I don't want to double the cost of my product to get something I can do myself in a few minutes. I have returned the product, gone back to my QB 2004, and am looking for another accounting product. I am playing with Peachtree which at least lets you manually do paychecks if you want. Intuit has squeezed the last out of me.

Love the program.... Hate the company!

I've been using QuickBooks for more than 10 years. I started with the basic edition since I am a very small business and use only a portion of the program, specifically Customer and Vendor Lists, Invoicing, A/R and Purchase Orders.

OVERKILL is an understatement... QuickBooks Pro is much more powerful than I need. I don't use Payroll, Check Printing, Year End Accounting and many of its other functions. SO WHY DID I PURCHASE SUCH A POWERFUL PROGRAM?

That's the "rub". Intuit is not satisfied with its QuickBooks users being content with the edition that they are using; Intuit sales people call all too frequently trying to get you to upgrade to the next higher version (edition) of their program. They hounded me for years to upgrade from the early basic edition to the then current basic edition; finally, they dropped support of the product and I had no choice.

I purchased QuickBooks 2005 Basic Edition in 2005. Shortly after purchasing it, they informed me that they were no longer going to support the 2005 Basic Edition and if I wanted continued support I would have to upgrade again, this time to the Pro Edition.

This January (2007) I received an email from Intuit informing me that my 2005 Basic Edition wouldn't run on the new Windows XP Vista platform and if I switched to Vista I would need to upgrade to QuickBooks Pro. I upgraded to a new PC in February as the result of a major crash on my former system and opted to go with Vista, thinking that I could install Windows 98 as a second operating system to run QuickBooks 2005 Basic. The second operating system didn't work out and, after seriously considering switching to Microsoft Accounting 2007, I purchased QuickBooks Pro.

I was very disappointed that Intuit didn't offer a significant purchase incentive to existing users; but they never have in all the years that I've been using their product. Even Microsoft, the shark of sharks, offers incentives. DON'T BE MISHEARTENED.

I purchased the program from Amazon and, with rebates and other purchase incentives, saved $60 over Intuit's price; I could have saved an additional $25 if I had bought on eBay (had I known it at the time).

I've been a loyal Quickbooks user since 1999. What was once a fast, efficient, bullet proof product has become slow, buggy and annoying bloatware. And Intuit's sales and support policies are shamefully greedy and obnoxious.

I upgraded my main desktop PC to Vista and was dismayed to find that Quickbooks 2005 won't work on Vista. Even worse, it corrupts Vista system files with older versions of DirectX when you install it. So after reading only Quickbooks 2007 supports Vista, I was forced to "upgrade".

It's not really an upgrade as Intuit stopped selling those to their loyal customers. Instead, despite giving Intuit thousands of dollars for previous software over the years you, you have to buy a full copy just the same as a new user. That's the first slap in the face.

The next surprise was that it took Quickbooks 2007 forever to install on my brand new screaming fast $2000 Core 2 Duo Vista PC. The entire Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate suite installs faster! We're talking serious bloatware here and they now also require Flash 7 to play their videos.

But most frustrating of all is how much slower Quickbooks 2007 is. Even though it's running on a much faster PC than Quickbooks 2005 was, it easily takes 4 times as long to launch the software. And even once it's running, many things take seemingly forever and you just sit there locked out of the software while it's grinding away doing who knows what? And no, it's not my PC. All my other apps are nice and fast.

Even simple things like reports and reconciling an account can lock it up for long periods of time. It also "nags" you with more pop up dialog boxes and other things that slow down using it. So where I used to easily and quickly get what I wanted done in Quickbooks 2005, it's now a slow, annoying, deliberate process to do the same things in QB2007. It's a giant step backwards.

I've had it crash a few times already and get stuck trying to update itself. It also, like 2005, has to be registered to work for more than 30 days.

Ottherwise, it's not that different than QB2005. The user interface is just different enough to be annoying, but it's not especially better. The find feature, for example, still hasn't been fixed to be more user friendly.

Intuit's support policies really are shameful. They refuse to help with most problems, even their own bugs, without charging you a fortune for support. You can easily spend more than the price of the product just getting help. They also "sunset" their products after a few years and stop supporting them entirely forcing you to "upgrade" (buy a full new copy).

Somebody needs to come along and do small accounting software right now that Intuit has mostly dropped the ball. Microsoft has their new "Accounting Professional" products and I'm going to be checking those out. If that works for me, I may well return QB2007 and get a refund as it's been less than 60 days. Perhaps if enough people do that, Intuit will get the messsage that half baked slow bloatware isn't acceptable and go back to making good software?

I'm an accountant with over 20 years of experience and 8+ using Quickbooks. This version (2007) is a disaster! I recently was forced to upgrade a client to QB 2007. I have NEVER had so much trouble installing any other version of Quickbooks! I was able to solve all the issues myself, with the help of their ProAdvisor's forum, but I'd never recommend it for the average business user. Second, after a month of use, I found the software was incorrectly calculating payroll deductions and a cash summary account balance did not add up to the sum of the cash sub-accounts (an impossibility if the program were written or functioning properly). I finally dumped 2007 and begged the client to go back to 2006 and wait for QB 2008 to come out in Dec. 07'. What a nightmare!!! Quickbooks support has been awful (even for me, a ProAdvisor) and I can't imagine what the average customer could expect. I've never had serious problems with any other version of Quickbooks, but this one is terrible. DO NOT BUY!