Customer Reviews

QuickBooks Pro 2006 for Mac [Old Version]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I really wanted to like this product. After one year, summarily, they've added Address Book syncing. Great, that's fine. It sounded like it had most of the modern features of its sister Windows product, except two fully functioning features that are critical:

Payroll and online banking.

As for payroll, you can either sign up for a monthly service, or if you have a recent PowerBook, use the included Aatrix's highly confusing and outdated TopPay software package (with expensive yearly tax-table updates).

Online banking is NOT well implemented here. Some folks can use Direct Connect, others cannot. Though this is no fault of Intuit, but rather the banks' lack of web services, Intuit could still open up their QuickBooks format to CSV, or QIF. Worse, there's a transaction "purgatory" register. Yes, that's a SECOND register for your banks' downloaded QBO file. You then manually go through each transaction to add it to your corresponding register. There's no command-key equivalent to add all, or even a single one: you have to select an item, then click a button. COMPLETELY INELEGANT.

There are some overpaid product managers out there. They would do well to hire interface designers/art directors/graphic designers (NOT decorators).

A major disappointment.

We have been Mac users since 1985, and Quickbooks users since 1996.

I carefully read the reviews before purchasing, and Intuit's corporate declaration of their commitment to the Mac platform. We really wanted to believe they meant it (this time) and because we were to lazy to switch programs, we purchased 2006.

Well the only thing Intuit is interested in and committed to, is sucking what ever last few dollars they can from trusting Mac users.

The software is pathetic and woefully inadequate... they should have called it MacPro 1984. DO NOT WALK - RUN from this blatant attempt to fleece money from Mac users.

We will NEVER let Intuit steal from us again... there are much better accounting programs out there for the Mac, and we can only be angry with ourselves for being to lazy to change.

If you are just starting out.... DO NOT but this software.
If you are upgrading.... Keep what you have until you're ready to switch.
Read MacWorld reviews. (and they were being nice IMHO)

You can ignore the other reviewers like we did...
but YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Unlike the PC version of quickbooks pro which has built in software to handle payroll, the mac version has nothing, and you only have 2 choices that are online access only and overpriced.

The interface is incredibly confusing, with hundreds of floating windows that overlap each other and get lost like a messy stack of papers. Simple functions like "print checks" or "edit transaction" are in the worst possible locations, so even the simplest tasks take forever to complete.

After using this for over 2 months and seeing how much better designed the PC version is, I'm buying a cheap PC laptop just so I can use the PC version. I recommend the same for anyone else.

I've used the OS 9 version for years, making do with manually adjusted tax rates for unemployment and California taxes, etc. as needed. Year-to-date info always worked, and Pay Liabilities always worked, and so long as I entered the tax amount correctly for each paycheck I was OK.

Since 2006, however, the OS 9 version stopped updating the year-to-date info, though the Pay Liabilities still has the total correct. This made it harder to ensure getting the taxes correct as the gross pay total reached the $7000 (and other) limits, so I decided to upgrade to the latest OS X version.

The Amazon.COM product info makes it sound like OS X versions still support Payroll functions, but it turns out this requires a SUBSCRIPTION to an Outside Vendor! The OS 9 menu items for Payroll are missing!

Worse, when I returned the product to Amazon.COM, they withheld half the cost as a restocking fee, because it was my fault I didn't catch this subtlety in their easy to misunderstand product information.

Most every longstanding product enhances functionality with upgrades, so how was I to expect moving from OS 9 to X would lose such an important Business function as Payroll? Amazon.COM does a disservice to us customers to let Intuit get away with making it sound like QuickBooks does Payroll when it does not do so natively.

This software is filled with all sorts of glitches. In order to fix the glitches, you must pay for "support", which is basically a group of esl students with tabbed notebooks. I spent hours on the phone trying to solve several problems with the program. None of them were solved, and I was still charged. I now take my laptop to the accoutant every week and struggle without it for several days while she does my books since the transfer to PC function does NOT work. Aatrix is even worse. Together, these programs have made running my business miserable.

I have been using quickbooks pro for windows for about ten years now and love it. I just bought a MacBook Pro and wanted to change/upgrade to Quickbooks Pro for Mac 2006. I am an artist and my proposals need one to two pages of details per line item. The Mac permits only 50 characters. Also there are many details missing, reports, etc which make the program a huge BURDEN to work with so I have switched back to QB for Windows and put a partition in my MacBook Pro. I would certainly not recommend the program until they fix these problems which they say should be by 2008 version. They agreed that they have received several complaints. I shipped my program back.

I waited several years for QuickBooks for the Mac.
Until it could download transactions...

Well where to start describing this unfortunate experience?
Oh Yes... For starters forget about downloading transactions..
Importing the popular QIF files? Sorry Not Available.
Quick Books Mac 2006 only imports QBO and IIF format files, and then not automaticly.

Yes you can get a third party QIF to IIF Converter ( Simply ConvertIIF Converter)
But Quickbooks Mac 2006 will not import all converted files correctly.
It doesn't like negative numbers... Or so the Error message says.

Paying bills online with QB2006? Sorry Not Available.
Print checks and snailmail in 2006.

Accurate Transactions. Well... Don't even think about editing the vendor list to fix duplicate entries or misspellings. Unless you want to find and then manually re-enter the missing payee descriptions on ALL of those transactions. Of course they don't bother to mention that detail.

It should at least have good Reporting capabilities.. Right??
After all how basic can one get. Printing columns of numbers is easy right??... WRONG!

Shrinking Reports to One Page Wide? Sorry Not Available.
Its almost impossible to adjust Report Column widths without inadvertently sorting them. Then I dare you to get them to print on one page. The best solution for printing reports is to Email the report as a PDF to Yourself and then print the PDF. Hows that for lack of elegance and inefficiency.

Tech Support??? Here's my experience...

First call. On Hold for 20 Minutes. Then told "I don't know anything about the Mac Version" Call Atrix. (The Payroll Provider)

Second Call, I waited on hold for 64 minutes.
After another 15 minutes explaining that my imported data from Quicken was coming through corrupted. And asking for ideas. I finally asked if QuickBooks could import QIF files. He said he had never heard of a QIF file type! (QIF was developed by Intuit makers of QuickBooks) He ultimately said to Call Quicken Tech support for QuickBooks importing help. I spent another couple of hours solving the problem myself through a repeated trial and error process.

Unfortunately there are plenty more deficiencies to write about, but the worst part is that the User Interface is inconsistent and buggy. Try dialog boxes where clicking cancel enters the transaction... Lovely.

After spending Dozens of hours with this stinker. I'd recommend that you buy something else. Anything else..
Save yourself hours of time and irritation. This is a candidate for a class action lawsuit. Maybe it will be ready in a few more years... Maybe NOT.

I was forced to purchase this program, since I had used the trial version and there was no way to save the information back to the previous version. Additionally, Intuit informed me they wouldn't be supporting the previous version! And on top of that, there's no longer an upgrade price, and I was charged full price after years of using QuickBooks. Wish I could transfer everything to another accounting program...

I have been a long-term user of QuickBooks for the Mac. The most recent version of this had been QuickBooks Pro 5.

Upon the release of QuickBooks Pro 2006, I was excited to see that the product had online banking capability (finally). The marketing materials were unclear about whether you could write online checks, so I called Intuit (developer of QuickBooks) to see if it works. They assured me that it would so I ordered the product.

Upon arrival and upon reading the documentation, no mention at all about online check writing although it does have capability to download transactions from financial instituitions (a three step process and not exactly elegant).

Back to Intuit. This time the tech support said, no, check writing only available in Windows product.

Bottom line -- if you have QB 5, don't bother upgrading. If you are looking for an online check writing application, keep looking or use Quicken if your business will allow it.

Come on, Intuit! How about getting a really GOOD product out for the Mac!

Intuit has short-changed Mac users with the all new 2006 version of quickbooks. The windows version has so many more features, and for the same price it leaves you wondering why those features were left out of the mac edition. The invoices it creates look like a joke and there's no way to change it- the boxes and text are grossly misaligned and the line items butt right up against the border of the columns. The windows version however, comes with a complete "layout designer" built right in. As a small business owner and graphic designer I need my invoices to look professional. There are many alternatives for Mac users in terms of accounting software- try looking at MYOB for the mac or if you are in the creative industry check out Studiometry.