Customer Reviews

QuickBooks Simple Start 2009 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I bought this for starting my small business and it has worked out perfect. It even came with a free website program. Which I am now using and total loving. I was familar with quickbooks pro 2008 from other jobs and I didn't find the difference between the two to be a hinderance at all. This is a really great program for small business and personal use and I in turn am now recommending it to my clients. Quickbooks has created a really great step down from the "Pro" versions and it is like the title says it is "A simple start".

P.S. Their customer service is fantastic as well. I had several questions so I called them up. They put me right through and the people I was talking to were very knowledgeable and answered all my questions.

P.S.S. They also spoke in clear English and I was able to understand them. No offense to telephone operators with accents.

I just wanted something that would track receipts/expenditures and generate professional-ish invoices and reports. Simple start definitely delivers; it's quicker than creating my own access db. This program is available for free @ the intuit website. After downloading (takes ~30 min) I was able to generate invoices (print and pdf) within 15 min.

BTW, if you're looking for a full featured program, SS is prolly not for you. For example, I have yet to figure out how to create recurrent billing. Just remember, SS is NOT an accounting system, just an electronic means of tracking cash flow.

After having Quicken for some time and being accustomed to that format, once I received my Quickbooks, it was clear to me this purchase was a mistake. Unlike Quicken, you can not preview any of the columns. You can't highlight a Payee and see all the transactions regarding that entry. You can not sort the entries by date or alphabetically. It just isn't condusive to a long time Quicken user. So if your planning to get off Quicken and start with Quickbooks, my suggestion is scrap that idea and go with Quicken's 2009 "Home & Business" program which I just purchased only 3 weeks after trying to get use to this one. And now with the Hoime and Business program installed, I can breath a sigh of releaf and I feel like things are normal again.

This starter edition of quickbooks has everything you need to manage billing you sent out to customers. That is all I use it for and it works very well. The main thing that this version doesn't have that I didn't really need is inventory tracking and it won't download your finanacial banking statements (you can manually input them). Otherwise you can't beat the price.

Do download the demo from quicken then buy from amazon for cheaper. The only demo limitation is that it will only keep track of 20 customers but is otherwise identically featured.

I am single employee contractor with several clients and this product was just what I needed. No need for additional accounting capabilities. It certainly fills basic needs.

Marcia

When I got started in building furniture for my customers I was doing all of my finances the in cash. Over the years I got better expose with my work I needed a better way of keeping track of my money, so I went shopping and found QuickBooks Simple Start 2007. I've been updating for the last few years, and then I updated my computer to Vista and needed software that was compatible with Vista that is when I went with QuickBooks Simple Start 2009. Not much of a change from the previous years, but I see a difference with the Vista computer.

I've updated the Simple Start edition since its inception and each year it gets more bloated than the previous year. Why, then, do I bother updating? If you're an Intuit customer, you're not asking this question; you KNOW why. If you're new to Intuit, think of an alternative unless you actually enjoy a near-constant campaign poking you to upgrade to a more expensive edition, or at the very least, buying their annual package.

Recall the experience of buying a new car. You've all but wrapped up the sales agreement when some dealership flunky struts in and tries to get you to buy the extended warranty, rust-proofing package, etc.. You keep saying "no" until you're ready to walk out.

Now I have version 2009 and am about to downgrade to version 2008 because of that annoying Live Community pop up window that users have no way of disabling. AH, but! Intuit provides a means of disabling it in their more expensive edition ... .

Do you REALLY want to deal with Intuit? I'm looking for something better.

you can get this edition for free from the intuit web site. i have used it and it is not much more than than a personal money program. it is like a big checkbook, only harder to work. it is easier to use a ledger book and pen and paper.

pk

I am a CPA, and I love QuickBooks, but Simple Start is terrible! This is a perfect example of you get what you pay for. It is not intuitive. It does not allow you to make a deposit into your bank account unless the money is from a customer. So if you transferred money from another bank account, or put personal money into the business, the only way to record this is through a journal entry. If you can find where to enter a journal entry (example of it not being intuitive) you'd have to know a bit about accounting in order to know what you should enter. Journal entries are usually beyond the skill level of most non-accountants, so that is one of many reasons why this product is not a good choice for anyone. Please do buy QuickBooks - just not this version.

Great product however, I found out 1 week later quickbooks was giving it away for free....