Hi guys,

we are thinking about getting quickbooks to manage our company finances but i have a couple of questions.

1. which version do you find works best for hosting companies? I am in the UK so i dont think we have the online version but there is standard, pro and the custom solutions

2. I understand that you need pro for multicurrency but how do you do things, my main site is all in £ but i may be offering managed servers soon and i may charge in $ in which case should i have multi currency or is it just easier to convert the $ into £

3. Is it easy to setup and use?

4. Is it worth the money

I have looked at sage etc but that looks a bit complicated, I was also told that a lot of people use a prog called ISP Power but everytime ive tried to look at their site it hasn't worked.

We use Quickbooks in our firm (law firm) and HATE it. It's not hard to set up, but it isn't very user friendly. Options are a bit hard to find. Layout is horrible. I suggest trying to find some other billing method. You may just want to use simple Quicken.

Eh, QuickBooks isn't so bad. I can't speak for Chris, but in my experience a lot of 'frustrations' with QB stem from not having it properly setup by an accountant at the outset. I was extremely opposed to going with QB a few years ago due to all of the horror stories out there, but in all honesty it's actualy quite good. Not to mention it's the de facto standard accounting program here in the US, practically all accountants have clients who use it.

Brandon

I agree that it has it's good points. It's not a bad program. Our firm just doesn't like it's setup and feels it lacks some features other programs have (don't ask me, I don't use the program much).

I agree with Brandon:
Spend the extra few bucks and get an accountant or other similarly qualified professional to help you set up your chart of accounts and get you started. It will be money well spent, and much less expensive if you do it now as opposed to a year from now.

That being said, we use the Professional version at work, but for my very small business, I use Peachtree (which is kinda clunky).

You should also maybe look into taking an adult education course, I know they have them here in the US, don't know if the UK is different.

QuickBooks is actually great. Get an accountant to set it up for you once and at the end of the year instead of spending hours (billable hours) with him/her trying to figure out your records, just export everything and email the file.
Saves you money and a lot of headache at the end of the year. What could be better?

Eugene

The thing is im not sure how many accountants here (UK) actually use it, SAGE seems to be more the standard

Quick books is a great application. It just takes a while to learn, and find all the great features it has! Also, come tax season it will make your life and your accountants alot easier.

QB is a good application. The online edition may be limited but it would be perfect for hosts since you can check your P&L statements anytime anywhere. only issue is that all your data is being hosted at Intuit. If they go down, then we are pretty much empty..

So buy the software. It's not that expensive and it's definitely worth the money.

Eugene

I just began using QuickBooks and really enjoy it. We can now manage all the divisions of our company within one environment and, more importantly to us, one business bank account. It took me about 2 hours to get the hang of what I need to use (we mainly use the chart of accounts, write cheques, manage credit cards, reconcile, pay bills, and generate reports).

I have used QB Pro in various businesses and it worked well for me. Having the accountant set it up the first time you use can be a useful way to go. However the real important question is what exactly you are wanting from an accounting system. Write down what it is you want, then go to the list of what Quickbooks offers among other programs and see if it fits your needs.

Anybody know of a good Quickbooks forum? I'm struggling to figure out how to enter equity withdrawals for a 2 person LLC.

Thanks,

Paula