The Pros and Cons of implementing QuickBooks in your small to mid-sized buisness.

PROS

  1. Ease of Use: QuickBooks makes every effort to make their product intuitive and 'user friendly'.
  2. Affordable: Minimal investment is required to purchase the software.
  3. Flexible: The software and transactions can be modified after use.
  4. Scalable: QuickBooks Premier can grow to accommodate 5 users. QuickBooks Enterprise can accommodate up to 30 users. 
  5. Customizable: QuickBooks can be customized so that is is suitable for business with fairly simple needs and also business which have more complex requirements.
  6. Outstanding Reports:  QuickBooks reporting 'out of the box' is excellent, the ability to modify the 'out of the box' reports extensive.
  7. Reliable: QuickBooks is a stable, reliable and proven product. Intuit is committed to this product and continues to develop it's functionality and environment.
  8. Expandable: QuickBooks offers additional services to expand the functionality (generally for an additional fee).  These services include credit card processing, online banking, remote access capabilities, payroll assistance, direct deposit and improved email functionality.  In addition, there are innumerable third party products which receive Intuit's blessing to interface with the software and provide more function, often aimed at particular industries.

CONS

  1. Ease of use: QuickBooks has been marketed as software that is very easy to use. This perception of 'ease of use' has led many users into a false sense of security.  They believe that because it is so 'easy' to set up and start entering data, that the data and the resulting reports will automatically be accurate.  This is not usually the case.  QuickBooks is, after all, accounting software.  For the accounting reports to be accurate, care must be taken in the set up of the file, including the accounts and account types, the 'items' and item types, the start date and beginning balances, transaction types used and year end adjustments posted.
  2. Affordability: The low hard cost to purchase QuickBooks leaves the user with the impression that the associated soft costs for training, set up and implementation will also be very low. 
  3. Flexibility: QuickBooks allows users to change many things after they have been set up or posted.  This causes users to think that this is a good idea.  Just because QuickBooks allows you to do something, doesn't mean it should be done! Good procedure must be enforced by the user as the software doesn't do it.