Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Premier 2009 (and industry-specific editions)
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc. Part number: 406635
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Product series
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- Intuit QuickBooks Premier 2009 keeps the program's well-designed, intuitive interface, while adding a few new features. It's a worthy upgrade for people serious about online banking, and it remains the best accounting program for small business owners. However, Intuit should be more generous with customer support, particularly for setup issues.
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CNET editors' review
Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Premier 2009 (and industry-specific editions) price range: $270.36 - $289.95
- Reviewed by: Jeff Bertolucci
- Edited by: Elsa Wenzel
- Reviewed on: 10/21/2008
The good: Intuit QuickBooks Premier 2009 offers improved online banking tools; Live Community user-assisted help; Company Snapshot screen for quick business overview; a free Web site for one year; support for international payments and most world currencies; better client data-review tools for accountants.
The bad: QuickBooks Premier 2009 suffers some glitches with online banking setup; Live Community not as responsive as it should be; no free support for setup issues; sluggish performance on Vista PCs with 1GB of RAM.
The bottom line: Intuit QuickBooks Premier 2009 keeps the program's well-designed, intuitive interface, while adding a few new features. It's a worthy upgrade for people serious about online banking, and it remains the best accounting program for small business owners. However, Intuit should be more generous with customer support, particularly for setup issues.
Intuit QuickBooks dominates the small business accounting realm, largely because it does the best job of simplifying the arcane world of bookkeeping for nonaccountants. QuickBooks 2009 builds on the success of its predecessors--wisely it hasn't changed its excellent, flowchart-style interface--while adding a few new and improved features. These include enhanced online banking, a Company Snapshot page that provides a quick overview of your daily business operations, support for multiple currencies, a free (for a year) Web site, and easy access to the online community of QuickBooks users.
We tested the $400 QuickBooks Premier, which includes industry-specific versions for accountants, contractors, wholesalers, and other businesses. Unlike the $200 Pro version, Premier lets you create business plans, forecast sales and expenses, assign different billing rates for employees, and perform other advanced tasks. At the low end, the $100 Simple Start handles the basics well but lacks higher-end tools, such as the capability to create purchase orders and track inventory.
Setup and installation
As with earlier versions, QuickBooks Premier 2009 is easy to install. Setup took about 30 minutes, excluding the time required to enter company information, which may take several days if done manually. In terms of overall performance, QuickBooks 2009 ran sluggishly on our Vista PC with 1GB of memory. We recommend at least 2GB RAM for decent performance.
Features
While earlier versions of QuickBooks had online banking, only a tiny percentage of people used the feature, according to Intuit. The redesigned Online Banking Center for 2009 makes it easier to set up your financial accounts, write online checks, and download and organize transactions. The enhanced banking tools, some borrowed from Intuit's Quicken personal finance application, are smarter and easier to manage. For instance, you can set up naming rules for downloaded bank transactions, allowing QuickBooks to automatically rename and categorize them. One rule, for instance, might instruct QuickBooks to rename any transaction with the text string "Staples" to "Staples Office Supplies." This prevents the program from adding new vendors to your payee list every time the bank adds a unique reference or store number to the vendor name, such as "A735Staples09128008."
Overall, the Banking Center's setup wizard is well designed, although not as seamless as it should be. In our tests, for instance, it wouldn't set up an account with Bank of America, suggesting we contact the bank for more information. Furthermore, your bank may require you to go to its Web site to complete the setup. With Wells Fargo, for instance, we needed to download our banking statement from Wells' CEO Basic Banking Site to finish the process. Overall, this was clunky.
Another Quicken-style feature is Company Snapshot, a single-screen overview of your business's vital stats. To access it from the home page, you click Company Snapshot on the Icon Bar. What follows is a screen with information to help business owners better manage their daily cash flow. The list headers avoid accountant gibberish and give it to you straight: customers who owe money, vendors to pay, and so on. This 30,000-foot view is handy for users who get lost in the minutiae of daily bookkeeping.
QuickBooks users now get a free Web site for one year, after which Intuit changes $4.99 a month. While many Web-hosting services offer free starter sites, Intuit does make the process very easy, and no coding skills are required. The company's Homestead subsidiary provides dozens of design templates, which you can customize by changing colors and backgrounds, adding your own images (like company logos), and so on. The finished product isn't anything fancy--it's mostly a marketing site--but its appearance is professional.
Premier now supports most of the world's currencies, a boon for small businesses that need to send invoices, bill payments, and wire transfers internationally. And the Client Data Review feature in the Accountant Edition makes it easier for bookkeepers to find and fix their clients' errors.
Service and support
We have mixed feelings about Live Community, introduced with QuickBooks 2008, which makes it easier to get technical support from fellow users rather than Intuit. The Live Community window is positioned on the right side of the screen, with a context-sensitive list of discussion topics. For instance, if you're working on the home page, one topic may be "Moving QuickBooks from one computer to another." Switch to Company Snapshot, and new topics appear, including "Open purchase orders." Can't find the information you need? Type in your own query and click Ask My Question.
But will anybody respond? Two of our questions on online banking were never answered, but another query on the QuickBooks Learning Center tutorials got a response within a few hours. Intuit sends status e-mails to let you know whether someone has responded to your query. Live Community is nice, but we felt in part as if Intuit is merely dumping technical support--at least the free variety--off on QuickBooks users.
We're disappointed that Intuit no longer offers 30 days of free setup support. Given Premier's steep price and vast array of features, this seems like a short-sighted move to cut costs. Self-support is available via Live Community and at Intuit's support site, but you'll have to pay dearly to interact with a human being. The monthly plan, for instance, costs $79 for the first month, and $39 per month thereafter.
User reviews
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Returning this product
by Artsandminds on March 24, 2009
Pros: I was too blinded by its shortcomings to see any positives.
Cons: When I tried to use the business planning function it would not open. I called to get help only to find out I had to pay for the luxury of using the software.
Summary: If you are buying it for the business planning function, its not worth it, other software is more helpful and just as thorough.
Summary: If you are buying it for the business planning function, its not worth it, other software is more helpful and just as thorough.
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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a waste of your money
by barrett23 on February 14, 2009
Pros: You get to meet a lot of people in India
Cons: Support is almost non-existant
Paying for the support you get is a crime.
If you don't buy their other services(payroll) they punish you by eliminating features you need.Summary: Intuit is just a very bad company. Unetical might not be the right description, but it has to be close. When I look at the stars c-net gives these products, ...
Summary: Intuit is just a very bad company. Unetical might not be the right description, but it has to be close. When I look at the stars c-net gives these products, I start questioning their input also. You can build a good software program for accounting, but it's a waste if you can't get the support to make it work right.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Worst QB software ever!
by geno2009 on November 23, 2009
Pros: None. QB2005 was a stable useful product.
Cons: Buggy and non-intuitive. If you're on QB2005, stay on it. Stay away from this release.
Summary: A waste of time and money, real all the reviews.
Summary: A waste of time and money, real all the reviews.
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Unintuitive and Uncomprehensive
by fean77 on September 14, 2009
Pros: Can download online bank transactions
Cons: Categorization of transactions is tedious and unintuitive. Unable to select multiple transactions for categorization without switching to a separate interface window from main downloaded uncategorized transaction list.
Summary: Quickbooks is obviously not geared for a financial planning business which runs off commission income and annual advisory fees. Microsoft Money seems more fit for that task.
Summary: Quickbooks is obviously not geared for a financial planning business which runs off commission income and annual advisory fees. Microsoft Money seems more fit for that task.
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QB 2009 worst in the history of QB
by noslander on September 9, 2009
Pros: There is no longer anything to like about it.
Cons: Bloated, Unsupported, Time Wasting, Multi user extremely buggy! Install takes you to a marketing nightmare. Online banking extremely buggy! Qb live community waste time but is better than calling Intuit.
Summary: Having supported and used Quickbooks since its DOS days before MS Windows existed I am depressed at where Intuit has taken this to a new low. Unfortunately, I have clients ...
Summary: Having supported and used Quickbooks since its DOS days before MS Windows existed I am depressed at where Intuit has taken this to a new low. Unfortunately, I have clients using this product. My goal for 2010 is to migrate them to a fully supported, multiuser system.
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Quickbooks Premier 2009 Best Garbage Ive ever seen.
by Jim7777777 on August 26, 2009
Pros: I love the high price. Best customer service too - perpetual hold when you ask something like, "whats your corporate mailing address?". Call your accountant within one day of loading this on your business pc.
Cons: Cons?? I wish I could get away with such good cons but I just cant live with myself using those ethics.
Summary: CASINO! Take your good cash to the casino, that way you will have a chance of winning. I know you like the pretty box with all kinds of thrilling business ...
Summary: CASINO! Take your good cash to the casino, that way you will have a chance of winning. I know you like the pretty box with all kinds of thrilling business reports, data, stc., so go ahead and buy it!Try it and then come back here to write your review. I'm returning QB Premier 2009 immeadiately. The old ways worked then just as they will now. There you have it folks. DONT BUY IT!
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Buggy and multi user version not network compatible
by Muletiger on August 13, 2009
Pros: cna use data from earlier version (whoopie)
Cons: Buggy, false claims of compatibility and terrible setup support.
Summary: Even though QuickBooks sales desk said otherwise, QuickBooks 2009 is not compatible with Windows Small Business Server 2008. The only way to use the program in the multiuser mode is ...
Summary: Even though QuickBooks sales desk said otherwise, QuickBooks 2009 is not compatible with Windows Small Business Server 2008. The only way to use the program in the multiuser mode is to have one on the seats acting as a host. The server cannot act as a host unless it is running QuickBooks, i.e. taking up one of the licenses. The host has to be designated and the host workstation must be running for any of the other workstations to be run the program. I was on the phone for 4 hours with tech support at QuickBooks. The file can reside on the server, but that is all. The server does not act as a server, just as a disk drive. I paid for three licenses and can only use two if I want to user my server.
This will be the last Intuit program I buy. Fourteen years of use and I am fed up with the constant nickle and dime approach of Intuit. Add to that a buggy program that they are making false claims about and I advise any new users to look elsewhere. -
Horrible customer support, buggy software.
Pros: Ability to connect online to my bank.
Cons: Things that should be easy to do are hard, like process a customer refund, or process a returned check. The program is buggy as evidenced by stray transactions mysteriously appearing in a newly created company account.
Summary: I have wasted a tremendous amount of time tracking down the solutions to buggy software or lack of documentation. This week, it was the appearance of transactions from a variety ...
Summary: I have wasted a tremendous amount of time tracking down the solutions to buggy software or lack of documentation. This week, it was the appearance of transactions from a variety of QB accounts in a newly created checking account ... some transactions from 2007 in an account that I create 7/2009! After an hour on the phone with customer support, the tech could only tell me that the solution was a billable problem! The only transactions that I had entered into the account were transactions that were downloaded from my bank, and the tech suggested that I had misentered the transactions into the account. Not only is the customer support awful, the lack of reliability of the software is even more scary. Last week, I tried to download tax forms from the tax form center to answer a worker's compensation insurance audit, and could not connect to the QB forms. I spent another hour at that time on the phone just to get the forms that I should have been able to one-click to get. I have spent hours in the Community Forums to find the answers to questions that should have been in the program documention but weren't. I purchased QB because I thought it would be reliable and easy to use. It is neither and customer support is terrible. As soon as I decide on alternate software and payroll processing options, I will be discontinuing my subscription to payroll processing and will discontinue using Quickbooks.
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Terrible Product. Terrible Indian Customer Support
by coultlaw on July 31, 2009
Pros: Quickbooks 2009 appears to add and subtract correctly, but the "mandatory" update from Quickbooks 2008 is an absolute ripoff.
Cons: Quickbooks, supposedly accounting software, should know when the payroll account was due to expire. Quickbooks 2008 shutdown our payroll service and required an update to 2009. We upgraded then found our payroll was not expired at all. RIPOFF.
Summary: Intuit/Quickbooks is the worst company I have ever had to deal with. I nearly purchased Peachtree, but with 2 other offices using Quickbooks, I thought it would be better ...
Summary: Intuit/Quickbooks is the worst company I have ever had to deal with. I nearly purchased Peachtree, but with 2 other offices using Quickbooks, I thought it would be better for the accountant if all 3 used Quickbooks. DISASTER setting up. The required phone registration is a third-world nightmare. I hate Quickbooks and Intuit. I will purchase Peachtree or some other accounting software next time and will never use an Intuit product again. Do you think my bottom-line summary is clear enough? Save yourself much time and frustration by finding another software to use.
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Piece of Crap
by pfshares on July 3, 2009
Pros: not much pros. Maybe for accountants
Cons: too much !!! hate it...Waste of money ! mine and their.
Summary: Downgrade to quickbook premier 08 again.
Summary: Downgrade to quickbook premier 08 again.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
- Part number: 406635
- Bottom Line: Intuit QuickBooks Premier 2009 keeps the program's well-designed, intuitive interface, while adding a few new features. It's a worthy upgrade for people serious about online banking, and it remains the best accounting program for small business owners. However, Intuit should be more generous with customer support, particularly for setup issues.
General
- Category Business applications
- Subcategory Business - accounting
- License pricing Standard
Software
- License Type Complete package
- License Qty 1 user
- License Pricing Standard
- Platform Windows
- Distribution Media CD-ROM
- Package Type Retail
System Requirements
- OS Required Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later
- Software Requirements Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
- Min Processor Type 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) - 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz
- Peripheral / Interface Devices 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection
- System Requirements Details Microsoft Windows XP - RAM 256 MB - HD 1 GB, Microsoft Windows Vista - RAM 512 MB - HD 1 GB
Product series
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Pro Edition 2009
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection, 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista), 1.8 GHz, Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Pro 3-User Edition 2009
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 3 users, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection, 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista), 1.8 GHz, Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Pro 2-User Edition 2009
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 2 users, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection, 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista), 1.8 GHz, Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Premier 2009 (and industry-specific editions)
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection, 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista), 1.8 GHz, Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Premier 2-User Edition 2009 (QuickBooks.com only)
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 2 users, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection, 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista), 1.8 GHz, Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Premier 3-User Edition 2009
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 3 users, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, 1.8 GHz (Microsoft Windows XP), 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista) 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, 4x CD-ROM, SVGA monitor, Internet connection, 2 GHz (Microsoft Windows Vista), 1.8 GHz, Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
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Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Simple Start Edition 2009
Manufacturer: Intuit Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, 500 MHz Intel Pentium II (Microsoft Windows XP), 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium III (Microsoft Windows Vista) 500 MHz, 1.2 GHz, SVGA monitor, Internet connection 56k, 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium III (Microsoft Windows Vista), 500 MHz, Windows
Manufacturer info
- Intuit Inc.
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Intuit Inc. products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.intuit.com/
- Address:
2800 East Commerce Center, Tucson, AZ 85706 - Phone: 1-650-944-6000
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