computerwoche.de

Archiv

QuickBooks 2013, despite its quirks, is good for business

02.10.2012
QuickBooks for Mac 2013, Intuit's business finance application for the Mac, offers an incremental update to last year's version, with some small but welcome additions and enhancements to existing features. Though QuickBooks for Mac remains on its own financial island--related in name but not in file format to its nearly eponymous Windows version--the new version is a good tool for taking care of your business's financial matters.

QuickBooks' look and feel are similar to those provided by the flowchart interface in the Windows version of QuickBooks, as well as to those of Acclivity's AccountEdge. The flowchart interface organizes various business tasks into logical groupings: vendor-, customer-, employee-, company-, and banking-related tasks. For example, in the Vendor section, you can create a purchase order for inventory items; and when the items arrive, you can use the Receive Inventory button to add them to your inventory, and then use the Enter Bills Against Inventory button to process and pay the bill.

Whether you're a QuickBooks novice or a long-time user, Intuit makes it easier to get your business information into QuickBooks 2013 from its current location. A new import option lets you quickly take data stored in a CSV file or in your Mac's Address Book app, and add it to QuickBooks.

Importing from the Address Book is fairly straightforward; CSV import is less so. To import from Address Book, open the Add Contacts, Products And Services tool and choose Add From Address Book. Then select the vendors, customers, and employees you want to add, and QuickBooks will automatically map your Address Book data to the proper fields in QuickBooks. Technically, CSV import is not an import but a copy (from your CSV file) and a paste (into the import tool). The method works well, but you'll need to prep your spreadsheet beforehand, to ensure that the fields match the field order presented in QuickBook's import tool.

Integration with the Intuit Payment Network is new to QuickBooks 2013, as well. It allows customers to pay without having to write a check. Setup for the Intuit Payment Network is free; and once you have an account, you can add links to your invoices that customers can use to pay. Payment typically posts to your bank account the next day and the 50-cent fee you pay for each transaction is less than you might pay for credit card transactions. QuickBooks 2013 then downloads all transactions paid through this network and reconciles them internally.

Another new feature in QuickBooks 2013 allows you to link scanned receipts and other external documents (such as Word and Excel files) with customers, vendors, employees, estimates, and invoices. You can tag linked documents to make them easier to find, and to simplify the task of associating documents with their related jobs or contacts.