QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies

If QuickBooks Doesn’t Work for Your Business

QuickBooks is a great small business accounting program. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that QuickBooks is probably the best small business accounting program available.

However, if QuickBooks doesn’t seem to fit your needs — if, for example, you need a program that works better for a manufacturer or that includes some special industry-specific feature — you may want one of the more complicated (but also more powerful) small business accounting packages.

Be sure before you jump from QuickBooks Simple Start or QuickBooks Pro to check out the Enterprise Solutions version of QuickBooks, which costs more but also works for bigger businesses. The Enterprise version of QuickBooks looks and works almost identically to the “regular” versions of QuickBooks. If you know QuickBooks Pro, accordingly, you already know (or mostly know) QuickBooks Enterprise.

If the Enterprise version of QuickBooks doesn’t work, you may want to talk to your accountant about industry-specific packages. (For example, if you’re a commercial printer, some vendor may have developed a special accounting package just for commercial printers.)

I’m amazed that PC accounting software remains so affordable. You can buy a great accounting package — one that you can use to manage a $5-million or a $25-million business — for a few hundred bucks. Accounting software is truly one of the great bargains in life.