LASSO's Crew Management delivers a platform used to schedule, communicate, onboard, time track, travel, payroll, and book labor.
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QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Quickbooks Desktop Pro is accounting software from Intuit, Inc. It includes core accounting features, plus analytics and exportable reports. It is offered in on-premise and SaaS forms.
Transition to LASSO Crew was a real bear, but once we had all the pieces and parts in place and staff new how to use it, it solved the majority of our staffing headaches. We work on events across NYC and often have several events going on at the same time. Prior to LASSO Crew it was not uncommon for a supervisor to show up to a call with only a limited understanding of who was booked on the job, or for an employee to not be sure who or where they needed to report to that day. LASSO Crew-facing app and supervisor-facing website have entirely eliminated these headaches. Our staffing process is more streamlined than before, our rates and scheduling more transparent. Once you get past the initial hurdles of crew/team buy-in and implementation, the upsides are enormous.
I am only going to recommend it because it is currently ubiquitous, and most accountants prefer it at the moment. I do not stand by the company, and will not use the product any longer than I have to. [I believe] the support is lousy, the product is overpriced, but it does the basics of what we need. I'm very happy for all those outside Intuit who make their living supporting QuickBooks Desktop Pro; third-party support is desperately needed. They also doubled their prices for software upgrades this year, and require those who don't pay double what the last upgrade cost, to subscribe every year for $200. If one does not subscribe beyond the first year, one will not be able to use the software beyond the first year. They are moving to a rental model even for those who refuse to use the LOUSY QuickBooks online. They were good company once. Now they just turn out bloatware that everyone uses, so the rest of us have to. I look forward to the day that an honest, better-priced competitor wipes the floor with Intuit.
Some of the page layouts are clunky, especially the crew list page
LASSO Crew has a calendar feed that can link to gcal, iCal, etc but it’s very limited and doesn’t reliably update the calendar when the schedule changes.
I would like it to push automated clock-in/clock out alerts to my team. I can set these up manually by scheduling messages but it is a very cumbersome process.
QuickBooks Desktop Pro has been around for a few years and after an update[,] they force you to look at the changes/updates before you can use [them] after updating.
QuickBooks Desktop Pro does not have 2FA.
QuickBooks Desktop Pro should offer a way to store backups to a personal cloud without having to map a local network drive.
We've used the program for more than 20 years in our firm both with clients and as our software. For the cost and value of the program it works well for our firms needs and desires for an accounting software program. At this point to switch would not make sense.
The app is perfectly useable, if a bit limited in its functionality. The website, which functions as the "back end" of the app, takes awhile to learn. I carve out at least an hour of training on it for every new supervisor and fully expect to spend the first several weeks they use it to send them little reminders about how and when to do things. I have a few (older) supervisors who just out-and-out refuse to engage with LASSO Crew, but I think that has more to do with their aversion to change than it does the overall usability of the website.
It is a great software that does everything a small business needs it to do, but there are just a few bugs and quirks that make additional software necessary. The slowness of the software occasionally might eventually be overshadowed by the quickness of cloud-based software though.
LASSO Crew takes customer support very seriously. My dedicated account rep responds to any issues directly, usually within one business day. When a crew member has an in-app problem they can't resolve the technical support team responds very quickly to any issue, usually with clear instructions about how to resolve the issue.
The support team is not always easy to use or able to understand the problems. There are some difficulties understanding [...] the issues the purchaser has and the solutions are sometimes hard to implement. A lot can be avoided if the users have adequate training and security is set up correctly at implementation.
Best thing I ever did was to attend a two day training seminar on QuickBooks, I learned an immense amount in a short time with hands on training by experts. I strongly recommend such training for anyone using any part of the software. It will pay for itself in the first month.
We implemented the software ourselves. The training we received on the software was done by taking a community course teaching us how to use QuickBooks. It allowed me to get started with some basics of how to use the program and have not needed much assistance since completing the course work.
We explored using IntelliEvent for crew management but their platform just wasn't as robust and they didn't seem to have timekeeping and payroll partners in place to support the back end. Other than that, I haven't found another platform or software that does what LASSO Crew does, it was built for the event industry, by the event industry, and that focus on audience really shows through.
Zoho had great end-user support and it was almost as simple to learn and was as easy to use. But its reports were not as [customizable] as QuickBooks Desktop Pro, and its job cost and department accounting [were] more cumbersome than QuickBooks Desktop Pro was. In addition, while I like an underdog (Zoho) the fact is that it is easier to find staff that [is] comfortable with QuickBooks Desktop Pro than anything else on the market.
We've had some complaints from crew members that the communications they receive through the LASSO Crew system feel less personal than when we used to handle everything through direct emails and text messages.
LASSO Crew branding is super prominent on every communication we send from the platform, I wish they would center the client/employer a bit more and not make the LASSO Crew logo and color scheme the most identifiable thing on the page/email/message.
QuickBooks Desktop Pro is a no hassle accounting solution that ticks a lot of boxes. It almost never disappoints and organizations will usually keep using it for many years. If anything, the only time I've seen an organization migrate away from it is if they have specific accounting needs, or if the organization has grown to the point that they need a more robust accounting solution. Even then, QuickBooks can usually be maintained within another accounting software system for specific functions, like A/R & A/P for example.
