Item: QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise
Rating: 7
Author: Aviva Rosman

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using QuickBooks [Desktop Enterprise] for our bookkeeping - to track expenses and revenue, send invoices, and pull reports like our P&L and cashflow report. It's being used by the operations team - currently me and one analyst, as well as our bookkeeper. I pull data monthly to compare our actuals against our budget forecast.

Pros and Cons

Easy to use, especially for an accounting novice
Essential reports are easy to pull
Invoice feature is fairly simple - and we can get paid directly through QuickBooks

They recently added a cashflow prediction feature and it does not work at all
In general, QuickBooks does not work for SaaS accounting - we've had to pay for an additional vendor to help us accurately recognize revenue
My experience of the desktop specifically is that it's a bit clunky and prone to crashing, so I will often use the online version

Return on Investment

Helped us understand our financial position
Helped us control our expenses
Helped us better forecast our business

Scaling with Desktop Enterprise

We have not found that the product can support our growth for the reasons mentioned before. We're a particular SaaS company, signing annual contracts where delivery may be several months in the future and payment may be another time overall. In order to recognize revenue correctly, track resales and ARR/MRR, we've had to look elsewhere.

Implementation

Our QuickBooks [Desktop Enterprise] instance was set up by our bookkeeper - I think it would be difficult to set up as a novice. I've found the customer support not that helpful - I had a basic question about how to categorize funds from investment that the customer service rep had difficulty answering. (Side note - it's strange that you need to enter investors as customers in the QuickBooks [Desktop Enterprise] set up.)

Innovative Uses

I don't think there have been any unexpected uses - it's a fairly straightforward product. I appreciate the different permissioning so that an analyst can work with the data and invoicing independently.

Alternatives Considered

We initially considered Xero, but ended up going with QuickBooks [Desktop Enterprise] because it seemed more intuitive. Since then, I have had a CFO recommend we switch to NetSuite, but that seems much more complex and beyond our current level as a company.

Key Insights

Do you think QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise's feature set?

Yes

Did QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Asana, Pipedrive, PandaDoc

Likelihood to Recommend

QuickBooks [Desktop Enterprise] is well-suited for a small business with fairly straightforward invoicing and revenue recognition. It's integrated well with our bookkeeper and she's been able to create the categories we need to accurately track our expenses. On the revenue side, as our business grew and became more complicated, we needed to use an additional vendor to accurately predict cashflow, recognize recurring revenue, and track ARR/MRR.

Good for the price, but some features to be desired

Overall Satisfaction with QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise