Item: QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Quickbooks Desktop Pro is used by our organization in conjunction with the online version. We invoice, run our GL and P&L reports from it. Currently it's not synced to our PM software for billable hours, but that's coming soon. It is a relatively easy way to track our general expenses, issue invoices and get our reporting in a nutshell.

Pros and Cons

Intuitive and easy to use
reporting is robust
online version has made it even easier to invoice and manage AR

Still need someone with business /CPA acumen to set up properly or the functions /features don't match what your company does
not the easiest to integrate with enough third party solutions (but getting better with their APIs)
still don't fully trust Intuit after they - many years ago - intrusively intercepted completed invoices we mailed and turned them into client "accounts" for the clients to login and pay without our knowledge let alone our permission.
Doesn't scan receipts etc. easily in the app

Return on Investment

Gives us daily insight into the company's P&L so there are no surprises
Audit log to see who has logged in, when, and done what in the system
Price point is on par with other softwares
Intuit has improved its feature rollout so new features are added gradually rather than massive updates that require re-training
Will still never fully trust Intuit not reading our data

Alternatives Considered

We have not evaluated anything else in any recent time frame as we're so embedded with QB now that it'd be a logistical nightmare to move our operational financing to another platform. They've got us by the hook line and sinker! We have used apps for receipt scanning and mile tracking for consultants. We still have not plugged in our Project Management software to help assist with sub-consultants' billable hours, although we hope to do that this year.

Key Insights

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

Yes

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

Yes

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

Yes

Did implementation of QuickBooks Desktop Pro go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy QuickBooks Desktop Pro again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Jira Software, Teamwork Projects, MS SharePoint / SQL

Usability

They are continually trying to re-work the application to make it easier and more intuitive. They try to pack a lot of features and flexibility into the system, which can cause a bit of confusion without some basic training, but overall it's relatively quick to learn especially if everything is set up properly from the get go. We prefer using it on the desktop for security reasons, and performance.

Support Rating

Sometimes they're very helpful, and other times they've been lacking. Sometimes we feel as a medium sized business that they prioritize big businesses more, but small and medium businesses made them who they are. Their online help has gotten much better - often it was outdated and sometimes wrong. Our overall experience with their support has been such a mixed bag over the years we have to rate them in the middle as it's not consistent.

Likelihood to Recommend

For SMBEs i'ts a pretty good choice to keep your accounting current and reliable. The stability of the product and the company are solid. It has decent (and improving) integrations with other softwares. They seem to be pushing for more saas subscriptions so they (seem to ) have deprecated the priority of support without payment, which is annoying. Their FAQs and help have gotten better and are now (mostly) current. If you try to set it up yourself, double check with your CPA (who knows QB) that it's done correctly, else you can have items that don't make sense for your business, which then becomes a problem that you have to clean up later or pay someone else to clean up.

QB Desktop Pro is great for SMBEs - just set it up the right way first!

Overall Satisfaction with QuickBooks Desktop Pro