Overall Satisfaction with QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions
QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions is being used for both accounting functions and material management for our LED lighting manufacturing business. We use it to keep track of open and closed orders, as well as to invoice our customers for products shipped to them. It is also used to keep track of open and closed purchase orders to our suppliers, as well as inventory tracking and management.
- Reports can be modified and filtered to provide specific information. They can also be exported into Excel for further formatting and filtering.
- It is fairly user friendly, with a flowchart on the home page to show how estimates turn into orders and then invoices, among other business functions. It is quite forgiving with input errors, allowing one to access already saved data (orders, invoices, etc.) and change it without a lengthy process of backing out previous info and re-entering new info.
- The toolbar at the top of the screen can be customized to include the functions that one uses most, avoiding the process of selecting a tab and scrolling down to the needed option. One can also personalize how the tab/enter buttons function, as well as date formatting, decimal points, and default scripts for invoices, statements, purchase orders, etc. One can also integrate their established email address to be used through QuickBooks.
- QuickBooks was built to be an accounting program. It is clumsy with inventory. The reports for inventory management are limited.
- The inventory management system functions better for a company that just buys items and then resells them. Purchasing multiple materials and then combining them to be a finished good is possible to do, but needs more hands-on involvement than should be necessary.
- The minimum and maximum reorder points do not function properly. If one has both entered into an item, QuickBooks uses the maximum reorder point only, and ignores the minimum reorder point entirely. I have taken to using only the minimum reorder point and not even entering the maximum into the item.
- Our manufacturing company mainly provides made-to-order LED lighting. QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions makes the inventory process very cumbersome as every line item has to be "built" manually. This is very time consuming and probably costs our company about $700-$800 in wages per month for this to be completed.
- There is a "1099 Wizard" that can be used in QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. This allows our bookkeeper to process the 1099-MISC forms for our subcontractors each year, rather than paying our accountant to do it, which cost us about $250-$300 the last year that he did it.
QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Feature Ratings
Using QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions
3 - One person in bookkeeping and two in sales.
1 - It helps to have someone who is computer literate enough to be able to know when to reboot the computer, look at the printer control panel, or do other easy troubleshooting functions. But they also need to be able to realize when whatever issue is happening is beyond them and to call customer support.
- Enter open orders from customers to track their due dates and back orders.
- Invoice customers for products shipped to them.
- Prepare Purchase Orders to send to vendors for additional materials. Track due dates, late shipments, and reorder points.
- Enter receivables and maintain the company checking account(s).
- Prepare and print yearly 1099-MISC forms.
- Enter invoices from suppliers and prepare and send accounts payable checks.
- By formatting reports, I have been able to determine which specific items have been sold most in order to better manage materials for those items.
- By formatting the templates for Sales Orders, Work Orders, and Packing Slips I have been able to not only add additional fields onto the forms, but also have specified which info prints on which forms, making them more efficient.
- By using the "Customer Type" field to enter a 2-digit state abbreviation, I can sort my customers by state for reports about sales territories.
- By modifying what filters are used on reports, I can take a general report about all of our customers or items and dial it in to just one customer or item, making a huge and unwieldy report into a very specific one.
- Adding more products to the item list.
- Reviewing and updating our minimum reorder points for better ordering time frames.
- Revising Bills of Materials as new assembly items are introduced.
Evaluating QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions and Competitors
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Prior Experience with the Product
QuickBooks is user friendly and had a lot of the features our manufacturing company required.
I might have looked at other software programs, but probably would have chosen QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions in the end anyway.
QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation - None. There was no change as we've used QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions from when the business started.
- Getting the program downloaded onto a remote server.
- Getting the Remote Desktop connected to the server.
- Making sure everyone could connect to the remote server, and therefore, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.
QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success | Need to explain problems multiple times Slow Initial Response |
Yes - We do not have an in house IT person, so when QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions seems to be malfunctioning, we need to have someone familiar with the program and its interface to resolve the issues.
Yes - No. It was not resolved, and I brought it up multiple times. I just learned to work around it.
I was having issues with my Intuit Data Protect not running on a daily basis. I was having to do manual backups, which was time consuming and should have been unnecessary. The first time I called about it, the rep said that they had fixed it, but they had not. The second time that I called, that rep not only figured out what the issue was, but fixed it, and then waited on the phone until the backup was completed. While we were waiting for the backup to be completed, I realized that I had another long standing issue that I had just given up on, and mentioned it to the rep. They then proceeded to fix that major issue as well. After everything was fixed, I had been on the phone with the rep for over 4 hours! At no point did they get irritated that it was taking so long, or that the first couple of things they tried didn't resolve the issue. They just persevered and got everything fixed.
Using QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Check writing and reconciliation.
- Entering and paying invoices from suppliers.
- Entering payments received and preparing deposits.
- Building Finished Goods! Each line item on our customer invoices have to be done separately.
- Entering new items that have a Bill of Materials. It's easier to find an existing item that is close to the new item, duplicate it, and then change the parts that are different from the original. Doing a new item from scratch is very time consuming.
- Determining what materials have low quantities and need to be reordered. Even though QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions has minimum and maximum reorder points, they don't work correctly.