Item: QuickBooks Desktop for Mac
Rating: 9
Author: John Cruet Jr., AIA

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have been using Quickbooks for Mac for many years. It is the prime bookkeeping software. I use it to pay bills, track income, generate income and loss reports, cut invoices, and as a backup for my visits to my accounting consultants. I first started out with a program called Quickbooks Pro for Mac, but that had since been superseded by Quickbooks for Mac. It has more features than what I need - for example, the software can link with online banking, but for security purposes, I simply do not take advantage of that feature. As I'm a sole proprietor, I also don't need the "payroll" feature. The software is "professional specific" meaning it can be tailored to my needs as an architect. Writing checks using my printer is relatively easy, but I don't use that feature anymore since I do much of my banking online.

Pros and Cons

Track income
Track expenses
Generate reports
Aids in balancing checkbooks- reconciling
Interface with MacOS is good

Deleting accounts which have been paid off is difficult
Upgrade path is costly
After five years, I want to delete all book keeping data. Difficult to do with QuickBooks.

Return on Investment

Tracking Income
Tracking Expenses
Tracking Assets and liabilities

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Pro for Mac, which was superseded with Quickbooks for Mac

Other Software Used

Microsoft Office 2016

Likelihood to Recommend

Quickbooks for Mac can do most anything a good accounting software can do. It does bill paying, invoicing, income tracking, expense tracking, can customize income and expense categories, enter vendor information and customer information, do payroll, cut checks, and generate reports for reconciling accounts.

Some firms like mine may not be able to take advantage of the vast arrays of features it has.

Our Full-featured Accounting Software

Overall Satisfaction with QuickBooks for Mac