Intuit QuickBooks Pro 2005 review

Quicken users, who were left high and dry by Intuit's abrupt abandonment of its UK user base, can easily upgrade to QuickBooks Pro 2005 for £68 (£80 inc VAT). Novices can avail themselves of the QuickBooks Tutor - a multimedia narrated presentation that talks you through basic procedures, which will do much to calm any first-time nerves.

That's in turn helped by the mature interface. Compared to MYOB's somewhat garish appearance, QuickBooks' look and feel is more professional and thoughtful, although it still uses large pictorial icons to illustrate functions. Another similarity with MYOB is its use of simple flow charts to indicate the links between different processes. These act as convenient, functional menus - you simply choose a function you wish to perform and follow the flow charts and menu options. The adverts for added-value QuickBooks services are a bit of a cheek, however - they might be acceptable on a shareware product, but not on one you've paid for.

Much accounting software carries the baggage of antique code, and QuickBooks Pro is no exception. However, it's slightly unusual in that it needs read/write access to the Registry - a luxury normally denied to Standard Users on a network. So Standard Users can't use QuickBooks Pro 2005 over a network unless they're promoted to Power Users or Local Administrators first.

QuickBooks Pro 2005 has a near-identical feature set to MYOB Accounting Plus, but when it comes to online transactions it has the edge. Although it might not be a major upgrade from last year's version, it's still the most flexible and fully featured accounting package for SMEs with up to 50 employees.

Author: Roger Gann