QuickBooks Pro 2011

QuickBooks Pro 2011 

by Intuit

I received Quick books Pro 2011 for review from the Amazon Vine program. Here's my take on it. I run a jewelry design business and had been using an old version of Quicken to track inventory for tax purposes. I'd heard good things about Quick books and decided to investigate it for my home business application. 

Installation was super easy. The more difficult part was learning how to make the options work for me. This is a robust program that tracks much more than inventory, also allow check writing, bookkeeping and much more. Some users take classes just to understand how to use the program effectively. I didn't avail myself of that opportunity since I was only interested in the inventory tracking portion. 

The initial setup was more complicated than Quicken but allows many more options. Itemizations such as Vendor Options include Purchase Orders, the ability to receive inventory with or without invoices, enter bills against inventory and more. There's a Customer section where one can create invoices, sales receipts, refunds and credits and receive payments. Under Company one can chart accounts, items and services, and a variety of inventory related activities. Finally a Banking section lets you write checks, reconcile accounts, print checks and record deposits-in short, everything a business, large or small needs to track. 

For inventory tracking, once you input a vendor and select a category (many from which to choose that include supplies, office, postage and more), it is possible to list each item bought and track stock quantities, and this was accomplished with only a quick perusal of the tutorial. I like that you can manage customer, vendor, and employee data in one place easily, with quick access to related transactions. Reports can be created instantly, but one of the items most appealing to me is that you can pick up new skills at your own pace with the built-in Learning Center. This means that starting at a basic level as I have doesn't mean that I can become more proficient as I become accustomed to the many facets of this powerful, yet easy-to-use program. 

Some reviewers have complained about pop-ups that advertise extra services. A response from Intuit tells how to turn off these annoying ads. 

Since I am a one-person business and don't plan to do actual banking with Quick books, the software is perfect for my needs.