QuickBooks from Intuit (http://QuickBooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/pro-mac-busines...) is the industry standard for financial management. Even if you don't use QuickBooks, your accountant probably does and you'll find the widest range of support and services when you use QuickBooks to run your business.
It is, as they say, the 800-pound gorilla you have to deal with in the financial world. When people are considering making the switch from PC to Mac, being able to transfer their QuickBooks information is a key concern. Every year, Intuit promises more compatibility with the Windows version of QuickBooks and promises to bring more of the Windows features to the Mac platform.
Unfortunately, Intuit woefully under-delivers on their promise. The last time I considered using QuickBooks on the Mac was 2006. Back then it wasn't compatible with my bank or my credit card company, yet the Windows counterpart was. Like many other Mac users, I run QuickBooks on my Mac via a Windows virtual machine. Not having to boot up Windows every time I want to enter invoices would be a welcome change. All said and done, I'm still going to have to keep Windows on my Mac ... sigh.
According to Intuit, the key "new" feature of QuickBooks 2010 (US$159.95) compared to previous versions is the ability to accept credit cards directly from within QuickBooks using Intuit's merchant services solution. If you already do this on the PC, then the switch will be easy. Otherwise, you need to set up an account with Intuit, which may have higher rates then you get from your bank. Another new feature is a setup guide and wizard, but most people would probably use an accountant or bookkeeper for such things, so this feature is of limited value.
The good news for QuickBooks 2010 is that it accurately talks with my credit card company to download information. Additionally, while it did import the raw data correctly from my PC QuickBooks 2008, it did not important my custom reports nor my custom invoices that I paid my accountant to create. In spite of the claimed "improved" compatibility with the Windows counterpart QuickBooks for the Mac failed to deliver.
To be fair, Intuit claims that I should be running QuickBooks 2010 for Windows, and I would have seen more reports transfer over. On a practical level, if you already paid for QuickBooks 2010 for the PC, you are much less likely to switch to a Mac.
Additionally, contact syncing with the address book simply didn't work at all. Tech support was most unhelpful, but did seem to indicate that if you already have contacts in your address book, QuickBooks isn't smart enough to figure out to merge the contact info. This is important because most people using QuickBooks likely already have their customers as contacts in their Mac address book.
Typical of QuickBooks is the inclusion of a variety of glitches, crashes and anomalies Mac users have come to expect from an Intuit product. I waited to do the review hoping that each new update to the program would fix some of these problems. With each update, some bugs were fixed while others were introduced. I've always been wary of QuickBooks updates since the famous debacle in December of 2007 where an update destroyed the desktop files of unsuspecting Mac users.
if you are starting as a new business, the wizards will help get you off to a good start. New users won't have to worry about importing from Windows and won't encounter the transfer problems with older versions. Existing Mac or Windows QuickBooks users will find little value in upgrading to this newer version and should save their money for something else.
Pros: The most Mac compatible version of QuickBooks to date
Cons: Not reliable and inconsistent compatibility and feature parity with PC version.
Rating 6 out of 10
-- "Doctor Dave" Greenbaum
Comments
A question for "Doctor Dave"
I have just crossed over from the "Dark Side" and have my first iMac. I understood that the Mac version of QB was not near as good as the Windows version so I purchased VMFusion so I can run a virtual Windows machine.
All has worked well until I generated my first invoice on the virtual machine. I wanted to insert a line to make space for another inventory item charged to the invoice, a move that uses CONTROL + INS on the Windows version of QB Pro 2009. Imagine my surprise when I realized that there is neither a CONTROL nor an INSERT key on the iMac keyboard!!!
I spent some time with VMFusion Help and could not unravel this.
It sounds from your post that you have been able to work with QB on a VM. Do you have an answer to my dilemma?
Thanks.
Charlie
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Brilliant post.I will come back
Clarifications about file conversion and contact sync
Hi Doctor Dave,
Thanks for taking a look at QuickBooks 2010 for Mac and sharing your thoughts. I’m glad to hear you like the credit card processing and bank download features in the new version. I just want to take a moment to address some of the issues you cited.
You are correct in stating that some memorized reports may not convert and that customized form templates are not converted. Should you choose to recreate these in QuickBooks for Mac, rest assured that they are preserved even if you convert your file to Windows format and back again, as you might when sending your file to an accountant at tax time. That said, we’d certainly like to continue to improve this in future versions.
I’m not sure why your QuickBooks and Address Book contacts were not merged—this should work. One thing to check is the First and Last name fields in the QuickBooks contact record, as this is what OSX’s Sync Services use to determine whether a contact is unique or should be merged. Of course, you can always manually merge two contacts by selecting each of them in Address Book and going to Card>Merge Selected Cards.
Best,
Will Lynes
Product Manager
QuickBooks for Mac
Still problems
Will,
Thanks for comment on the article. I'm the original writer.
I appreciate your understanding that for many small business owners, not having those forms and reports are a serious, and for some, a fatal flaw.
As far as contacts, I agree with should work, but tech support point blank said it doesn't work if you already have contacts in there. I tried the merge, but the next sync it simply duplicated. The field mapping seemed to be part of the problem. Possibly if I manual changed the thousands of people I had in both Quickbooks and the Address Book, it might have worked. I already had to manually choose each one to sync.
Tech support's advise was to start with a blank Address Book first. They said the problem might be fixed in a "future" release.
Migration from Windows version
My experience this year was pretty much the same, but there were differences and observations:
1. I have not found the program to be as buggy as the author of the review. The reliability is good. That said, I have had some problems running the program at the same time as Quicken 2007 for Mac (they apparently don't like to be running at the same time).
2. I used the Intuit-recommended procedure to migrate my Windows file (I was using Quickbooks Pro 2007 on Windows). This procedure is to download the FREE trial version of Quickbooks Premier Accountants Edition 2010 and to use that version on the Windows machine to upgrade the Quickbooks files (I have five) to the new data file format on Windows. Then, I moved these files over to the Mac and opened them directly from Quickbooks Pro 2010 for the Mac without any problems. However, as the reviewer states, none of my custom reports nor my custom invoice were translated. I had to recreate these myself on the Mac side.
3. More importantly, I was hoping that I could upgrade my Intuit Quicken 2005 for Mac files to Quickbooks on the Mac and use just the one program on the Mac instead of two. However, Quickbooks Pro 2010 for the Mac can not read the Quicken 2005 for Mac file. I bought a copy of Quicken 2007 for Mac, upgraded the file and then tried again. Still, the file would not translate correctly-there were many errors in the translation, too many for me to feel comfortable about the accuracy of this data that goes back to 1992 (file translation took over three hours!). Intuit said that someone from the "file translation team" would be contacting me to get a copy of that Quicken file so that they could resolve the issue. That was back in January 2010, I still have not been contacted.
4. As a suggestion, Intuit recommended that I use the secret keystroke sequence (Apple-B) to rebuild the Quicken file from inside Quicken 2007. When I did that, the rebuild function caused the program to crash.
5. Quicken 2007 for Mac is still a Rosetta-based (PowerPC) program. So this was a disappointment as I am trying to remove/update all Rosetta-based programs (eventually).
6. Even though I do not use the Payroll feature on Quickbooks 2010 for Mac it is much different than the payroll feature on the Windows version. The Windows version has the Payroll feature built-in, and on the Mac the Payroll feature works as an external subscription to a web-based service. If I was using the Payroll feature, I would prefer to NOT use a web-based service. This change might cause some problems for those users migrating though, as I am sure that the user interface will be different for the web-based service. Also, I would be concerned about the new web-based service's ability to reference older payroll data that was built by the Windows version of the program. It is sometimes necessary to go back and re-run old reports, so that is a concern.
I have been able to migrate all of my Quickbooks Windows files to Mac and use them. I have not been able to complete the Quicken 2007 migration and I will continue to use that program. The new Quicken Essentials for Mac is too feature poor to consider and I am hoping that they release a more complete Quicken version for Mac, and maybe I will consider using that program.
Alternatively, Intuit may update Quickbooks 2010 for Mac to do a better job translating my older Quicken 2007 file.