This week I received a call from a potential client saying that their CPA requested that they move from Quicken to QuickBooks.  They needed help with the conversion but they were also curious if it was a good idea to  make the change.  After talking to many potential clients in this situation,  I find that some are great candidates for QuickBooks and some were much better off in Quicken.  Normally I recommend Quicken for Individuals and Property Management firms and I recommend QuickBooks for businesses.  However, I’ve included a summary below so you can decide for yourself.

Quicken is an excellent option for Individuals or businesses tracking personal finances, investments and rental properties. Quicken is available in multiple versions:

• Deluxe – Least expensive version designed for individuals to manage their personal finances.
• Premier – Includes Deluxe features and additional features to manage and track your investments all in one place.
• Home & Business – Includes Premier features and can be used for very small businesses.  Does not include inventory or many of the features included in QuickBooks.
• Rental Property Manager – Includes the features of Home and Business but it is designed to meet the needs of individuals or businesses that are managing rental properties. 

QuickBooks is an excellent choice for a Business that wants to invoice customers, manage inventory, or produce financial statements. There are multiple versions of QuickBooks that businesses can choose from to meet their needs:

• QuickBooks Pro – Least expensive option allows user to manage basic inventory, invoice customers, calculate payroll, and it provides standard reports and the ability to customize reports.  I usually recommend this for very small business with a small number of transactions.
• QuickBooks Premier – This product has industry specific reports and language to meet the needs of small to medium size businesses.  The industry versions included are General Business, Contractor, Manufacturing & Wholesale, Nonprofit, Professional Services, and Retail.  These versions include all the features of QuickBooks Pro but also have additional features to make the user more productive, industry specific reports and additional inventory features.
• QuickBooks Accountant – This product has all the features of QuickBooks Premier and additional features designed for bookkeepers and accounting professionals.  It also includes Intuit Statement Writer.
• QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions – This product  has all the features of QuickBooks Accountant and has additional features to manage inventory, larger files, larger volume of transactions, and more options to create user rights when configuring security.

 I hope this helps in determining which product(s) will meet your needs.  As always please call or e-mail me to get the latest specials on QuickBooks software and add-on services