Problem with Quickbooks 2008 VAT Function

I am not upgrading, I'm a new user. I hope 'Quickbooks' will be the right choice. What do you think of their Pro 2008 version of quickbooks. I've heard some of the 2006 Pro users complain that Pro and Premier 2008 is more complicated and gearing towards sage.

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If you check out Intuits website you'll find screen shots etc. for all the latest versions. They actually look similar to previous versions, and the interface appears to be a bit more user friendly.

There is still a massive problem when entering a payment or invoice that has more than one analysis line. Under the old (2006 and earlier) versions, you could happily enter many different items with different analysis codes and happily "edit" the VAT for each line/item.

In 2008, according to their support, they have "improved" the algorithm for the VAT which basically means VAT is now a single figure for the whole payment/invoice. Yes, it is possible to "edit" the VAT, but then the first line of the analysis goes completely haywire - even if it a "zero" rated item, changing the VAT in total will probably change the first line of analysis, and by doing so, it changes the VAT total again. Basically, now if you have a combination of zero and standard rated items on the same payment/invoice or have other reasons for using several analysis codes for one payment, then you'll be stuffed with the 2008 version and have to enter them as completely separate payments/invoices!

Considering the ability to have multiple analysis lines for payments/invoices was one of the main benefits of QB over its rivals, they've really shot themselves in the foot with this. According to their support, they think they are now right and have no plans to change the system to go back to where they were before.

QB used to be our preferred software. We've tried to stay with it and have hoped that they were going to solve all the problems with 2008, but it seems that they've now come to the end of their "bug fixing" over the past year and whilst they have restored lots of features that they forget to put in the early releases of 2008, it simply isn't as good as 2006 and earlier. After many of our clients having major problems with it, and in house we also saw the problems, we have now made the decision to part company with them. We are now in the process of migrating a few dozen of our clients away from QB and onto other more user-friendly systems.

Philip your detailed explanation was really helpful - can I ask what package you are recommending to your Quickbooks clients? I generally recommend VT for my smaller clients but am undecided on what is a really good alternative to QuickBooks.

Nicola HJ said:

Philip your detailed explanation was really helpful - can I ask what package you are recommending to your Quickbooks clients? I generally recommend VT for my smaller clients but am undecided on what is a really good alternative to QuickBooks.

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We're going with a mix of VT and Kashflow. For in-house book-keeping, we're using VT, but for clients doing their own, we are recommending Kashflow. We found that clients needed a lot more training to use VT and it isn't quite so easy or intuitive to use. So far, all clients have taken to Kashflow like a duck to water! We've not quite figured out what to suggest for clients whose needs are more than Kashflow can offer. We've dallied with winweb but really don't like it at all - its obviously a Sage clone and has all the same inflexibility issues as Sage.

Philip Hoyle said:

We're going with a mix of VT and Kashflow. For in-house book-keeping, we're using VT, but for clients doing their own, we are recommending Kashflow. We found that clients needed a lot more training to use VT and it isn't quite so easy or intuitive to use. So far, all clients have taken to Kashflow like a duck to water! We've not quite figured out what to suggest for clients whose needs are more than Kashflow can offer. We've dallied with winweb but really don't like it at all - its obviously a Sage clone and has all the same inflexibility issues as Sage.

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Thank you very much

Nicola, if you're considering the KashFlow Partner Programme then give Michelle or Raymond a call on 0800 848 8301 and get your free trial set up before the end of next week.

We've got a generous promotion going on at the moment that is ending at the end of this month.