BlockTax QuickBooks Blog

Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks, Speed Up QuickBooks

Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks is a terrific AccountingWEB article by Joe Woodard. The process of Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks is an essential key to being able to Speed Up QuickBooks. This Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks article is especially concise, effectively illustrated and easily understood. It made me really regret having to miss Joe's 2009 QuickBooks Conference. I will soon watch his QuickBooks Conference simulcast samples and will surely be at his next QuickBooks Conference. Joe and his speakers should then be able to tell us much more on Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks and how to Speed Up QuickBooks.

Joe has long been a nationally recognized top QuickBooks expert. I well remember him as an outstanding QuickBooks teacher and writer. These skills are especially evident in his new Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks article.

I am not someone Joe paid. I am saying this as one who had a popular QuickBooks Errors - QuickBooks File Repair Procedures web page long before Intuit had anything like this. Intuit and AccountingWEB also copied my Speed Up QuickBooks web page, with attribution. These and related articles still give me the top 1-5 and 9-10 Google links for QuickBooks Errors and the top 1-4 and 6-8 links for Speed Up QuickBooks.

If Joe's new Repairing Corrupted Data Files in QuickBooks article excites even me, as a way to better Speed Up QuickBooks, you should not miss it.

Intuit Federated Applications: Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons

The Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons: Intuit Federated Applications are already here AND coming soon. QuickBooks should soon have many more users. Many more QuickBooks users should soon use these Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons far more intensely. This is because a brand new Intuit Partner Platform Lets SaaS Developers Reach Millions of Small Businesses.

These Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons, Intuit Federated Applications, are Intuit-hosted and marketed applications. Intuit Federated Applications will let all web applications and databases, including the new Paycycle / QuickBooks Best Small Business Payroll, fully link to and from 25 million QuickBooks users, with any programming language. However, this is only the beginning, even though few yet realize it.

What does all this mean to you, individually and as a business owner, employee and consumer? I hesitate to say that the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons: Intuit Federated Applications mean paradise is almost here, but you may soon feel that way. Some changes will let you largely automate orders, charges, payments, scheduling, deliveries, bookkeeping, filing, calendar entries, communication, backup, maintenence, repairs, translation, education, planning (including To Do list updates), time keeping, training, research, delegation, retaining assistants and entertainment. Instead, you will gradually do all this and more by approving electronic messages from friends and associates. These changes will let you stop entering the same information repeatedly, while avoiding errors in your records and the records of others. They also will, if you wish, retain message transcripts to minimize disputes.

QuickBooks took a very big step in this direction with the open-source Intuit Federated Applications vision of the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons. I have been pushing my QuickBooks friends about this since 1998. That is when I took over a QuickBooks pre-release test forum to ask, "What new features do you want in QuickBooks?" At the time some considered Intuit openly hostile to their efforts with QuickBooks add-ons. This and follow up questions quickly got most forum traffic. However, at first I was unhappy with the answers. Few agreed with my personal new feature list. I also saw so many different needs that it was unlikely that Intuit could ever satisfy us all. After a while, however, I saw that an open data base version of QuickBooks would let QuickBooks add-ons satisfy almost all of us. There was unanimous agreement when I presented this in a follow up question about the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons. In fact, it was about then that I coined the term QuickBooks Add-ons.

Only after I began to really campaign for these Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons did I learn that others already had a far more powerful vision. Around 1990 a U.N. Committee said we could save trillions of dollars a year if we all used common business forms and exchanged business information electronically. Big businesses already exchange data this way, so we can now far exceed these savings, with the Intuit Federated Applications vision of the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons. We can do even more by having Intuit Federated Applications also connect to 30+ million Quicken, TurboTax and other current and future Intuit program users. 55+ million Intuit program users will then be able to connect to each other and to all big businesses, with all current and future web applications.

Intuit already has multi-currency features in QuickBooks and it is creating programs for international use. Metcalfe's Law says that the value of a network expands geometrically as you add users. Geometric expansion means the value to these inter-connected users is not 1+2+3+4, but 1+2+4+8, carried out 55 million times. These time, cost, accuracy and ENERGY savings will make almost everyone in the world eager to join in. It will give us the absolute best GREEN economic stimulus, with little cost and no government subsidies.

That is why I know the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons: Intuit Federated Applications are already here AND coming soon. It also is why you should Subscribe to this blog for the best QuickBooks insider / outsider tips and news. Get your QuickBooks answers at free monthly meetings of the largest QuickBooks Meetup or see our Meetup QuickBooks Video and other QuickBooks Video.

Finally, Contact us for QuickBooks Accounting Software, including help with QuickBooks, the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons: Intuit Federated Applications and using QuickBooks to block taxes (BlockTax).

Best Small Business Payroll, QuickBooks / Intuit Buying Paycycle

The Best Small Business Payroll is coming soon. Actually, the QuickBooks Best Small Business Payrolland the Paycycle Best Small Business Payroll are already here, but the Best Small Business Payroll will soon be much better.

Intuit owns Quicken, TurboTax and QuickBooks, as well as the online QuickBooks Best Small Business Payroll. Now QuickBooks / Intuit is buying Paycycle, the Best Small Business Payroll market leader. Few know why combining these two Best Small Business Payroll online services will soon give many times more users the Best Small Business Payroll by far.

My clients and I use QuickBooks Small Business Payroll (desktop and online) and Paycycle Small Business Payroll online. My many QuickBooks pre-release tests recently involved very good QuickBooks Small Business Payroll online changes. One key change lets you quickly and easily change QuickBooks Small Business Payroll amounts after you create checks (or direct deposits). You or your accountant often may want this, as the Best Small Business Payroll amounts may differ from calculated amounts for many reasons. For example, you may need net check amounts to calculate support checks, garnishments, loans and tax-planning withholding. However, the Paycycle Small Business Payroll makes you delete checks and start over for changes. QuickBooks Small Business Payroll people will soon correct this for the QuickBooks - Paycycle Small Business Payroll. They also should improve the Accountant Wholesale program of the Paycycle Small Business Payroll, which the QuickBooks Small Business Payroll did not have.

This relates to a big advantage Intuit / QuickBooks usually has: a near obsession with user input. Intuit invented software usability tests for Quicken. They have software designers interact with users, as we test pre-release programs. By day, Intuit founder Scott Cook did this with many novices and experts. By night his co-founder rewrote Quicken. This let novices install Quicken and write a check in 10 minutes, when experts needed an hour with competing programs. Intuit then let users guide it to small and medium business accounting programs, with endless changes and add-ons. This has long given Intuit programs 60% to 98% market share.

If you doubt the Intuit near obsession with user input you did not read Inside Intuit (Amazon link right). You also do not have my 20+ years of near constant Intuit product use (with clients everywhere) or 12 years of pre-release tests, Customer Advisory Councils and MANY email exchanges with top Intuit execs. You surely did not have Intuit CEO Brad Smith call you for 35 minutes during the Florida - Alabama football championship (I missed the end, despite a DVR). Brad also again practically apologized recently, because a trip made him delay an email response beyond his often-amazing five minutes.

Intuit's concern with user feedback has and will give us a new Best Small Business Payroll. I have long used its user input concern to get Intuit changes. In 2000 QuickBooks required tax tables for each company using QuickBooks, not each QuickBooks copy. I fought this as moderator of the most popular QuickBooks newsgroup. This cost QuickBooks about $30 million and made me a pariah to some QuickBooks friends, until their CEO wrote, Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong.

Unfortunately, QuickBooks did not quickly fix many Small Business Payroll problems, so I began using Paycycle. Clients and non-clients got my Paycycle Small Business Payroll Accountant Wholesale rate. Two years ago I sent Paycycle Small Business Payroll a long list of problems. The above ability to change paychecks, after creating them, was first on my list. Paycycle Small Business Payroll did not change, so I gave my list to my friends at QuickBooks. I am one of very many who give feedback, and not privy to most decisions. However, the QuickBooks online Small Business Payroll now has my most wanted new feature and will soon have more that I cannot talk about, due to non-disclosure agreements. Based on a Census Bureau table, these should increase combined Paycycle / QuickBooks Best Small Business Payroll use by 500%+.

There should be many more users due to the Ultimate QuickBooks Add-ons: Intuit Federated Applications. These new Intuit-hosted and marketed Applications will let all web applications, including the new Paycycle / QuickBooks Best Small Business Payroll fully link to and from the 25 million QuickBooks users in any open-source programming language. That is why I know the Best Small Business Payrollis already here AND coming soon. You too can have QuickBooks influence, lots of fun, learn QuickBooks better and get free prizes, while helping create the best QuickBooks and the Best Small Business Payroll. Simply sign up for pre-release tests. Comment below and add your feedback at the many in-QuickBooks program and web links, while using the QuickBooks 2009 user-to-user help I long pushed. Subscribe to this blog for the best QuickBooks insider / outsider tips and news. Get your QuickBooks answers at free monthly meetings of the largest QuickBooks Meetup or see our Meetup QuickBooks Video and other QuickBooks Video.

Finally, Contact us for QuickBooks Accounting Software, including help with QuickBooks, QuickBooks add-ons and using QuickBooks to block taxes (BlockTax).

QuickBooks 2009: Is it worth the upgrade?

Susan Gunn (http://www.susangunnsolutions.com/) is the author of many good QuickBooks books. She asks, "QuickBooks 2009: Is it worth the upgrade" and says it has few features for professional practices, at http://www.chiroeco.com/chiropractic/news/7102/50/QuickBooks-2009:-Is-it-worth-the-upgrade/.

Susan's big QuickBooks 2009: Is it worth the upgrade disappointment involves QuickBooks online banking problems. I agreed with her about these problems in my many articles and news releases   http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00d8351542e553ef00d8351542e953ef/post/6a00d8351542e553ef01053627c24d970c/edit. 

On the other hand, this independent Fort Lauderdale CPA,  has been an Intuit insider for 10+ years. I recently spent 30+ minutes talking about QuickBooks online banking problems and related matters with the amazing Intuit CEO, Brad Smith, DURING the Florida - Alabama championship football game, This followed a long series of fast email exchanges and several phone calls with Brad, Terry Hicks (top QuickBooks executive), QuickBooks product managers and Intuit Officers and Directors. Some emails were so intense that Terry twice asked me to take it easy, since programmers were spending time investigating my issues instead of working on assigned fixes.

I also saw and used the upgrades for QuickBooks online banking problems that we recently got and one due December 18. They, and one more update due soon, will more than solve our QuickBooks online banking problems. This actually will make QuickBooks much better in this area. Few know Intuit made these expensive changes because only about 4% of users were using online banking. This is one of the fastest, easiest, least expensive and most accurate ways to save many times the QuickBooks upgrade cost. Intuit testing no doubt show that this percentage will greatly increase once we get used to new changes. They certainly are quickly fixing this one disappointing area http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/12/quickbooks-upgrade-quickbooks-online-banking-problems.html  

Many QuickBooks 2009 changes make this the best QuickBooks in many years. I could not pre-release test QuickBooks online banking problems due to Bank of America (which has now fixed its problems). However, QuickBooks 2009 was faster, easier and more reliable than any prior version in pre-release tests. Intuit later fixed many minor problems we have had for years.

QuickBooks new features, regardless of whether you have a professional practice, the QuickBooks Accountant Copy and Client Data Review changes will make an incredible difference in providing the fastest, easiest, least expensive and most accurate accountant support. This is the only way to keep your books really accurately, more than one day a year, without wasting lots of expensive accountant time.

The new QuickBooks Live Community user-to-user forums, heavily backed by Intuit tech support, are absolutely revolutionary (though they too need minor fixing). There are thousands of QuickBooks 2009 links to specific threads in the forums, if you do not get instant answers to questions. The forums are Wiki- enabled, so users can largely write new documentation a needed. Intuit did this after finding out that users prefer answers from other users to answers from tech support. In initial TuboTax tests, users gave 40% of answers faster than Intuit tech support. They also, on average, gave clearly better answers. The first time I used these forums I quickly and almost accidentally found two answers to questions I had wanted for years. This all began with my 2002 QuickBooks Advisory Council suggestion, posted to my website in 2003 http://www.blocktax.com/Intuit_change.htm. Intuit has since won international awards for related efforts. That, and the Inside Intuit book you can largely read free at Amazon or books.google, is how I know that your feedback could make the next big change in QuickBooks.

If your company has more than one QuickBooks user, QuickBooks 2009 is much faster partly because it no longer has many network locks. Far more tasks, including backup, can now be done in multi-user mode and without Server Busy messages. You can even remotely log off users when necessary. Now that QuickBooks Enterprise can handle 30 users (up from 20) you can increasingly benefit from using the free (to ProAdvisors) Enterprise Database Manager on your Pro or Premier network. If you are just getting started you alxo can now use the free QuickBooks Simple Start with your accountant and with free Simple Start data from prior years.

I cannot summarize all the QuickBooks upgrade changes here, as it took Intuit more than 35 pages to describe them (about 5 times more than usual). It also took me about 15 articles to list the most important http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/should-you-upgrade-to-quickbooks-2009-outgrowing-quickbooks-quickbooks-addons.html. However, I can say that we feel the "QuickBooks 2009: Is it worth the upgrade answer is a DEFINITE YES. To us the answer is so clear that, for the first time ever, we will only work on prior QuickBooks versions to upgrade to QuickBooks 2009. 

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QuickBooks Errors , QuickBooks Problems: -6177,0 errors

QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0. Reboot the server. See if this solves your QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0, before doing more.  The other QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0 steps take around 30 minutes, depending on computer speed and number of users. After each number, try to open the file on the computer with the error.  Continue only if you still have QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0.

1. QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0 - Go to the computer with the company
    file. Troubleshoot the server configuration (10 minutes). 
    a. Close QuickBooks if running.
    b. Delete the network data file (QuickBooks recreates it automatically):
        i. Open the folder with the company file.
       ii. Delete a file with company file name and .nd extension (MyCoFile.qbw.nd).
    c. Configure the QuickBooks Database Server Manager:
        i. Click the Start button, Programs > QuickBooks > QuickBooks Database Server Manager.
       ii. Click the Scan Folders tab and the Add Folder button.
      iii. Select the QuickBooks company file folder and click OK. 
      iv. If you do not know where files are, select the entire disk. 
       v. (Optional) Click Add Folder again to add more folders and then OK.
      vi. Click the Scan button. The display shows folders scanning.
     vii. After the scan, click Close.
   d. Ensure QBDataServiceUserXX users have full access to company folders.
       XP http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1004461
       Vista http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1004460
2. QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0  - Update to the QuickBooks program on
    each workstation and the server (15 minutes per system). All systems using a company
    file must use the same QuickBooks release. To check, open QuickBooks, press F2. The 
    version and release are in the upper left of the window.
3. QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0 - Turn off hosting on computers not
    having the company data file (2 minutes per computer).
    a. Open QuickBooks on a computer that does not have the company file.
    b. Click the File menu and click Utilities.
       i. If Stop Hosting Multi-User Access appears, click it and Yes to confirm.
      ii. If Host Multi-User Access appears, stop. Go to the next step.
    c. Close QuickBooks.
    d. Repear this on all computers that do not store the company file.
4. QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0 - If you installed QuickBooks on the
    server then toggle hosting off and on. Open the company file on a local (not mapped)
    hard drive (5 minutes)
   a. Open QuickBooks on the server.
   b. Click the File menu, Utilities > Stop Hosting Multi-User Access, click Yes to confirm.
   c. Close QuickBooks and reopen it.
   d. Click the File menu, Utilities > Host Multi-User Access, click Yes to confirm.
   e. Click the File menu, click for: QuickBooks 2007 or 2008: Open or Restore company;
      QuickBooks 2006: Open company.
   f. QuickBooks 2007 or 2008 only: Open a company file, click Next.
   g. Click the Look in drop-down arrow, select a local hard drive ( C: or D:). Browse
       to a folder with a QuickBooks data file.
   h. Select the company file, open it according to your QuickBooks version:
       i. QuickBooks 2007 and 2008: Open.
      ii. QuickBooks 2006: Open file in multi-user mode, Open.
   i. (Optional) Close QuickBooks on the server.
5. QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) -6177,0 - If this does not resolve the issue see
    http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/829e206e.html
6. For other QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) see:
    a. H101, H202, H303, H505
        http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/12/quickbooks-errors-or-problems-.html
    b. Network permission QuickBooks errors
        http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/09/quickbooks-errors---network-permission.html
    c. Shrink files
        http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/quickbooks-2009-upgrade-yes-outgrowing-quickbooks-no-shrink-files-13.html 
    d. Speed Up QuickBooks
        http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/09/speed-up-quickbooks---quickbooks-performance-troubleshooting.html
    e. QuickBooks Terminal Server
        http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/08/fastest-easiest.html 
     f. Various http://www.blocktax.com/quickbooks-errors.htm
7. Other QuickBooks Errors (QuickBooks Problems) - Contact Mike Block
     http://www.blocktax.com/Contact_us_for_QuickBooks_Accounting_Software.htm

QuickBooks Online Banking Problems, QuickBooks Errors, QuickBooks Upgrades

QuickBooks online banking problems let only about 4% of QuickBooks users use one of the fastest and easiest ways to save lots of time and substantially increase accuracy. That is why Intuit recently made a big effort to help many more users with these problems. Unfortunately, initial QuickBooks upgrades created many new problems and errors. That made Mike Block temporarily withdrew his strong support of current QuickBooks upgrades. He intensely pre-release tests QuickBooks upgrades, but cannot test QuickBooks online banking due to Bank of America. It rarely upgrades for QuickBooks online banking until long after QuickBooks upgrades.

Intuit and Bank of America are now delivering fixes to many QuickBooks online banking problems and errors, with new QuickBooks upgrades for the Windows version of QuickBooks 2009 Pro, Premier and Enterprise. Many Intuit people have been working long hours of overtime to rush QuickBooks upgrades for these problems and errors. Mike heard this first hand when he got a call from QuickBooks product managers Greg Wright and Angela Cheung, plus two calls from top QuickBooks executive Terry Hicks.

Mike later got a 30+ minute call from the person he refers to as the Amazing Intuit CEO (Brad Smith). This call came during the Florida - Alabama championship football game, which Brad obviously had no time to watch. A DVR made it easy for Mike to say again, "When Intuit calls, everything waits." The Brad - Mike relationship began more than five years ago. Former Intuit CEO, Steve Bennett, asked Brad to contact Mike even before Brad reported for work. By then Steve was well on his way to tripling Intuit sales and quadrupling net, in only seven years, with minimal price increases. Steve knew Mike so well he wrote, "Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong." Brad quickly championed Mike's plans to increase legendary Intuit responsiveness to user feedback and to shift backed up support calls to user-to-user forums, with tech support backup. This soon produced the Accountant and TurboTax Inner Circle feedback websites and eventually the new Live Community effort., for which Intuit won international awards. Along the way Brad wrote, "You're amazing Mike. Absolutely amazing!"

The new QuickBooks 2009 Release 4 fixes these QuickBooks online banking problems:

    Quick Fill. Start typing payees and accounts and QuickBooks completes them for you.

    Add New. This dropdown can add new names, accounts and classes.

    Manual Match. View and select QuickBooks register entries to match downloads
    manually. You see a register with entries not reconciled or automatically
    matched by QuickBooks.

This upgrade fixes many other errors. Click http://www.quickbooks.com/support/ (link along top navigation bar). At the same time, a Bank of America update should let users download directly. On December 18, it will be an auto-update (enable automatic updates). By then Release 5 will let you easily download, review, edit and save Multiple Bank Transactions in a batch. Some QuickBooks users also want multiple windows open at once, but that will come later.

This www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCkvOEErbj8 video shows the QuickBooks online banking problem updates. It is typical Intuit, in that it does not feature a pretty actress reading lines, but pretty Product Manager Cheung, talking about what she obviously passionately believes.

 

Email OnlineBanking_QB2009@intuit.comwith your thoughts or for online banking notices. Click on http://www.blocktax.com/Contact_us_for_QuickBooks_Accounting_Software.htm for an independent QuickBooks CPA, who knows much of what is coming next from Intuit, no matter where you have your business. Mike often helps clients do much more with QuickBooks and QuickBooks Add-ons. He also usually has long experience with new QuickBooks features before most accountants hear about them.

 

QuickBooks Errors , QuickBooks Problems: H101, H202, H303, H505

If you open a file in multi-user mode you get:

• You are trying to work with a company file that is located on another computer, and this copy of QuickBooks cannot reach the server on that computer. (H202)
• You are trying to work with a company file that is located on another computer, and that computer needs additional installation and setup. (H101, H303 and H505)

The cause of QuickBooks errors (QuickBooks problems) H101, H202, H303 and H505 are:

• Hosting configuration settings are wrong.
• A firewall is blocking communication in or out.
• Damaged or wrong ND file.
• QuickBooks cannot get the IP address of the company file host system.

If one computer has these QuickBooks errors (QuickBooks problems), you usually fix the H101, H202, H303 and H505 QuickBooks errors (QuickBooks problems) by getting a connection with TCP/IP settings http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1011212. Do not use the steps below unless more than one computer has H101, H202, H303 and H505 QuickBooks errors (QuickBooks problems).

Make sure QuickBooks is on the server. QuickBooks 2007 and later have Server Only installs.

• Click the Windows Start button, select All Programs > QuickBooks.
• If QuickBooks or QuickBooks DatabaseServer Manager is not installed see the install and multi-user setup instructions. http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/inproducthelp/Core/QB2K9/ContentPackage/Core/Install/install_server_install.html
  http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/knowledgebasearticle/118908

File servers can install QuickBooks as Server Only. See "Install the QuickBooks server."
https://support5.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/inproducthelp/core/qb2k7/ADMIN_N/files_n/install_server_install.html

If QuickBooks is installed, set hosting to local files only:

• Open QuickBooks.
• Press F2 to open the Product Information screen.
• In the lower left, below Local Server Information, Hosting should be local files only.

If QuickBooks Database Server Manager is installed:

• Restart the QuickBooks Database Server Manager:

  • Click the Windows Start button and select Run.
  • Enter services.msc in the Open field and click OK.
  • Right-click QuickBooksDB19 (2009), QuickBooksDB18 (2008) or QuickBooksDB17 (2007).
  • Select Stop. Right-click, select Start and Close the window.

• Display extensions for known file types.
  • Right-click the Windows Start button and select Explore.
  • Select the Tools menu and Folder Options.
  • Click the View tab, clear the Hide extensions for known file types box.
  • Click the View tab, select Show hidden files and folders, clear the Hide protected system operating files box 
  • Click Yes on the warning and OK.
  • Close Windows Explorer.
• Delete the .ND file:
  •  Search for *.ND. 
  •  In the Results window, right-click the .ND file and select Delete. Confirm deletion .
• Recreate the .ND file:
  • Click the Windows Start button. 
  • Select All Programs, select QuickBooks > QuickBooks Database Server Manager.
  • Click the Scan Folder tab.
  • Click the Add Folder button, browse to the company file folder.
  • Select the the company file, click the OK button.
  • The path to the company file is in the Folders with QuickBooks company files field.
  • Click Scan to start the scanning process.
  • After the scan is complete, click Close.

Make sure client systems are not trying to host the company file.

• Open QuickBooks on each client computer.
• Press F2 to view the Product Information screen.
• In the lower left corner, below Local Server Information, Hosting should display Off.

      If hosting is not Off, switch hosting modes:

• Login to QuickBooks as an Administrator.
• Select the File menu, Utilities > Stop Hosting Multi-user Access.
• When Do you want to stop hosting ...? appears. click Yes.
• When QuickBooks must close the company file and re-open...? appears, click Yes.
• Press F2 to view Product Information screen and make sure Hosting is Off.

If errors persist, reestablish a connection through TCP/IP settings. For other errors see the instructions at http://www.blocktax.com/quickbooks-errors.htm or contact Mike Block mblock@blocktax.com.

Intuit Microsoft War: Microsoft Loses Again

One of the new Intuit Microsoft War losses again involves Microsoft Office Accounting. Microsoft created it several years after buying heavyweight accounting software producers Great Plains and Solomon. Counting eary losses on these products, this new Intuit Microsoft War investment was about $2 billion. Microsoft originally referred to Microsoft Office Accounting as a Microsoft Intuit War "QuickBooks killer." However, sales were so bad that the $150 price soon went from $150 to $50 and then became a free download, so Microsoft Loses Again. They actually never even made it past number two Peachtree. Many thought the product manager would be the next Microsoft CEO, but he left soon after the new  Microsoft Intuit War disaster became an apparent and Microsoft loses again.

Microsoft still sells a $200 version called Microsoft Office Accounting Professional. However, its latest Intuit Microsoft War announcement shows Microsoft loses again. Users who paid for Microsoft Office Accounting Standard, Plus or Professional (2006 - 2008) or Small Business Accounting 2006 can upgrade to the latest Professional version free. http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/11/22/microsoft-office-accounting-professional-2009-free-upgrade-for-sba-2006-or-msoa-pro-2007-and-2008-license-product-key/

This strongly suggests that even Professional is no longer selling, whcih is too bad in view of serious 2009 QuickBooks online banking problems. In addition, professional accountants seem completely turned off by Microsoft Office Accounting. Microsoft includes this program in its Microsoft Action Pack for Professional Accountants. This is a real bargain, as it includes 10 copies of Vista and Office, plus lots of other software ($15,000+) and support for $299 a year. It even includes a free website. However, a recent Intuit Microsoft War survey found only two registered  Microsoft accountants in the New York City area, where there were 400 QuickBooks ProAdvisors.

We previously reported on this at:

• Inside Intuit - Microsoft Intuit War (with Google, Apple, Adobe, Sun, Yahoo and others)http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/09/linux.html

• Intuit Microsoft War: Intuit is playing the web services game that Microsoft is talking
  http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/08/intuit-microsoft-war-intuit-is-playing-the-web-services-game-that-microsoft-is-talking.html

• End Runs Around Vista, Intuit Microsoft War, QuickBooks Linux is the Future
  http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/08/inside-intuit-.html

Microsoft also recently announced it was discontinuing Microsoft Small Business Financials and that Microsoft Money would no longer be available for retail sale. This ended three more battles in the Intuit Microsoft War, where Microsoft loses again, Microsoft loses again and Microsoft loses again. This means Microsoft

We will soon update this for all the battles we know about in this Intuit Microsoft War.
 

 

Do not Upgrade QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online Banking Problems

Greg Wright, QuickBooks Product Manager, recently had some good news on QuickBooks online banking problems. His posts to the QuickBooks online banking problems forum are a big help. http://community.intuit.com/post/detail/db1_IYMvSr3yp1acfARklS

He now expects an initial QuickBooks online banking problems fix in mid-December, not late December. He is pushing hard and escalating with Bank of America, to fix their 2009 QuickBooks online banking problems. Delays in this update have nothing to do with QuickBooks online banking problems, but some BofA reps do not know this. There is a web connect workaround (download a statement as a file, rather than directly connect through QB). Here are the steps for this:
    1) Log into the Bank of America website with your user id and password.
    2) Look for an option to download statements to QuickBooks. You want a .QBO extension file
    3) Save the file and then select open.
    4) Alternatively, open your QuickBooks company file, go to the File menu, select Utilities,
        Import, and Web Connect. Browse to your saved file and select Open.

At one point Google had 319,000 web pages, updated in the last month, with: QuickBooks online banking problems. This was apparently in error, as it only reports about 35,000 such pages now. It also seems, however, that the fix to the QuickBooks online banking problems are not the only QuickBooks problems that need fixing. Therefore, we now say do not ungrade QuickBooks until we see the results of the fix to the QuickBooks online banking probnlems.   

Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software? Online Banking Problems

This is no first-look article on Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software or QuickBooks online banking problems. It is by a CPA who, with his ProAdvisor staff, often spend 3+ months on extensive annual pre-release QuickBooks tests, before heavy production use. QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software once had bug and related test contests. I got the tests dropped after winning two contests with scores up to 25 times the average.

DO NOT UPGRADE Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software, even if you will not use online banking or credit card downloads to avoid QuickBooks online banking problems. Our  extensive QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software pre-release tests rarely use online banking. Many banks, like Bank of America, only upgrade for QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software after beta tests close, so we cannot pre-release test online banking. There now SERIOUS QuickBooks online banking problems. Google now has 319,000 (!) web pages, updated in the last month, for: QuickBooks online banking problems. In addition, a Bank of America QuickBooks representative told us yesterday their QuickBooks 2009 small business online banking upgrade would be in February! However, bith Intuit and Bank of America later said this only applied to the Mac. The Windows version could be out as soon as today. However, a Quickbook 2009 online banking problems forum at http://community.intuit.com/quickbooks/post/detail/db1_IYMvSr3yp1acfARklS shows many having extensive problens in other areas. Therefore, DO NOT UPGRADE QuickBooks small business accounting software YET!

Greg Wright (OnlineBanking_QB2009@intuit.com), QuickBooks Product Manager, has engineers working nights and weekends on QuickBooks online banking problems. He initially said a Bank of America QuickBooks upgrade would be ready November 14 and is not updating the above forum. This only involves BoA programmers, though I would love to see some top QuickBooks programmers heling thereThere is one possible reason for the delay: BoA was the largest investor in recent financing by a startup that wrote its online banking suite. The suite works with and competes with QuickBooks. Some at BoA may want only their program to run. It seems unlikely, but many once correctly said that Microsoft made it so, "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run." I hope other BoA customers will now join me in daily protests to BoA about its ridiculous annual delays, though I expect the upgrade very soon.

Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software? Online banking and credit card downloads? NOT YET! Greg now expects Quick Add (add new names or accounts in online banking), Quick Fill (typing in drop down fields fills in names) and manual match (see register to manually match entries) in a mid-December upgrade (upgraded yesterday from late November). He is also rushing Add Multiple (review and edit multiple transactions before entry) and working to let us use forms like sales receipts and inventory for downloads, to solve other QuickBooks online banking. I know what "as soon as possible" means at Intuit, after getting a QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software program fix in five days (counting the weekend before Christmas), for one small add-ons developer.

There is hope, but I never recall such serious QuickBooks small business accounting software problems, involving such long delays. We should have a program to let us convert back to earlier QuickBooks versions. However, this effectively means separate programs for QuickBooks 2008, 2007, 2006, and so forth. I hope forwarding this to top Intuit people gets them to notify all users of these problems. Please post the QuickBook online banking problems forum if you agree there should be such a notice. 

Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software? Online Banking?

This is no first-look article on Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software. It is by a CPA who, with his ProAdvisor staff, often spend 3+ months on extensive annual pre-release QuickBooks tests, before heavy production use. QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software once had bug and related test contests. I got them dropped after winning two contests with scores up to 25 times above average.

Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software? Online banking and credit card downloads? NOT YET! Unless you use online banking you should definitely upgrade. We now try to only use QuickBooks 2009. However, our extensive QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software pre-release tests rarely test online banking. Many banks, incluing Bank of America, only upgrade for QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software after beta tests close, so we cannot pre-release test online banking. That is why there are now VERY SERIOUS online banking problems in what is otherwise the fastest, easiest and most innovative QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software. Intuit says this only affects 4% of users, but it is CRITICAL for those that use it.

Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software? Online banking and credit card downloads? NOT YET! Greg Wright (OnlineBanking_QB2009@intuit.com, QuickBooks Product Manager) has engineers working nights and weekends on online banking. A delay in an expected November 14 Bank of America upgrade for QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software only involves BoA programmers. One possible reason for it: BoA was the largest investor in recent financing by a startup that wrote its online banking suite. The suite works with and competes with QuickBooks. Some at BoA may want only their program to run. It seems unlikely, but many once correctly said that Microsoft made it so, "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run." I hope other BoA customers will now join me in daily protests to BoA about its ridiculous annual delays, though I expect the upgrade very soon.

Upgrade QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software? Online banking and credit card downloads? NOT YET! Greg now expects Quick Add (add new names or accounts in online banking), Quick Fill (typing in drop down fields fills in names) and manual match (see register to manually match transactions) in a December upgrade. He is also rushing Add Multiple (review and edit multiple transactions before entry) and working to let us use forms like sales receipts and inventory for downloads. I know what "as soon as possible" means at Intuit, after getting a QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software program fix in five days (counting the weekend before Christmas), for one small add-ons developer. For the latest information see Greg's online banking problem forum, where he often posts: http://community.intuit.com/quickbooks/post/detail/db1_IYMvSr3yp1acfARklS

 

Should You Upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons

This is no first-look article on Should You Upgrade to QuickBooks 2009, especially if you may be outgrowing QuickBooks. It is by a CPA who, with his ProAdvisor staff, already spent more than four months heavily pre-release testing QuickBooks 2009 and using it in production. It also is #14 in our Should You Upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 series. Other Outgrowing QuickBooks articles are here (complete summary soon):

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks: No Way http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/10/why-should-you-upgrade-to-quickbooks-2009-outgrowing-quickbooks-no-way-11.html

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!
http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/quickbooks-2009-upgrade-yes-outgrowing-quickbooks-no-shrink-files-13.html

Should You Upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency
http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/why-should-you-upgrade-to-quickbooks-2009-outgrowing-quickbooks-foreign-currency--------why-upgrade-to-quickbooks-2009some.html

The Business Resource Planning Farm League, QuickBooks add-ons, QuickBase
http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/the-business-resource-planning-farm-league-quickbooks-addons-quickbase-.html

Should You QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons
http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/free-download-save-30000year-custom-quickbooks-add-ons-quickbooks-2009-upgrade.html

Intuit only adds significant new capabilities to QuickBooks once a year. However, it will fix and substantially extend online banking in December and soon after. Intuit also added three new Intuit Connected Services to the Intuit Enterprise Suite in October. It was developing the sales application in-house and using Corrigo's WorkTrack Service Management and AccuCode's Velocity Inventory for field service and warehouse management applications. This led to a September 11, 2008 ChannelWeb article, Intuit Sets Collision Course With Microsoft With On-Demand Apps. It quotes Mario Nowogrodzki, my co-organizer of the South Florida QuickBooks Meetup (the largest anywhere, and its free). The score in prior Intuit vs Microsoft collisions is 10 to nothing in favor of Intuit. QuickBooks recently had 94.2% of recent small business accounting program sales at retail. It also had 400 ProAdvisors advertise for New York, where Microsoft had 2. Finally, Intuit has 75,000 QuickBooks add-ons developers, many of whom are sure to rush QuickBooks Add-ons using the new QuickBooks 2009 capabilities.

Therefore, you should soon see an eleveth clear case of Intuit beating Microsoft.

QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons

QuickBooks is the top small business accounting software, with 94.2% of recent retail sales. However, many find it does not meet all financial or business-management needs. To compensate, they buy extra software or adapt Excel or Word. They also may scrap QuickBooks for five-figure software promising greater usability and integration. Such programs often need higher priced staff and have very costly data conversion, training, upgrade, delay and consultant costs. That is why we say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

Upgrading from QuickBooks is almost always a very big mistake, according to a report from the Association of QuickBooks Technologists (AQBT). Few QuickBooks users, company executives, computer personnel and consultants know the fastest, easiest, least expensive, least disruptive and most accurate way to expand QuickBooks uses QuickBooks Add-ons. I coined this term around 10 years ago, after taking over a QuickBooks beta forum to discuss what we most wanted from QuickBooks. At the time Intuit seemed actively hostile to QuickBooks Add-ons, but I soon helped it see that these add-ons could provide much that it would never provide in a low-cost mass-market program. Three years later it suddenly decided that developers of QuickBooks Add-ons would be a top priority. This partly related to finding that users of QuickBooks Add-ons upgraded QuickBooks twice as often as non-add-on users. Now we again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

Users can add QuickBooks Add-ons to most versions of QuickBooks, including the fast new QuickBooks 2009 upgrades, to let even rather large companies use QuickBooks. This is especially true with the 25 and 30 user Enterprise versions of the QuickBooks 2009 update. They reflect the fact that QuickBooks is now much faster for multi-user operations, with many functions (like backup) no longer requiring single user access or running much faster (44% faster reports). I was the first to report that users could use the free QuickBooks Enterprise Database Manager to speed substantially up QuickBooks Pro and Premier users. I also wrote Speed Up QuickBooks for my website long before giving Intuit permission to copy this and my QuickBooks Shortcuts to the QuickBooks Community site Library, with attribution. I will soon have the QuickBooks Enterprise Database Manager as a free download. That is why we now  again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

Dawn Scranton is a Certified QuickBooks Professional Advisor, Certified QuickBooks Point of Sale Advisor and author of the popular book, “QuickBooks Add-ons & Integration Consulting.” She says "They upgrade to more expensive software programs, which promise the integration and usability QuickBooks users want, or piecemeal their own workaround solutions. This usually results in duplicated effort, wasted time and incorrect data. In fact, you can expand QuickBooks to do everything $50,000 software programs do, for as little as $5,000.” Now we  again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

In "7 Ways to Save $30,000+ a Year with QuickBooks Add-Ons,” Scranton identifies ways to solve the most common business challenges by expanding QuickBooks. For a free download of this report visit http://www.accountingdirectors.com/qbtech ABQT embers are advisors and consultants, whose primary mission is to locate, implement and support boxed and custom QuickBooks Add-ons. They help expanding businesses customize QuickBooks to function like $50,000+ accounting and business-management software. This also means users never enter data twice, while reducing errors and speeding results. That is why we now  again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

One of the most impressive types of QuickBooks Add-ons relates to the QuickBooks 2009 integration of Adobe Form Templates. This will let millions of users, with no access to QuickBooks, enter data in programs like the free Adobe 8 (not Adobe 9) Reader, for automatic import into QuickBooks, directly or with smart phones and personal digital assistants. Users and developers can use the full Adobe Acrobat to create many templates. A U.N. Committee estimated TRILLIONS in annual savings, from the use and electronic exchange of such universal forms and Electronic Data Interchage. QuickBooks has long had big-company EDI and will soon lead in electronic form exchange. That is why we now again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

QuickBooks add-ons with smart OCR recognition and imports are increasingly supplementing this at economical prices. Four million QuickBooks users, in 25 million companies, probably outnumber the estimated 600,000 accountants, auditors, bokkeepers and data entry clerks in the 17,000 companies with more than 2,500 employees. This is especially true because of the wide variety of standard and custom accounting software used in the million business units in such companies. That is why we now again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

A third major type of QuickBooks add-on relates to Intuit increasingly opening its QuickBase web database to QuickBooks developers. This database is so good that more than half the Fortune 500 use it. There are many free and low-cost applications already available and we will soon have some of our our own. Our Business Resource Planning Farm League article discusses this in detail, with a review by a big-company business resource planning writer and consultant. These and thousand of other QuickBooks add-ons will let us give you the fastest, easiest and least expensive way to customize QuickBooks, in any way you wish. That is why we now again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

Intuit says less than 1% of 50,000 ProAdvisors focus on QuickBooks Add-ons and integration, though it has 75,000 QuickBooks Add-ons developers. I created http://QuickBooks-add-ons.com/, the largest list of QuickBooks Add-ons, long before I could join AQBT. Many of its 8,000+ QuickBooks Add-ons links have since gone bad. However, we are now in the process of eliminating them, updating the site for more than 100,000 new QuickBooks Add-ons links and giving you more information on each. We also will keep banning duplicate links and links to those who review or resell add-ons they do not create. That is why  we now again say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons!

My ProAdvisor staff and I offer QuickBooks and QuickBooks Add-ons consulting, friendly QuickBooks training, as well as tax and accounting services. We use QuickBooks and many QuickBooks Add-ons on the web every day, with fast, low cost Microsoft Windows Terminal Server or Citrix hosting. We also  provide it to clients, on remote or local in-house servers, with the lowest rate in the industry: $26 per user per month. This "cloud computing" gives you The Safest Place for Data, which is why we now say QuickBooks 2009 Upgrade? Outgrowing QuickBooks? QuickBooks Add-ons! 

I am most proud of http://www.blocktax.com/Our_QuickBooks_Friends.htm (Our QuickBooks Friends). My blocktax site home page shows Intuit CEO Brad Smith wrote, “You’re fantastic Mike. Absolutely fantastic!" and former CEO Steve Bennett wrote "Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong!"

If your QuickBooks advisor does not have this kind of relationship with Our QuickBooks Friends, why are you waiting? Our rates are certainly very competitive.

The Business Resource Planning Farm League, QuickBooks add-ons, QuickBase

Oliver Marks is a hard working ZDNet writer and a consultant on 'Enterprise 2.0' strategy and tactics. His Collaboration 2.0 blog has these excellent November 8 articles:

• Al Gore’s ‘Unified Smart Grid’ vision for repowering the USA

  • http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=160

• The Business Resource Planning Farm League

  • http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=159

I discussed the Unified Smart Grid and the Ultimate Web 2.0 Collaboration at http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/11/al-gores-unified-smart-grid-ultimate-web-20-collaboration.html“The Business Resource Planning Farm League” article is even more exciting for QuickBooks and QuickBooks add-on users, especially as it cites two of my articles:

• Think about it: huge numbers of people now trust Intuit with their sensitive financial information in web based tax and accounting applications, 15 million by this reckoning.

  • The Truth About Foolish Forecast: Intuit Closes the Books

  • http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/intuit-pushes-deeper-into-cloud/

• Intuit can make a credible case for being the most security conscious - and the most trusted - cloud vendor, pushing forward earlier this year with successful promotion of the concept that the cloud is the safest place for sensitive data.

  • Intuit Pushes Deeper Into Cloud - the safest place for data

  • http://www.prlog.org/10105272-intuit-pushes-deeper-into-cloud-the-safest-place-for-data.html

Oliver obviously has unique credentials. He recently judged an Intuit QuickBase (QuickBooks add-ons) contest, with, “an intriguing cross section of small business problems solved by brand new... applications that tied into... Intuit... Ingenious mash ups of online maps with GPS devices and geocoding..., online event organization and ticket selling, workflow management, lightweight content management and other useful looking tools... clearly had immediate utility... this... is unlikely to keep ERP strategic planners in the big vendors awake at night..., they are likely to help the small business owner sleep better.”

YES! Exactly! The Business Resource Planning Farm League is all about the fast, easy and inexpensive QuickBooks add-ons (as I first named them 8 years ago). They now include many QuickBase web database applications. The Business Resource Planning Farm League QuickBase applications combine ease of use, speed and flexibility, at low cost ($3 per user per month, after the first 10 users for $249). I have been talking my Intuit friends about cutting the entry level price for QuickBase (http://blocktax.com - Intuit CEO Brad Smith: “You’re fantastic Mike. Absolutely fantastic!" Former CEO Steve Bennett: "Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong!") This is not far-fetched, as a quick email I sent recently got some QuickBooks price changes. Quicken online was $3 per user per month and is now free. QuickBooks online is now $10 a month and QuickBooks add-ons start a $0, so I find it hard to suggest QuickBase at $249 per month for as few as three users. I believe QuickBase would be much more attractive QuickBooks add-on to small groups if it started at $10 - $15 per month for the first few users. Intuit could switch to its existing pricing by the the time there were 32 and 19 users respectively. This might be even less if those using starter pricing saw ads for QuickBase and QuickBooks add-ons custom programming, which they might well want. Clicking on the ads, or paying QuickBooks developers, could earn money for Intuit. QuickBase revenue and exposure also would increase with free or low cost listings of QuickBase applications on the QuickBase add-ons site (www.marketplace.intuit.com). Intuit also has long known the ultimate reason for wanting this: QuickBooks add-on users upgrade QuickBooks twice as often.

The Business Resource Planning Farm League QuickBase is such a good QuickBooks add-on that more than half of the Fortune 500 use it, so this may no longer involve The Business Resource Planning Farm League. It is a further example of why I said thousands of business units, at the largest companies, should use QuickBooks (Why should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks: No Way! http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/10/why-should-you-upgrade-to-quickbooks-2009-outgrowing-quickbooks-no-way-11.html).

After writing about these large company business units, which should use QuickBooks and QuickBooks add-ons, I found Intuit officially suggests QuickBooks for up to 500 employees (though I would use their outsourced payroll for anything like this). The 17,000 largest firms have more than a million business units, with an average of only 60 employees. Therefore, more than 500,000 of these units are probably not outgrowing QuickBooks and QuickBooks add-ons, much less most smaller companies.

QuickBooks add-ons, including The Business Resource Planning Farm League QuickBase, do far more than make small business owners sleep better. These small businesses can save a fortune by not only avoiding outgrowing QuickBooks, but by even avoiding the upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise. Many can save even more time and money, while reducing the many errors and duplicate entries they have in Excel spreadsheets and manual procedures.

This is why I have been pushing Intuit to open all its products to developers since 1998, when I took over a QuickBooks beta forum to discuss QuickBooks add-ons. At the time some QuickBooks add-on developers said Intuit was actively hostile to their efforts. However, by 2001 Intuit made QuickBooks add-on developers their #1 priority. Developers filled needs Intuit could not, while letting QuickBooks remain simple and inexpensive. As mentioned, QuickBooks Add-on users also upgrade QuickBooks twice as often as other users. Now the fastest, easiest, least expensive and most accurate way for small and medium business to do more with QuickBooks involves 500 mature, tested and reviewed QuickBooks add-ons and many more QuickBase add-ons. I am now starting to upgrade my free http://QuickBooks add-ons.com/ site. It looks like we have three or more times the 8,000 QuickBooks add-ons links we found the last time we looked.

This MAY by why Oliver is wrong to say, in The Business Resource Planning Farm League, that it, “is unlikely to keep ERP strategic planners in the big vendors awake at night...” Software legend and Sun Microsystems co founder Bill Joy said, “No matter how much talent your company has, most of the smart people don't work for you.” That might be especially true for even the largest software vendors, which are unlikely to be able to match the 75,000 independent QuickBooks add-on developers that Intuit has. These developers already have links to big company EDI, database, SalesForce and web programs, so they may compete on programs that let thousands of users batch process exchages with QuickBooks and QuickBase data. This vastly expands the size of companies that can use QuickBooks and QuickBooks add-ons like QuickBase. In addition, Intuit also keeps growing the number of users that can simultaneously use their products. Web applications, and the new QuickBooks 2009 Adobe form batch processing option, can let thousands of users add data to QuickBooks. Intuit also has a track record of dominating the markets it enters, with very high customer satisfaction. It also does not charge for its QuickBooks or QuickBase software development kits or limited support. This brings to mind the Linux and related open source effort, which Microsoft and other vendors have every reason to fear. Therefore, The Business Resource Planning Farm League might conclude that every big software company should want to cooperate with Intuit or fear it.

On the other hand, I apologize for things said before that may have been misleading. Many of my 15 million QuickBooks, Quicken, TurboTax users and Intuit employees use web-based versions of these programs. I believe all can download and update programs on the web and get integrated Live Community web support. Many also use web online banking and various QuickBooks add-ons. However, most of these users do not yet use what I would call web-based programs. I also may have been misleading in using the caption Intuit Pushes Deeper Into Cloud - the safest place for data. This safest place statement is unquestionably true. I often suggest that my Intuit friends, other vendors and industry reporters adopt it, but until now it seems to have been mainly mine.

Al Gore's Unified Smart Grid, Ultimate Web 2.0 Collaboration

This goes beyond my usual Intuit QuickBooks topics to discuss "Al Gore's" Unified Smart Grid, the Ultimate Web 2.0 Collaboration. Oliver Marks is a hard working ZDNet writer and a consultant on 'Enterprise 2.0' strategy and tactics. His Collaboration 2.0 blog November 8 articles:

• Al Gore’s ‘Unified Smart Grid’ vision for repowering the USA

  • http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=160

• The Business Resource Planning Farm League

  • http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=159

The recent Web 2.0 Summit conference Oliver attended had very big-picture ideas, with Al Gore describing a Unified Smart Grid for national electrical power and the Ultimate Web 2.0 Collaboration. Based on public TV shows I saw a while ago, with university research and industry presentations, the ultimate Web 2.0 Collaboration Unified Smart Grid is already becoming reality. Utilities have long adjusted production to use low cost sources, but will soon automate this and use “Al Gore's” Unified Smart Grid, the Ultimate Web 2.0 Collaboration, to do it nationally. This will include over production from end-user solar systems.

Smart appliances will adjust air conditioner temperatures, defrost refrigerators, recharge electric car batteries and more, based on user options and Unified Smart Grid signals. Almost all electric failure is local, so the Unified Smart Grid will instantly diagnose, it, localize it and send fast repair data. Pre-wired hollow composite poles will let two men install them into the Unified Smart Grid. “Al Gore's” Unified Smart Grid should be quite profitable, but need have big costs, as utilities go from 30 – 40 year components to 7 year computer systems. Getting government subsidies for the Unified Smart Grid is, I suspect, where Al Gore comes in. So we will all use web 2.0 collaboration, to create and consume all electricity. That is why I call this the Ultimate Web 2.0 collaboration. However, this should be one subsidy that is a big factor in reviving our economy.

Now if this is not exciting enough, Oliver's The Business Resource Planning Farm League article is even more exciting for QuickBooks users, especially as he cites two of my articles:

• The Truth About Foolish Forecast: Intuit Closes t he Books - 15 million Intuit web users

  • http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/intuit-pushes-deeper-into-cloud/

• The (web or) cloud is the safest place for sensitive data.

  • http://www.prlog.org/10105272-intuit-pushes-deeper-into-cloud-the-safest-place-for-data.html

I will fully discuss this in my next blog post and news release.

Should You Upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency? Foreign currency processing will let the new QuickBooks 2009 upgrade quickly replace 20 or so older, slower, less reliable and less full-featured international QuickBooks versions. More Intuit international products will arrive soon. 500+ tested, mature, inexpensive, ProAdvisor-reviewed, user-rated QuickBooks Add-ons now work with this QuickBooks 2009 “foreign currency” version. Many did not work with the old county-specific QuickBooks foreign currency versions. This will make the QuickBooks 2009 upgrade outsell all prior versions of QuickBooks by a wide margin. 
Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency?  We now get far more international inquiries, including those we help get the Lowest QuickBooks Prices http://www.blocktax.com/lowest_QuickBooks_prices.htm. My top long-time staffer, a Spanish-speaking ProAdvisor, helps a lot. You can contact Yolanda Perez directly at yolandap@mindspring.com, or simply to mblock@blocktax.com for her. We also have long had international assistants in many countries. They help us work almost 24/7 on our in-house and collocated QuickBooks terminal server. This cuts our QuickBooks support, help and accounting costs, while we finish faster. Google ‘webcpa + secrets’ for a related Accounting Technology magazine cover article, by outstanding writer and editor, Alexandra DeFelice.

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency? Many international inquiries come from accountants, who want to represent Intuit and better support clients. We tell them they too can be QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors, while actually saving money on QuickBooks software and Intuit support. This means that those who thought they might be outgrowing QuickBooks, due to foreign currency needs, will soon have armies of international QuickBooks ProAdvisors, like the 50,000 QuickBooks ProAdvisors we have here. Why consider a foreign currency accounting program that will not have international support?

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency? Scott Wilder got my Speed Up QuickBooks and QuickBooks Shortcuts articles in the QuickBooks Library and was very helpful with my original BlockTax QuickBooks Blog. However, he was most helpful to Spanish speakers. By organizing and nurturing key influential QuickBooks Comminity forum users with Spanish skills, he helped to satisfy important unmet needs among a growing number of users. "QuickBooks presently doesn't have a Spanish-language manual, but we were able to successfully organize these passionate contributors to address this need. Now some of our most passionate Spanish-language users are really dialing up their contributions, from contributing mini-manuals to 'how-to' podcasts in Spanish." We may expect mant more such efforts now ts QuickBooks supports foreign currency.

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency? Many Intuit friends have long been very sensitive to international needs and the related need for privacy. One of my oldest Intuit friends is an outstanding Intuit “black belt,” Rich Walker. He was liaison to Intuit Japan and my first QuickBooks Advisory Council. I once had concerns about Intuit privacy when he was in Japan and very sick. However, he quickly set up a very long conference call with me (Florida), him and the QuickBooks be Intuit privacy directors in northern and southern California. It fully resolved my concerns. That and what I have seen since meant I was was not surprised when TRUSTe intenet privacy authority recently said Intuit was one of the Top Three Most Trusted Companies for Privacy in 2007. Rich is now again helping ProAdvisors with the our international n domestic opportunities.

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks? Foreign Currency?  So let us hear from you if you have international concerns.

QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files! (#13)

James Gaskin wrote, at Networkworld: MILLIONS of small businesses that use accounting products from QuickBooks... are AFRAID to make the jump into more complex and expensive software. http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sbt/2006/0227networker3.html

As a CPA, specializing in QuickBooks, and managing other QuickBooks users and QuickBooks ProAdvisors since inception, I know this is obviously not true. QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!

QuickBooks had a total of only about four million users, though it recently had 94.2% of small businesses accounting software sales at retail. The vast majority of these users have absolutely no interest in or need for more complex AND EXPENSIVE programs. Many even question the cost of QuickBooks, though there is a free version and the most popular versions sell for $80 to $160. Quite a few are very unhappy about extra charge for payroll, which adds $99 - $249, depending on number of employees and features. Only a small fraction of QuickBooks users are large enough to consider if they are outgrowing QuickBooks, not millions. Only a still tinier fraction are really outgrowing QuickBooks, NOT MILLIONS. Most of those who may be outgrowing QuickBooks should say QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!

I previously detailed that companies with less than 500 employees, and many business units in larger companies, should use QuickBooks, especially with an integrated payroll program or services. To summarize, the Census Bureau had 25 million firms in 2004. http://www.prlog.org/10133690-why-quickbooks-2009-upgrade-outgrowing-quickbooks-no-way-11b.html. All but 17,000 had less than 500 employees, so most are suitable for QuickBooks. The 17,000 had a million establishments (business units, locations, divisions), with an average of less than 60 employees each, so most units in large companies are suitable for QuickBooks. Few even need QuickBooks Enterprise, as they do some accounting with other programs and at other offices. That is why you should upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 unless your big-company software has much more than many additional needed features. QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!

The QuickBooks 2009 upgrade is, by far, the fastest, easiest, most complete and most accurate QuickBooks ever. It will improve the number of QuickBooks ProAdvisors (50,000+) and the industry-high ratio of QuickBooks (Intuit) Net Promoters (see Google). These Promoters use QuickBooks and recommend it to colleagues and friends. Their large numbers strongly predict continued Intuit success. The flip-side of this success will be continuing rapid failure of competitors. Quicken initially had 45 competing home checkbooks program, but few survive. Unless users can find new companies with consistent profits and high user satisfaction (NetPromoter) ratings, they should say QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!

Mr. Gaskin now suggests Cougar Mountain ($999 - $20,000); Sage Accpac ($760 - $45,000); Sage Mas 90 ($1300 - $45,000); Microsoft Small Business Financials (less than 25 employees, $995 - $4,595); and SAP Business One ($4,250 per user). These costs are a small part of the real costs of these programs. Add the big data conversion costs, consultant costs, training costs, higher priced staff salaries, the considerable delay costs, and much more. Mr Gaskin cites the free CTS Guides. Their last review was for 2006. Three of their 10 packages were from companies that seem to have massively falsified their public financial statements. 8 of the 10 were from companies that sold out to Sage or Microsoft, rather than apparently being able to prosper on their own. Sage, in fact, publicly justified the price paid for Peachtree based on its expected ability to switch users to more expensive packages. Its later actions made this clear, to the distress of Peachtree users and add-on developers. Microsoft acquired bought several of these companies after repeatedly failing with internally developed programs and prior purchases. It has been beaten by Intuit at least nine times, including the recent withdrawal of Microsoft Money from retail sales. These new purchase initially produced massive losses. They also produced the initial $150 version of Microsoft Accounting, a so-called “QuickBooks killer (Microsoft's label, not mine) It soon became a free download. Microsoft is still not #2 in retail sales with its paid version. It gives away about $15,000 of software for $299 a year to professional accountants. However, it recently listed only two professional advisors in the New Your City area, where QuickBooks had more than 400 (200:1). Therefore, unless users can find stability and solid accountant support, with large numbers of accountants who agree on a product, they should say QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!

If Mr. Gaskin really wants to see MILLIONS of small businesses AFRAID of outgrowing QuickBooks he can give them his CTS Cost-Justifier (trademark) Excel sheets. These 9 Excel sheets include many long and complex ones, with about 14 pages of needed help. That should really make those who think they are outgrowing QuickBooks say QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files!

The big reason many feel they are outgrowing QuickBooks is speed, especially as files grow bigger. I will soon discuss the many ways to Speed Up QuickBooks, updating my article by this name. This article has been on my http://blocktax.com/ website for many years and has been in the QuickBooks Community website Library since January 2006. However, that will be my next article. This one will deal with the need to Shrink Files in QuickBooks. Not even QuickBooks 2009 effectively shrinks files. As these files, and the related obsolete list items, keep getting bigger, QuickBooks really slows down. We now have the fastest and easiest way to inexpensively Shrink Files for you in QuickBooks. We can remove ONLY the information you wish, without errors, while we preserve links between invoices - receipts and bills - payments. We can often do this for less than half what others may charge. Now you can keep saying QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? YES! Outgrowing QuickBooks? NO! Shrink Files! So simply click here (it's free): http://www.blocktax.com/Contact_us_for_QuickBooks_Accounting_Software.htm

Why QuickBooks 2009? Free Programs! Free eBooks! Free Downloads! #12

Why QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? Free programs: QuickBooks 2009 Simple Start Free Edition.
Free download.
http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/free-accounting-software.jsp
This is no trial that times out. It now uses files from old QuickBooks Simple Start free editions and makes an Accountant Copy. Unlike the $99.95 2009 Simple Start, you only can have 20 customers.

Why QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? Free eBook: QuickBooks 2009 Simple Start.
Free download. Simple Start to Managing Your Business Finances, A Guide to the Essentials https://accountant.intuit.com/practice_resources/grassroots/Simple_Start_instructorguide.pdf

Why QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? Big free eBook,QuickBooks 2009 Premier Edition.
Free download. QuickBooks Accounting 2009, The Official Guide for Premier Edition Users.
The Pro version is $19.95+.
http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/ebookdownloads/intuit/qbpremier09/QuickBooks2009PremierEdition.pdf.

Why QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? Free Test Drives, Free Program Trials,
Free Brochures and Marketing Kits. Free Download.
http://accountant.intuit.com/practice_resources/testdrive/

Why QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? The most complete what's new in QuickBooks 2009 upgrade.
From Intuit: http://proadvisor.intuit.com/product/whatsnew/byproduct.jsp

Why QuickBooks 2009 upgrade? The best what's new in QuickBooks 2009 upgrade.
From a CPA - Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor, who spent four months heavily pre-release testing and using QuickBooks 2009 in production, while talking to top Intuit executives.
http://1234567890.typepad.com/quickbooks/2008/10/why-quickbooks-2009-6-free-548-page-quickbooks-ebook-.html

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks: No Way! (#11)

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks: No Way! is not a first-look type article, especially if you think you are outgrowing QuickBooks. It is from by a CPA who, with his ProAdvisors, spent more than four months heavily pre-release testing QuickBooks 2009 and using it in production. We found long ago that it was the fastest, easiest and most bug free QuickBooks. My pro-QuickBooks bias relates to my CPA legal obligation to act in the interest of small-business clients, not the  less than 1% of my income Intuit provides (it takes far longer to earn this 1% than it does to earn comparable client income). This recently made me decide we will only start any new work in QuickBooks 2009.

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Why should you waste your time and money on anything else? Why ask us to waste our time and your money, by working in ways that will likely produce something less accurate and more likely to need Intuit / QuickBooks Data Recovery help?

This is the #11 in my articles on Should You Upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 (Why QuickBooks 2009?), with more to come. On October 30 (and on the last Thursday of almost every month) I will again speak at the South Florida QuickBooks Meetup. It has long been the largest QuickBooks Meetup (club) anywhere. The topic will again be Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? It and our GoToMeeting broadcast are free, so see http://quickbooks.meetup.com/34/.

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 if you are supposedly outgrowing QuickBooks? Should you spend $15,000 to more than $100,000: No way!

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Should you pay more for supposedly outgrowing QuickBooks when it is a near total waste of money: No way!

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? QuickBooks 2009 and QuickBooks add-ons are clearly the best upgrade for most QuickBooks users, especially for those who think they may be outgrowing QuickBooks. Few even need QuickBooks Enterprise. Should you accept long delays in installing overpriced complex replacements, which impair business management: No way!

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? The many ways to avoid outgrowing QuickBooks, include:

• Understand why few companies are really outgrowing the QuickBooks 2009 upgrade.

• Truth in advertising – QuickBooks recently had 94.2% of the small business accounting program market at retail. No one else comes close at any level.

• Fast QuickBooks 2009 processing.
  

• Speed up QuickBooks techniques.

• Shrink file sizes.

• QuickBooks add-ons.

This article only deals with the first topic: Understand why few companies are really outgrowing the QuickBooks 2009 upgrade. I will revise it to reference later articles on the other subjects above.

How small should you be to avoid outgrowing the QuickBooks 2009 upgrade?

The Census Bureau does not define small or large business. It has 25 million firms in 2004, of which 20 million had no employees. Only 17,000 (one 1,500) had 500 or more employees. http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.htmlQuickBooks can certainly handle most firms with less than 500 employees, especially if used with payroll software or a payroll service integrating with QuickBooks (see QuickBooks add-ons). Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Unless you have more than 500 employees, are you outgrowing QuickBooks 2009: No way!

The 17,000 largest firms have more than a million establishments. This averages 60 employees per establishment. Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 with 60 employees per establishment or are you outgrowing QuickBooks?. This means many big companies have countless establishments that would do very well with QuickBooks 2009, as few employees per establishment need QuickBooks 2009 access at one time. An average 60 employee establishment would not even need QuickBooks Enterprise, especially since some accounting will be done with other programs and at corporate or regional offices. Why upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 when it can help you avoid avoid outgrowing QuickBooks? Unless an your establishment, in a company, has more than 500 employees, are you outgrowing QuickBooks: No way!

Many small establishments, at some very large companies, can benefit from the awards Intuit gets for the fastest and easiest drop-dead-simple QuickBooks interface (based on common business forms). They also will benefit from the lack of data conversion, minimal training, ease of installation and the fast use of more than 100 Preferences to customize and increase internal control. More than 50,000 accountants are ProAdvisors, so more professional accountants support QuickBooks than use almost all other accounting programs. Larger companies using QuickBooks will have millions of users and accountants to provide local and remote support and feedback, while sharing research and programming costs, so many programmers can fix up to 100 problems a month. They especially will have far more support with QuickBooks 2009 due to the new Live Community Center, whihc will revolutionize support for many products with large loyal customer bases. Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Big-company software cannot have such features and support, so should your establishment (division, location) decide you are outgrowing QuickBooks: No way!

Many programs link to QuickBooks, to quickly and easily transfer data, extensively checked by users and QuickBooks. There are good reasons to expect QuickBooks to be inherently FAR MORE RELIABLE than programs being sold to those supposedly outgrowing QuickBooks. The top 900 Census Bureau firms had 30 million employees in 2004 (around 33,000 employees per firm). This is 25% of total employment. In 2006 the Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were about 3.4 million accountants, auditors, bookkeepers and clerks. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos001, htm http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos144.htm That probably means there are about 800,000 accountants, auditors, bookkeepers and clerks in big companies. Many programs compete in this market, with many specific to one function. There also is a very big variance in company size, with the largest companies using custom programs. This, and industry figures I see, make it likely that most programs, for those supposedly outgrowing QuickBooks, have less than 40,000 users. Some in the outgrowing QuickBooks field have only a few thousand users. Should you use programs with less than 1% of the users of QuickBooks testing reliability or 1%of the programmers adding features, when you can upgrade to QuickBooks 2009 ifyou are outgrowing QuickBooks: No Way!

Should you upgrade to QuickBooks 2009? Outgrowing QuickBooks: No Way!