QuickBooks Terminal Server Speed: Many programs, including QuickBooks, run much faster under a QuickBooks Terminal Server. Programs like QuickBooks on Terminal Server use an completely different approach than the approach taken when local programs use files on most network computers. With QuickBooks terminal server the local PC operates as a rather fast dumb terminal. This terminal runs a copy of the QuickBooks program on the server, using the data on the server. Only user keystrokes go to the server program. The only return is CHANGES to user screens, which rarely change much, and occasional prints. This can cut slow network transfer volume more than 99%. User data entry speed limits many operations, but terminal server substantially speeds up QuickBooks and many other programs, especially if you have your fastest computer, with the most memory, as a network server.
QuickBooks Terminal Server - Other Advantages: QuickBooks terminal server has big advantages besides speed. You do not have to install and CUSTOMIZE all your programs on each user computer, so a each user can use them. QuickBooks and Office are among the programs with around 100 preferences each, which can save lots of time, while increasing accuracy and security. Therefore, it is important that your best in-house person and consultant gradually make these choices for everyone. We honor program manufacturer license agreements, but often can rapidly alternate program users or use several copies of a single program at one time under terminal server. In the case of QuickBooks, you can have 10 or more Premier Accounting Edition or other users at once, where you otherwise could not have more than five. The exception involves several users of the same copy of QuickBooks trying to use the same file at one time. You also can use Macs, old PCs and low-cost reliable Linux systems to access QuickBooks on Windows terminal servers, locally or remotely. This made QuickBooks for Linux desktops a reality for us years ago.
QuickBooks Networking: The QuickBooks Support Knowledgebase says, "QuickBooks is a multi-user program, as opposed to a "true" network program. Network programs are typically installed on a single server or workstation, and then accessed from that installation by multiple users simultaneously. In contrast, every QuickBooks user on the network must have a separate, licensed copy of QuickBooks installed on their local workstations." The exception to this is QuickBooks terminal server.
QuickBooks Network Performance: Computer programs constantly run thousands of microinstructions. When local programs use data files on servers then many local microinstructions must go across networks. The detailed microinstructions that acknowledge many of these instructions, plus the data transfers for screen updates and printing, also must go back across networks. Instruction and data transfers within computer memory can be 100 times faster than these network instruction and data transfers, especially if several users use network files at one time. QuickBooks 2006 and later try to limit such transfers by running a QuickBooks Database Server Manager on the server. Local computers then send macroinstructions to the Server Manager, so it can run many microinstructions with less network delay. However, you still have many instruction transfers, data transfers and display and print transfers.
QuickBooks Network Performance - Expert Tip: This applies even to those not using QuickBooks terminal server, The QuickBooks Enterprise Database Server Manager is much faster than the version of this program supplied with Premier and Pro. It supports up to 20 users, while the other programs need only support 5 users. Therefore, experts install the Enterprise Database Manager even if all users have Premier or Pro. We can do this legally, because Intuit charges for client copies of QuickBooks, but not the related Database Manager. Please let us know if you want a copy, as each of our three QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors have this effectively free program.
QuickBooks Terminal Server Support: Intuit has some QuickBooks Terminal Server information in its Support Knowledgebase. However, it officially only supports terminal server for QuickBooks Enterprise. I am a CPA with 48 years of heavy experience programming, using, installing, supporting and managing computers and programs. Included among my friends and local (Fort Lauderdale) computer techs is the second person on the original IBM PC project. I have gone to monthly computer club meetings for more than 30 years, including meetings of groups that specialize in supporting small business and terminal servers. However, when it comes to terminal server I want the fastest, easiest and least inexpensive QuickBooks Terminal Server experts, with 10+ years of experience supporting hundreds of QuickBooks Terminal Servers and thousands of users, for all versions of QuickBooks. They constantly monitor and maintain my server and normally respond to Skype messages in less than 15 seconds.
QuickBooks Terminal Server Printing to Local Printers: You can select local printers for your remote QuickBooks terminal server. However, they seem unreliable on some systems. We avoid this problems with free programs from Amunyi or Uniprint. They may only be free for us because our experts have the developer versions. These QuickBooks Add-ons integrate functions for more than 50 industries, including accounting, construction, manufacturing and utilities. They automate Microsoft Office entries, calculate shipping charges and sales tax, do big business Electronic Data Interchange, do high speed billing, link source documents and web stores, support multi-location warehouses, transfer and report on files and do countless other things. Some programs seem like magic, when they display locations of all company smart phone users, give them GPS directions, accept QuickBooks service orders remotely and clock time on them, so you stop entering this time and charges in QuickBooks. Some QuickBooks add-ons are free and most are very inexpensive, though some cost $10,000.
QuickBooks Terminal Server Programs: We now use Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 as our in-house and web QuickBooks terminal server. Our experts support many versions of server software, including Microsoft Server 2008. This lets us run 40+ programs including QuickBooks 2002-2008 (mainly AE), ProSeries 2002-2007, ProSeries Basic 2004-2005, Office 2003- 2007 and much more. See QuickBooks Add-ons below for extra programs. Up to 10 local or remote users (more with added CALs) can easily use dual monitors. We will soon add a Linux server to this, as this server runs 10% - 25% faster and more reliably than the Windows server. However, the current QuickBooks Linux Enterprise server may make us use Windows Terminal Server for QuickBooks as a gateway,
QuickBooks Terminal Server and QuickBooks Add-ons: How would you like to never spend time entering data twice and never make mistakes transferring it between QuickBooks and other programs? QuickBooks is an incredibly successful mass market program. It recently had 94.2% of all small business accounting software sales at retail. There are about 4 million users. It also seems likely that the 50,000 QuickBooks ProAdvisors and other accountants and bookkeepers do the bookkeeping for this many additional small businesses. However, mass market programs can never be all things to all people.
QuickBooks Terminal Server for many QuickBooks Add-ons: There are many QuickBooks Add-ons (a term I invented and used for my QuickBooks Add-ons website). They let you save a fortune as you never enter data twice, while you increase accuracy, link documents and speed results. You can use customer and supplier data to minimize entries and run your custom small business system far more efficiently. QuickBooks add-ons have grown quickly into one of the most important business opportunities today thought they are still largely neglected. A U.N. committee spoke years ago about more than a trillion dollars in annual savings if we all used common forms and interchanged data electronically. QuickBooks has become the almost universal small business accounting software. Intuit also is moving to make this true throughout the world. QuickBooks Add-ons can can exchange data with small and big business programs. Therefore, your share of those trillions in annual savings (after inflation) will be start coming to you soon if you begin using QuickBooks add-ons.
QuickBooks Terminal Server lists of QuickBooks Add-ons: Intuit has tests, reviews and ratings on 500+ QuickBooks Add-ons at http://marketplace.intuit.com/. My somewhat dated QuickBooks add-ons site has limited data and links to more than 8,000 programs. I often use the work done in creating thus site and my long relationships with QuickBooks add-on vendors (dating from 2 years before Intuit began supporting QuickBooks add-ons) to decide on fastest, easiest and least inexpensive QuickBooks add-ons for any reason. One of the best things about QuickBooks add-ons is you can have them all quickly and inexpensively integrate with QuickBooks under QuickBooks terminal server, with or without remote hosting. My QuickBooks terminal server experts had extensive experience with QuickBooks Add-ons when I met them 3 years ago, but I pushed this area to the limit from that time on. They are now the premier company in this area.
QuickBooks Terminal Server - Stability of QuickBooks Add-ons: In 1998 I took over a beta test forum to ask what users most wanted in QuickBooks. The answers were so diverse that Intuit could never have given us everything we wanted. However, I then said that an open database version of QuickBooks would let add-on developers satisfy most of us. This made everyone very happy. I then asked how much each of us would pay for this open version and got many answers for up to $1,000. Soon after that I found that many add-on developers felt Intuit was openly hostile to their efforts. That only made me start a major campaign of emails, forum posts, web sites and personal conversations.
Two years later Intuit made QuickBooks add-ons its #1 top priority, with a free software development kit. The quality was amazing, especially considering the free price and free or low cost support. I previously supported source code accounting software. Each new release killed many of the add-ons to this software. The QuickBooks SD is entirely different. As far as I know there has never been a case where a QuickBooks update or an SD update made an SD application fail.
QuickBooks Terminal Server Bargains: You can easily spend $3,000+ on terminal server software alone. You can then spend much more on getting local experts to support it. You can instead start with a QuickBooks terminal server account for $29 per user per month. This is the lowest price in the industry and about half what a leading less-responsive company charges. My QuickBooks terminal server experts also charge comparably low prices if you want your own dedicated QuickBooks terminal server server, with a few or many users of QuickBooks, or QuickBooks plus Microsoft Office and one or many QuickBooks add-ons. I know they have the lowest prices because I have been regularly checking such computer, accounting and tax service prices for 46 years.
They will even support your in-house QuickBooks terminal server in the 24/7 way they support me. They also go much further than most competitors by helping you with the fastest, easiest and most economical accounting, tax return and filing outsourcing. They made some clients very happy by making major QuickBooks single user changes at night, though they never used them for anything else. I know they do a good job because they offer free trials, require no commitments and accept variable workloads. I also use and help train them most nights. It is truly wonderful to be able to give them important jobs, when I am too tired or busy to keep working, and to know that one or several inexpensive professionals will quickly "work all night" (my humor) to finish them.
QuickBooks Terminal Server Software Bargains: My QuickBooks terminal server experts can also tell you how to legally get Windows Server 2008, Server 2003 Web Edition, Small Business Server, Exchange Server, Sharepoint, 5 copies of Dynamics CRM, 10 copies of Vista Business, Microsoft Office Enterprise and 10 Terminal Server Client Access License (CALs) at an incredible price. These programs come with much of the Microsoft product line, Microsoft support and quarterly updates for less than $300 a year. We can even provide pre-configured disks for instant servers.
Top-Level QuickBooks Support and Intuit Executive Access: I often can help you with top level Intuit help you cannot get elsewhere. Quoting applicable parts of the inspiring Intuit Mission and Operating Values (see my website's top left QuickBooks Wiki link), from the terrific Inside Intuit book on my desk, often helps me get better responses from top Intuit people. I got a national reputation for answering more than 7,000 mainly QuickBooks newsgroup questions before Intuit sponsored QuickBooks forums. This let me send many user problems to top QuickBooks people, if I could not quickly help them.
Close personal relationships with many Intuit executives and managers got much closer in in 1998. I was the only two-time winner of a semi-public contest for beta (pre-reals) tests. I made unannounced, but very well received, visits to Intuit at this time. Two later fights were because I felt a mistake was hurting users, which would hurt Intuit and thereby hurt its ability to help us. In both cases Intuit soon agreed. This led Intuit's CEO to write, "Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong" and then let me use his statement on my BlockTax website.
Brad Smith, the new CEO, has been a close friend since emailing and calling right after he got to Intuit. He paid me to help create the Accountants Feedback Center website to use my ideas. We often exchange emails. Even our Sunday responses often take less than 5 minutes. He very quickly helped many I met on the web. One wanted to use a copy of Quicken at home and in the office, contrary to the Quicken license but not the QuickBooks license. Brad wrote him a note and sent him a copy of Quicken for his honesty. A small add-on developer, not using the SDK, had a product compete with a QuickBooks offering. An update stopped it from working. 5 days after I wrote, including two days for the weekend before Christmas, Brad had a QuickBooks update out to solve this problem! He soon took over TurboTax and then returned to run the QuickBooks division, so I told him it looked like he would be the next CEO two years before he was. When he became CEO he called me.
We have a mutual admiration society. Brad wrote, "You're fantastic Mike. Absolutely Fantastic." He let me use that on my BlockTax website and gave me the original BlockTax QuickBooks Blog on the Intuit QuickBooks Community site. Now it is your turn. Do you want the fastest, easiest, least expensive and most capable QuickBooks terminal server, QuickBooks add-ons or QuickBooks accounting and support, with the fewest problems?
If so, then please contact me.
