Caren Schwartz, Review: QuickBooks 2006: Is it Worth the Upgrade?
TechnoLawyer member David Marcelino asks:
"Does anyone out there use QuickBooks for both billing and time entry? I am currently using Timeslips for time entry. Timeslips has frustrated my office. We are tired of the instability."
Larry R. Vollintine responded:
"I am a solo. I use QuickBooks 2002 Pro for my time keeping and invoicing since I went solo in June of 2002. For the first couple of years, QuickBooks was so unstable that the only way I could console myself was to remind myself that this is why I believe in gun control.... I was told by the accountant that QB now has a new version coming out which is geared to a law practice. I haven't been tempted because of past problems w/QB. But, I fear switching to a different program and having to transfer or convert all the existing data to it...."
Neil Squillante responded:
"Larry, you need to upgrade. I'm not usually so forceful, but we're talking about a program central to your practice. Perhaps QuickBooks Pro 2002 was a lemon, but we use QuickBooks Premier 2006 on Windows XP — it is quite stable...."
With regard to Larry Vollintine and the use of QuickBooks 2002, I definitely agree that he should upgrade. Some additional information that might be useful to know is that the older versions of QuickBooks did not do a good job of using and releasing memory. Therefore, if you did not have a lot of memory on the computer or you were going in and out of programs, QuickBooks tended to display the behavior Larry sees, crashing. The past few versions have fixed this issue and QuickBooks 2006 also uses a new format that makes it run faster and is more stable. The cost to upgrade to v2006 is not much, especially compared to the cost of your time.
Caren Schwartz
Time & Cents Consultants, LLC
Software for managing time, money and contacts
www.timeandcents.com
[Publisher's Note: Learn more about QuickBooks. — Sara Skiff]
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