Quickbooks

Getting ready to buy Quickbooks - small company - no employees - is Simplestart sufficient or do I need to start out with Pro? The main difference I see is in payroll functions.

I would buy premier, something you can grow into. The reports can be invaluable. The only downside,its expensive, we just upgraded our 04 edition to 07 and found it at Costco for $299

Quickbooks works with their own customer manager program which is an extra 60 bucks. Customer manager is a nice program for managing your schedule and contacts and history. Enter the customers info and "sync" it with QB accounting. Dont have to enter stuff twice.

I picked up Pro from Costco for around $150, looks to me like a very comprehensive package, 1 click to change from an estimate to invoice, payroll is a subscription item.

Simple start is a pretty darn good program. Especially for a small business with no employees. More than sufficient.

You can always upgrade any version online. Its more expensive than just buying the premier up front. Get tatleast the Pro version that way you can track stuff better. I use pro version

I've used the Pro version for about 6 yrs now and love it. Not sure how much better the premier would be just didn't see the value difference. I have up to 6 employees and all is fine. I do buy the payroll every yr. Two yrs ago the payroll came free(one download with purchase) with every new version purchase, but now I understand it doesn't come with that and you have to buy the payroll($99 at Staples or $199 through QBooks online) every yr.

I think a way to compare it is like Ford trucks.... QB Simplestart would be a Ford XL PRO would be a Ford XLT while QB Premier would be a Ford Lariat. All the QB programs are excellent, its just how many bells and whistles you want. Go to www.Quickbooks.com and select to compare products, then you can see a side by side comparison.