Accounting is as old as civilization itself. And it was not until the fall of the dark ages, particularly the beginning of the commercial revolution, that the so-called double-entry bookkeeping was first used. And it took another 50 years after the late 18th century for the profession now known as “accountants” to come into existence.
Technological breakthroughs in accounting yielded better efficiency and speed on the average accountant’s part. After adding machines and, later, calculators made their jobs easier and led to greater accountability, fewer mistakes, and increased work speed vs. the arduous tasks during the early times, the advent of computers and accounting software now gave them better tools of trade which allows them to use electronic spreadsheets and eradicating the need for calculators, adding machines, etc. Among the best accounting software available in the market are Quickbooks Premier and Quickbooks Pro.
Intuit Incorporated, makers of these two accounting software, is a company based in America and is geared towards development of tax preparation and financial software as well as deployment of different related services for accountants, individuals, and small businesses. Understanding key differences between their two wonderful software packages is essential for purchasing decisions and effective business and personal use.
Quickbooks Premier vs. Pro
The first point of comparison is about the number of simultaneous users. It is a fact that for every user and computer is a single, licensed software copy for use. The more users in the working environment, so are the licenses to be paid for. The former version only allows up to three users on a single, licensed software copy; the latter version allows up to a maximum of five. This is a very cost-effective approach vs. the one-license-per-computer scheme.The former version ships with 150+ readily available industry-specific business reports out of the box, while the later versions only ship with 100+.
Quickbooks Premier vs. Pro on emailing and creating sales orders
The former version supports this. The latter does not. However, both versions enable users to email forms: via web-based email clients like Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, etc; via Quickbooks email servers for extra fees, or via Microsoft’s Outlook.
Quickbooks Premier vs. Pro on info download support
Premier supports business plan creations, multiple currency capabilities, and bank/credit card transaction downloading as long as the bank allows. Quickbooks Pro supports only the transaction downloading and multiple currency capabilities.
Quickbooks Premier vs. Pro on Budget creations
Quickbooks allows budget report generation on an annual basis. As an exemption, you can’t have two separate versions of the same budget for next year without exporting them outside Quickbooks and storing them in third party software like Excel. Premier supports sales and expenses forcasting, Quickbooks Pro does not.
Quickbooks Premier vs. Pro on invoice customization
The ability to customize invoices and other forms is an indispensible tool for accountants. Quickbooks’ handy and clever Layout Designer integrated in Premier eliminates the hustles of having to buy pre-printed purchase orders, invoices, etc. by enabling form customization-an important issue of work boredom vs. creativity. Pro, however, doesn’t support the creation of industry-specific reports.
Creative inventory/set order points inventory assemblies, track inventory, and bills of material capabilities
Quickbooks let accountants track inventory by utilizing either stock-status-by-vendor reports or stock-status-by-item reports. The pro version does not support bills of material and inventory assembly.
Quickbooks Premier vs. Pro on data file sizes
Both versions support a maximum data threshold of 150 to 200MB. However, Premier versions are more stable in handling 200MB files.
There are important limitations on the two software packages that must be considered. They lack the following features: optimization for networking and larger file handling, 25GB backup plan for secured online data, serial/lot number tracking, and tracking inventory for multiple warehouses. These features can be found on another Quickbooks version-the Enterprise.
In the event of choosing high-budget/low quality vs. high quality/low budget accounting software, taking note of the features of the individual versions is worth taking time on to ensure these tools will do what you need and want them to do, efficiently and effectively.