Microsoft QuickBooks is an accounting software product that any small to medium-sized business could use to manage invoices and purchase orders, track sales and expenses, maintain customer profiles, analyze business trends and the company's financial standing. It is available for the desktop as well as online. It is developed by Intuit, Inc. and available for purchase at the Microsoft Store as well.

New Features

The latest version of QuickBooks, Pro 2011, has several new features. You can send invoices and estimates directly from QuickBooks to clients at Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and others. You can preview your client profile in one place, including invoice history, payments, revenue, years of service and best-selling items. You can execute batch invoicing to select customers or group of customers. You can execute a simple search on QuickBooks with a keyword, or advanced search based on additional criteria.

Existing Features

There are many useful features in QuickBooks that have evolved from earlier editions. Here are some of the highlights. You can track international sales and expenses in multiple foreign currencies. You can create digital signatures and apply them on your QuickBook checks. You can simultaneously generate reports and back up your data with multiple users accessing your company data. You can control user access to QuickBooks data in a multi-user environment. The Payroll Center lets you manage payroll, taxes and other liabilities.

Online Edition

The online version is available on mobile devices, including BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-compatible devices. You can manage your customer profiles, check your payables, receivables, bank balances, debtors, profit and loss among others while you are travelling. You can collaborate with colleagues online via shared books and control access levels to shared data. QuickBooks Online edition is secured by VeriSign, the same data-encryption technology used by leading banks. The online version is available in various packages from the simple essentials to the optional payroll processing addition.

Data Import

Data can be imported into the QuickBooks desktop version from Excel (version 2002-2010), Quicken, Microsoft Office Accounting and earlier versions of QuickBooks. Financial data from your banks can be imported into QuickBooks as well. The online QuickBooks accepts data from QuickBooks Basic, Pro or Premier Edition. The Online version does not support every feature from the desktop version as it is designed for remote access by multiple users.

Author: Moriah Chesler

Sources:

Quickbooks Online: Features 

Quickbooks Pro 

Microsoft: QuickBooks