Quickbooks Enterprise 2011 Intuit Keeps Making It Better

QuickBooks Enterprise is the top of the product line for Intuit’s Financial Management and Reporting family of software products. At first glance, the features in QB Enterprise (QBES) look exactly the same as those in the Pro and Premier products. The look and feel of the GUI are exactly the same. However, QBES is the real workhorse of the product line and is designed to support businesses that have a need for:

• more than 3 concurrent users
• inventory-intensive workflow management requirements
• inventory in more than one location
• tracking large numbers of items, customers, and vendors
• high transaction volume
• comprehensive and customizable reporting
• users who access the QB data remotely

The 2011 QuickBooks product line has delivered more new features than ever before. I published the “Your Guide to the QuickBooks 2011 Lineup” on my blog (click here) earlier and you can see all the many new features which were released with the 2011 product line. There are many and they are impressive.

But what isn’t clear from the Family of Products guide is what Intuit has bundled together with QBES this year. Included with the initial software purchase is the Full Service Plan (FSP), and along with the FSP comes these additional products & services:

• Free copy of Mastering QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, an interactive training DVD (a $399 value), and a free copy of The Complete Guide to Using Enterprise Solutions, published by McGraw-Hill
• The Connection Diagnostic Tool can help troubleshoot networking and multi-user errors that your client may encounter while opening QuickBooks files.
• QuickBooks Connect for 5 users (anywhere access to QB data)
• Intuit Data Protect (Online Backup)
• Time and Billing Manager
• Attached Documents (can attach up to 5 documents to any invoice, customer, etc.)
• Custom Reporting with ODBC-Compliant Applications – clients can now create custom reports with ODBC-compliant applications using a new direct connection to the QuickBooks database for maximum flexibility in report design.

More on some of these great additions to your QBES license purchase!

• QuickBooks Connect – this is one of Intuit’s new Connected Services which allow QBES clients to access basic QuickBooks customer and transaction data online from your PC, iPhone® or BlackBerry®, allowing you to create and manage invoices, pull up customer information, check payment status, and get real-time answers to questions from anywhere. QB data automatically and securely syncs with QuickBooks at the office, so you will always have the most up-to-date information, no matter where you are. QBES customers get this benefit included in their FSP, valued at $119.40/year.
• Intuit Data Protect – another Connected Services formerly known as Online Backup. QBES Customers get effortless protection for your valuable business data — 100 GB with each FSP, valued at $119.40/year. Backing up data is easy with Intuit Data Protect — now you can keep working while automatic backups run in the background once every day. Activation is required.
• Time and Billing Manager – another Connected Services. Easily and accurately track time online for invoicing, payroll processing and job costing. You can easily review, edit and approve time activities and automatically download them directly into QuickBooks.
• Attached Documents – another Connected Services. QuickBooks Attached Documents lets you organize all your business documents in one place. Whether it’s invoices, estimates or orders, you and your clients can now securely store electronic documents linked to QuickBooks and scan paper documents for easy access in one central location online. QBES customers enjoy this great feature at no additional cost (a value of $119.40). Activation is required.
• Custom Reporting with ODBC-Compliant Applications – QBES customers now get a free ODBC driver with which they can use to develop custom reporting from Crystal Reports, or even MS Excel.

These are all great additions to an already fantastic product. Congratulations to Intuit on providing more value added offerings each year.

To learn more about the QuickBooks family of products and services contact me at rdaigle@b2bcfo.com, or 404-787-5835. I look forward to talking with you!