Intuit is in the unenviable position of feeling the wrath of Mac users over its decision not to port Quicken/Mac to Lion. Deserved? Certainly, but Hell hath no fury like a Mac-user scorned, and I’m sure that Intuit is still reeling.
While it’s not a replacement for Quicken, QuickBooks — Intuit’s business accounting software — took a major leap this week with the release of QuickBooks 2012 for Mac. The next version of QuickBooks adds a bunch of features that will make Mac users happy and a couple in particular that will save most users a lot of time.
In fact, QuickBooks even has a couple of Mac-first features in 2012 version that aren’t in Windows. Some of the highlights:
Batch Entry of Online Banking Transactions
It’s now trivial to add multiple transactions from an online bank accounts to QuickBooks at once, instead of entering each one individually. This is a huge time saver for small businesses use a credit card for expenses. QuickBooks 2012 now recognizes credit card purchases that you’ve made before and can automatically match them, saving lots of time. QuickBooks 2012 can even create rules to rename payees downloaded from online bank accounts to logical names.
Customer History Panel & Transaction List
Ever wonder if you’ve already billed a client, or worse, forgot to bill a client? Instead of flipping through invoices or running a report, QB12’s new Customer History Panel gives you a ton of useful information on one consolidated screen. Now the QB’s most popular screens (including Invoices, Payments and Checks) are surrounded by at-a-glance views of important customer details, such as open balances and notes. On the left of the same screens is a sortable Transaction List that displays recent transactions related to the Customer or Vendor that you’re browsing. This is a godsend when a client calls to review your invoices.
Improved Search
QuickBooks 2012 allows you to search by keyword for customer or vendor names, transaction types, amounts, dates, and more. Powerful filters allow you to refine your results and you can now access recent searches and save searches for future accounting sessions.
In addition to the new features I mentioned above, QuickBooks 2012 for Mac also simplifies multi-step tasks like Progress Invoicing, creating multiple invoices from a single estimate over time.
As a small-business owner I’ve been using QuickBooks for over five years and 2012 is easily the most compelling Mac version to date. Intuit assures me that the company is committed to QuickBooks for Mac and that it plans to update it for the foreseeable future.
QuickBooks for Mac 2012 requires Mac OS X v10.6.7 or v10.7 and will be available for purchase on September 26 directly from Intuit for $230. It will also be available at the Apple Store and other retailers on October 9. To sweeten the deal, Intuit’s new Get Started Right program gives QuickBooks for Mac 2012 users a free one-hour technical consultation with a QuickBooks expert.
