New QuickBooks for a New Millennium

The 2000 edition of QuickBooks, the leading accounting program for small businesses, features several improvements that make the Intuit program easier to use and that help you take advantage of the Internet.

There are two versions: the regular QuickBooks 2000 ($119 for new users, less a $50 rebate if you’re upgrading) and QuickBooks Pro 2000 ($219, with a $70 rebate if you upgrade). The programs are essentially the same, but the Pro edition has some extra features and can be used over a local area network.

Both programs now offer easily navigated centers focused on your company, your customers and your vendors. These centers, accessible from the program’s main screen, make it simple to jump to the appropriate feature of the program. It also makes it easier to discover the features that you might not otherwise have known about.

Also new is the ability to synchronize contact information between QuickBooks and both Microsoft Outlook and Symantec Act. Any time you update customer information in either program, the synchronization feature transfers that change to the other one.

There is also a new tax alert service that keeps you up to date on upcoming tax deadlines and relevant changes to the tax code.

QuickBooks now has sophisticated online features, including both basic and deluxe integrated online payroll service that automates all aspects of payroll, including taking care of taxes, printing and mailing W-2s, and offering employees a direct-deposit option that automatically transfers their pay from your company payroll account into one or two of their personal accounts.

Another Internet-related feature is a postage service. Intuit, in cooperation with E-Stamp Corp., makes it possible for you to print postage--which you replenish online--onto envelopes or labels from directly within QuickBooks. The program also lets you sign up for a merchant credit card account so you can accept credit card payments.

One interesting new feature lets you build and manage a company Web site. The basic tools are built into the program and your site. It takes only a few minutes to set up a basic site, but you’ll probably spend a considerable amount of time tweaking it. Intuit registers a domain name for you and hosts it free for the first six months. After that, it’s $9.95 a month.

As in last year, the program allows you to pay your bills electronically as long as you’re signed up with a bill-paying service either through QuickBooks or your bank. The program lists participating banking institutions and, in most cases, allows you to sign up within the program.

QuickBooks’ main function, of course, is to help you keep your company’s books. It helps you track income and expenses and generate all the reports you’ll need for yourself, lenders, the Internal Revenue Service and anyone else who needs to know about your business’ finances. To that end, the product produces just about any report you’d ever need, including various profit and loss reports, balance sheets, expenses by vendor, income by customer and lots more. In fact, it can generate more than 100 reports and graphs.

The software can also help you with invoicing. It remembers information about your customers, calculates sales tax and generates a variety of invoice types. Creating and filling out an invoice is easy, especially if you already have customer data on file.

Keeping track of accounts payable is probably one of the least glamorous tasks of running a small business, but if you don’t pay your bills, you’re not going to stay in business. QuickBooks doesn’t come up with the money, but it does help you keep track of what you owe and to whom you owe it. The billing section of the program includes an “enter bills” section in which you track invoices from vendors, and a “pay bills” area that links your vendor list and invoices to your QuickBooks bank accounts.

With the new QuickBooks, Intuit has made some small but useful improvements to a formidable tool for small businesses.

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Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 2:10 p.m. weekdays on the KNX-AM (1070) Technology Hour. He can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web site is at https://www.larrysworld.com.