Intuit — EasyACCT Professional Series

From the September 2005 Review of Sales
& Use Tax Software

Intuit’s EasyACCT has been part of the company’s line of products
for several years, though it may be familiar to many users as the write-up offering
of the now-defunct TaascFORCE. With solid improvements to the EasyACCT write-up
program, Intuit has served notice that it intends to be a force in professional
accountant’s write-up. That’s interesting news for the many practitioners
who have been struggling with their clients’ adoption of the popular QuickBooks
accounting program.

EasyACCT consists of general ledger, payroll, financial statements, bank reconciliation,
depreciation, amortization, trial balance, Information Return System (compliance
forms module), AR and AP. EasyACCT is really an all-in-one system, as users
don’t have an option to purchase individual modules — it’s
all or nothing. (The Information Return System is available as a stand-alone
product.) Intuit also offers the EasyACCT Business System, which integrates
with EasyACCT write-up. EasyACCT runs on Windows 98se, Windows NT, Windows ME,
Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The network version runs on the same operating
systems with the addition of Novell NetWare 5.0 (or later).

LEARNING CURVE & EASE OF USE — 4.5 Stars
Setup is fast and intuitive. EasyACCT offers free conversion of Creative Solutions’
write-up product. It would be nice if they extended this ability to other vendors
as well. Data entry is heads-down and fast and features various built-in options
that add to user efficiency. Entry screens keep track of debits and credits,
and an auto-balance “fail-safe” feature solves and posts out-of-balance
amounts should the user attempt to exit transaction entry prematurely. However,
it would be nice to have an auto-balance transaction tool while the user is
still “IN” transaction entry. Don’t get me wrong, fail-safes
are cool, but an accessible tool for repetitive tasks is way cool! Transaction
entry works equally well whether the user prefers keyboard commands or right-clicking
their mouse. On-the-fly capabilities receive very high ratings here. Consistent
navigation and data-entry behavior is truly a strength of EasyACCT write-up.

REPORTING & FINANCIAL STATEMENTS — 4.5 Stars
Financial statement formatting is flexible and easy. Multi-department (or division)
reporting is a snap. Financial reports viewed on-screen are available for immediate
editing. EasyACCT offers standardized or custom financial reports. Standard
reports are created through an automatic design feature; custom reports are
created using a built-in detail layout tool.

INTEGRATION, IMPORT/EXPORT & PRODUCTION PROCESSING — 4 Stars
Integration with other modules is powerful and offers flexibility in meeting
client needs. Import is available from EasyACCT modules and from QuickBooks.
Export is available to Lacerte and (Intuit) ProSeries tax software. EasyACCT
can also export to spreadsheets. Production processing is advanced in EasyACCT,
as the user is provided the means to batch print multiple clients (while the
office sleeps, before or after that all-important nightly system backup, right?).

SCALABILITY & PORTABILITY — 4.5 Stars
The 32-bit functionality of EasyACCT will satisfy and serve single users to
large networks. EasyACCT users at the low end of system requirements, Pentium
3’s loaded with Windows 98se or Windows ME, have environments that already
suffer their limited fault-tolerance abilities to the end that increased burdens
cannot be placed on these systems, which is true of most any software application.
In other words, the better and more modern the system environment, the more
effective the software performance. However, EasyACCT users deploying higher-end
Pentium 4’s with Windows 2000/XP operating systems will be well positioned
to operate the EasyACCT system for years to come.

SUPPORT, TRAINING & HELP SYSTEM — 4.5 Stars
Comprehensive context-sensitive help within the program is always just a mouse-click
away. A complete user’s manual is easily accessed on the program CD. Traditional
support is free and can be accessed via telephone or e-mail.

2005 Overall Rating — 4.5 Stars