Intuit — QuickBooks Accounting Premier Nonprofit Edition 2009

For organizations with business operations, the basic functions are built
into QuickBooks without additional modules necessary. Additions available for
Quick-Books include Point of Sale, Intuit Merchant Services (credit card and
billing services), online Time Tracker and Enhanced Payroll. QuickBooks relies
on third-party applications to expand the offerings to integrate with management
software with hundreds of options available.

MODULES/SCALABILITY – 4 Stars
QuickBooks for Nonprofits offers small business accounting software adapted
to the nonprofit sector. There is no direct support of grant management, fund
accounting or cost allocations per se, but, as accounting software, all the
tools are there if you know how to use them. As QuickBooks is designed for those
without accounting knowledge, the vendor has made an effort to provide guidance.
The Help system, coupled with its New Live Community gives opportunities for
direction if needed.

As a packaged system, QuickBooks Accounting Premier Nonprofit offers functionality
for GL, AP, AR, Security, Audit Trail, Inventory and Purchase Orders, Time Tracking,
Payroll, Customizable Reports, forms and statements, and Bank Reconciliation.
Budgeting and forecasting tools are also available, although hidden in the Company
menu. Free one-year subscriptions are included for remote access and Intuit
websites.

Tight integration with Microsoft Office allows mail merge capabilities with
Word, exporting reports and data to Excel and contact information with Outlook.
QuickBooks also allows e-mailing of reports and forms as well as a Shipping
Manager to integrate with UPS and FedEx. For those that need more, Intuit offers
QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. It’s the same user-friendly interface
over a much larger database, and it expands up to 30 users with customizable
account/report-level security. Additional operational functionality makes QuickBooks
Enterprise Nonprofit Edition a solid competitor for the mid-sized organization.

FEATURES/FUNCTIONALITY – 4 Stars
With the Nonprofit Edition, if an organization uses the Easy Step Interview
to create its agency, it can choose from general nonprofit, member association
or faith-based organization structure with options to use the unified chart
of accounts. QuickBooks provides for fund or restriction management on the income
statement with the class function. Program or fund-ing source tracking can be
accomplished by using the Job Costing features built into the product. The Help
system points users to these adaptations to nonprofit needs.

Budget and forecast setups are easy in spreadsheet-like tools. QuickBooks
Nonprofit offers one budget per fiscal year for the entire chart of accounts
(profit & loss and balance sheet separately), each class, or individual
program (job). Budget setups are limited to the organization’s fiscal
year, but reporting can span unlimited date ranges, effectively allowing multiple-period
program and grant budgets.

QuickBooks encourages users to work with a professional for accounting guidance
with tools like the Accountant’s Copy. This special archived file allows
users to continue work while the accountant makes corrections to their file
and then incorporates the changes. This feature was greatly improved in 2008,
allow-ing most functions in QuickBooks to be corrected. New this year is the
Company Snapshot, a dashboard view of important financial data. Upgrades to
Online Banking features and list filtering capabilities were also made. Also
new to 2009 is customer requested Multi-Currency support as well as QuickBooks
Messenger, which provides communication between users via instant message.

REPORTING – 4.5 Stars
QuickBooks Accounting Pre-mier Nonprofit Edition offers reports for FASB 117
compliance as well as hundreds of business analysis reports. However, financial
statements are not in traditional GAAP format but can be exported to Excel for
quick formatting changes. For integrated reporting capabilities, nonprofit organizations
may want to consider the Accountant Edition of QuickBooks. New in the 2009 Accountant
Edition, QuickBooks introduced an add-on Intuit Statement Writer with GAAP templates
and functionality in-cluded. QuickBooks Accountant Edition also includes the
Fixed Asset Manager at no additional charge. Coupled with additional industry
reports and functionality, the Accountant Edition may be the right fit for some
nonprofit agencies.

QuickBooks reports and forms can be customized, memorized and grouped for
efficient production. Reports can also be ex-ported, e-mailed and saved in PDF
format. Users can be set up to access reports only for board and management
purposes. All reports offer drill-down capabilities to analyze back to original
transactions.

SUPPORT/HELP – 5 Stars
In-product Help offers nonprofit-specific assistance in many areas. Revamped
in 2009, the Help system dynamically adapts to current activities and offers
live access to the New Live Community online forum. This lively online user
forum is available to all QuickBooks users and has many active nonprofit threads.
The QuickBooks support website is also very useful with a large knowledgebase
available of FAQs, error message resolution and product guidance.
QuickBooks offers technical support packages with 24/7 tele-phone assistance
for technical and product questions. First-year plans are $349 and $299 subsequently.
Annual support plans include downloadable guides, installation and setup support,
and online backup service. Monthly plans and pay-as-you-go support are also
available. Intuit has developed a vast network of accounting and consulting
professionals (ProAdvisors) to provide local support, training and consulting.

RELATIVE VALUE – 5 Stars
QuickBooks Accounting Pre-mier Nonprofit Edition 2009 is a technology bargain
for $399.95 (single user), $749.95 (two users), and a three-user package at
$1,099.95. For those with needs beyond five concurrent users, QuickBooks Enterprise
Solutions (Nonprofit Edition) starts at $3,000 for five users and $5,000 for
10 users (Enterprise pricing includes Intuit’s Full Service Plan). For
small and growing organizations, QuickBooks is easy to customize to your specific
needs if you are willing to do a little research. For a nonprofit organization
that knows the ropes and is operating on a tight budget, QuickBooks Nonprofit
Edition is an excellent option.

2009 OVERALL RATING: