QuickBooks 2008 has many new features that will save a lot of time, and that will get new QuickBooks users up to speed on using the software quickly. Even if you are a more experienced QuickBooks user, you can benefit from the new Help feature that stays open off to the side in QuickBooks (not in a separate window) with help topics that change dynamically as you move around QuickBooks. That is just cool!
Learn more about QuickBooks 2008 enhanced Help in my review of QuickBooks Pro and Premier.
Related: QuickBooks Versions and Prices
Have something to say about this? Let us know in the comments!
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Unannounced “enhancement”
Intuit forgot to mention that they have “improved” the convert from Quicken 2008 r2, r3 and r4 so that it is not possible to do the conversion!
Intuit has known about a problem that their questionable QA department did not find since early November, as indicated by the following posting of a message in the Quicken Community Forum:
“You cannot convert Quicken 2008 data to Quickbooks at this time. Quicken 2008 introduced stronger encryption for data files and Quickbooks is not able to read the new file format.
There is an R3 patch for Quickbooks coming soon that should resolve this issue. “
The Quickbooks support team informs me that they are aware of the issue but have not idea how long it will take to obtain the encryption API from the Quicken team and put it into the Quickbooks Convert module – although it would seem like something that should be easy it appears that it will take weeks (more – they have already know about this for several weeks) to perform this simple feat! And then QA will have to install Quicken 2008 and actually test to see that this works this time (that is if QA is actually performing the tests they should, which is questionable since if they were this problem would have been found prior to releasing Quicken 2008 R2 or R3 or R4 or Quickbooks 2008 – since it came out after Quicken R2 was released).
Thanks for the information, David. I blogged about this issue to inform readers about the data conversion glitch between Quicken 2008 and QuickBooks.
shelley
I have used QuickBooks for over 10 years now but I am not impressed at all with the 2008 QuickBooks Pro and would not recommend it to any of my Bookkeeping clients at this time. It’s not user friendly and is frustrating and time consuming to try and figure out how to do simple tasks such as Payroll. You will loose ALL your Memorized reports and you will have to set-up all your Invoices, Statements, Cheques all over again just as if you were starting from scratch. It leaves your 2007/previous version on your hard drive and creates a “NEW” data file in the 2008 version. So you will have 2 QuickBooks on your computer taking up memory space on your hard drive. You will also have to take a course to learn how to use this new version correctly even if you were once a confident QuickBooks user. The R3 update does not correct the loss of Memorized reports and it does not allow you to merge 2007/previous versions together with the 2008 version so that you are not using up so much memory. There also seems to be a problem with the payroll. It does not hold the Payroll access code so each time you open QuickBooks and want to access any of the payroll information files and/or pay employees, you have to re-enter the access code first.
As I said, I am NOT impressed with this software what-so-ever. It is costing myself and my clients a great expense in re-doing the set-up and re-creating Memorized reports, not to mention the added costs of learning the program. So, if you plan on purchasing this new version, you should be prepared for the substantial expense of doing so, both financially and time wise.
I have upgraded from version 2005 to NZ version 2008/2009 of Quickbooks.
I have been a user for 15 years+
I will now never recommend this to anyone. It is full of bugs, slow, hard to use and crashes from time to time.
It did not convert properly and I had to get the files fixed.
The bank statement would not import without errors and I had to find work arounds to that import process.
You can’t open companies without some complex routine – ie open previous companies does not work.
Every time you run it – it can’t cope with Vista security.
The list goes on
All in all a very poorly tested and deployed version.
Wow, they did it again. More useful functionality gone. “You cannot use registers to enter transactions with sales tax.”??? What were they thinking to remove that functionality, one that made it so easy to enter transactions? And losing the memorized reports and having to redo all my templates? My God!!! This has to be one of the companies that’s the least in touch with their users that I’ve ever seen. In every version they do something stupid like this. Unbelievable…
Message from the UK the new features introduced in 2008 are appalling. QuickBooks was a fantastic piece of software until 2008. We beg them to listen to what the end user wants (but their hearing is as bad as the improvements)
I wish I had stumbled upon this thread before we bought 2009 Pro. We were on 2000 and it worked WELL. Imagine our surprise to find out you can’t even create a Payroll Check anymore. It’s hideous.