Quickbooks' Simple Start Computer Program Frustrates Small Business Owners Looking for a Low Cost Bookkeeping Program

Quickbooks has long been known as one of the few easy-to-use bookkeeping computer programs for small businesses.  But many of the smaller businesses stayed away from Quickbooks because of the high price, and the many features they would never need such as payroll and inventory tracking.  In order to reach these businesses, Intuit came out with the Simple Start computer program. This program's goal was to be a very simple, low cost tool for new business owners to keep track of money in and out. 

I have been a user of QuickBooks for many years.  When it came time to upgrade, I researched all my options available with the different Quickbooks programs. I even took the QuickBooks' online survery which suggested I use the Simple Start program.  Everything listed on the Simple Start box was exactly what I was looking for. It would allow me to do invoices, it would keep track of my sales, and produce a nice report at the end of the year for taxes. It seemed like the perfect option for me. And best of all it was priced under $100.

I was disappointed when I printed out my first invoices only to find that they looked amateurish, using the most basic font available. The lines on the invoices looked faded, even though I was using a brand new laser printer.  I posted a question on the QuickBooks community board and received the response from a QuickBooks trainer, "I agree with you that if invoicing presentation is important you would want to use the Pro or higher version." I have yet to meet a business that feels invoicing presentation is NOT important.