2011 Review of Intuit Inc — QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit Edition
New in 2011, QuickBooks has added a Customer Snapshot to the company and payments dashboards. The Customer Snapshot provides management with a solid level of detail regarding customer activity, active donors and donations due. User-level password security is available, and system administrators or managers can assign specific access levels for each employee. Users can also access various AR reports to determine delinquent donors and process follow-up or collection letters. Customer/donor information can be obtained from the appropriate center, and pledge/donor thank you letters and appeal letters can be processed using the mail merge function, with the ability to save the letters for future use. Intuit also offers an optional document management service.
Financial Statements & Reporting - 4.25 Stars
Existing reports can be customized in areas such report data, specific reporting filters, and headers and footers. Company financial statements can be further customized to better suit user preferences. Financial reports within the system include Statement of Financial Position, Statement of Functional Expenses (Form 990), and Statement of Financial Income and Expense. A good selection of grant reports are available, as well, including Donor/Grants, Budget vs. Actual – Donors/Grants, and Biggest Donors/Grants. The Report Center makes report access quick and easy, and provides the ability to view a report type prior to processing to ensure that the correct report is processed. All reports can be easily exported to Excel, emailed to recipients directly from the print screen, or saved as PDFs.
Integration & Import/Export - 4.75 Stars
QuickBooks users can easily export data into Microsoft Office products such as Word and Excel. And as previously noted, reports can be exported in CSV format, or exported directly into an Excel workbook, and users can save reports as PDFs. The list of available add-ons for QuickBooks continues to expand, making it easier than ever to locate a wide range of products that will easily integrate with the system. The Online Accountants transfer option makes it easy to integrate system data with that of the organization’s accountant, with the ability to transfer data between systems as needed.
Additionally, if a user wishes to customize the experience, QuickBooks 2011 provides the ability to send invoices and estimates straight from their business’s Yahoo!, Gmail or Hotmail account. The new Webmail integration allows easy emailing right from QuickBooks without going through the steps of setting up Outlook. Users can keep all of their business emails in one place, easily track which invoices they have sent out and attach any additional documents as needed.
Help/Support - 4.75 Stars
An excellent Help function found within the product provides users with the answers to just about any question. The Live Community button provides access to a pretty comprehensive collection of users where questions and solutions are posted. Product tutorials can be easily accessed at any time, and the abundant use of wizards throughout makes it easy to get things up and running. QuickBooks provides all users with real-time system updates the minute the system is accessed, with the user able to choose if the updates should be downloaded at that time.
A series of user’s guides and training manuals are available for easy access or download as needed. Varying levels of product support is available, with new users receiving 30 days of free support. Training options are also extensive and include learning guides and training seminars. Product support capability varies with some support going overseas, but any escalated support or payroll support is done in the United States.
Summary & Pricing
QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit 2011 is priced at an affordable $399.95 for a single user, which reflects a drop in the pricing from 2010. The product is well-suited for the small nonprofit organization that requires solid financial capability along with a nonprofit-specific account structure. Generally affordable for even the smallest nonprofit organization, QuickBooks Premier Not-For-Profit provides the features needed at a user-friendly price.
