Every year I have clients ask if they should upgrade their QuickBooks software to the latest and greatest. And yet, I still have others that are on QuickBooks 8 and are happy with it, so they won’t change. I recommend updating every two years and there are a couple of reasons for this. I don’t usually see enough changes each year to upgrade annually. Intuit (the makers of QB) will sunset (or stop supporting) products that are approximately 3 ½ years old. If you are on a QB platform that is 2012 or older you do need to upgrade to the newest version.
So what is new in QB 2014 that would help out your business?
There is only one feature that would entice me to upgrade even if I was on last year’s 2013 product. That feature is the new non-sufficient funds (NSF) check handling. If you have ever had a client’s check returned after you have deposited it, you know the havoc this can cause in not only your cash flow but it could also cause checks you have written to be returned NSF, resulting in a viscous cycle. To make matters worse up until now handling this in QuickBooks was a very long and tedious process. Now this is set up for you automatically and will even handle the service charges.
Other features of QB 2014 include batch entry, reclassifying transactions and; my favorite; the “Client Collaborator” that allows your accountant to send questions back and forth to you which makes it easier for them to complete your financial statements and taxes.
Check out our brand new training website, Solid Rock Boot Camp where you will find a free basics class along with videos on how to use all the new features and old ones that you need every day. The free subscription allows you to access the basics classes. You can subscribe for a reasonable fee to get access to all of our videos and other training courses. This will also give you access first to our live classes before they are announced anywhere else.