QuickBooks: The Answer to Life

Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks, has done a fabulous job of marketing their product to the masses. Anyone who can turn on a computer is told that they too can become their own bookkeeper/accountant in no time at all. It’s as easy as installing the software, with no need for experience nor training. It’s a wonderful thing, this software. It also has the largest market share for small businesses, so it must be doing something right.

But . . .you knew there would be a but, didn’t you?

I’ve been spending some time on the Intuit boards, answering questions from inexperienced users who are convinced that since they’ve purchased this software they too can do all the setup and bookkeeping themselves, without having to engage the services of a bookkeeper, or an accountant, or any of those redundant professions that technology has eliminated. As they work on figuring out a system that is easy to use for those with a basic understanding of accounting they become frustrated and irritated, annoyed that they’ve spent money on something which is harder than they think it should be. Occasionally they lash out, screaming into the ether about how they’ve been ripped off, and how there must be a flaw in the software, a bug, something that’s just not right, and if only Intuit would fix it, all would be well.

If only I could think my way to losing ten pounds without diet or exercise, or if only the marketing hype that surrounds me each day were true, think how perfect my life would be!

Unfortunately, this is real life.

Bookkeeping and accounting are a cost of doing business, and when I see business owners spending countless hours trying to figure out a system unrelated to their income stream, I could cry. Not really. I’m not that emotional. I do think that people would be better served by plunking down a few dollars to get their books set up right, perhaps to have someone explain to them how it works and what they need to do, so they would have more time to work on their business. That’s my biggest concern: people are losing track of the intent of the business, which is to generate income, not to learn a new skill. Learning takes time, especially if one doesn’t know a credit from a debit, or how an income statement works. Or why they’d even want one.
And what must their tax preparers think at year end, when they receive information that doesn’t seem to make sense? As a tax preparer, I wonder about that.

Of course QuickBooks, like any software, isn’t perfect. It doesn’t do everything we want it to do. It’s an off-the-shelf inexpensive software, and you get what you pay for. I use it extensively, and does it do everything I might want? No, of course not. There are multiple ways to get things done in QB, just like in life, and knowing the shortcuts and how it works saves considerable time. Time = money, doesn’t it?

We are a proud and independent people. So independent and so cautious about spending money on something we could well do ourselves that we lose sight of what matters: getting the job done fast and accurately. That is something you can put a price on, unlike the hours lost trying to figure out why things don’t work like you want them to, losing the opportunity to generate income while you try to manage the income you have, or even just having a few extra hours to do things you might actually enjoy, like taking the kids to the park, certainly more enjoyable an activity than screaming at your computer while it insists on its inane system of debits and credits.

Think about what it is that you want to achieve, and how much on-the-job learning you want to spend your time on. Think about relieving yourself of some of the anxiety. Think about generating income instead of spending your time trying to figure out how to make the numbers come out right. Think about the cost of your time. It’s a non-renewable resource.