Just got a nice letter from Intuit.
They are giving me a great deal on Quicken ’04…
Of course, I have the 2000 version and they are going to do everything in their power to disable all online tools and support.
So I do a little reading. Amazon has about 5 negative reviews for one positive. They say it’s full of bugs and pop-ups, and if you’re lucky it won’t dump all of your data on accident.
Has anybody upgraded? Did a few MS employees have fun post false info at Amazon?
I’m half tempted to switch to MS money in light of the rug being pulled out from under me by Intuit, but that would be going over to Bill’s side which probably isn’s any better…
Jon Blakemore
Replies
Did a few MS employees have fun post false info at Amazon?
Ok this is a side issue, but there was a deal in the paper the other day. It seems there was s glitch, and the Canadian Amazon system displayed the real names of all of the book reviewers. It seems that several authors wrote glowing reviews for their own books under anonymous handles. Further, there are a number of accusations that reviewers are using shill voting for the best reviewer . . .
The horror, the horror . . .
My father and I both upgraded (seperately) to Quicken 04.
He threw his in the trash completely frustrated and I have had only had one issue and that is that it no longer writes directly to my CDR/W a minor frustration. I just pointed it to my second Hard drive and have no other problems. They've also just released a patch, can't tell if it actually did anything.
I'm actually finally going to upgrade to QuickBooks Pro as it interfaces with other software more effectively.
gordon
We're using Quickbooks Pro '03. It was about $230 at CostCo. So far I'm quite happy with it and the accountant definitely loves it when she has to work on our company files. I have not done any serious job costing on it and I think I'll be missing Master Builder when I get to that stage with it. We couldn't justify the cost of MB for a small company but it's great software.
What is the cost of Master Builder and what did you like about it?
I am a one man shop myself but the projects seem to be getting bigger and bigger. I am currently acting GC on a renovation of a 1922 Craftsman and handling all the subs has been a rewarding and learning experience. I am looking forward to a second project for the same client and hoping to manage bidding and costs in a more detailed manner for them, currently I am simply using Excel.
thanks
In Master Builder, you set up your 'cost codes' for every item of work you might ever conceivably do. We used a set of them based on the CSI divisions. When you do an estimate, you enter it in terms of those cost codes and the hours, dollars, etc. that they will require. When you want a proposal, you can choose various forms of output based on that estimate, and give one to the client, itemized, lump sum, whatever. When you start the job you enter all of your costs against the budget you created. When you want a report you can get any number of different forms telling you how your doing compared to the estimate. You can sort the data by job, by cost code, by employee, by subcontractor, by vendor, by date, whatever.... basically it's a very integrated way of going from estimate to final analysis of the job's profit or loss. It does billing in a number of different ways depending on the job... fixed price, t&m, whatever. I only used a tiny fraction of what MB does, and I found it to be really good in terms of keeping me organized and in touch with the money. Don't know yet what QB will do... just bought the book.
Its been a year how it it been working out? Master builder and quick books?