I wonder wonder why….. remember the old song? Nah probably not, it’s a 60’s tune, but I do wonder why one desk or department doesn’t talk to another at Intuit.

Intuit makes Quicken and Quickbooks.

I’ve used Quicken since Windows 3.0 (in the DOS days I used MYM) and the developmental changes have been amazing, the user interface has grown along side and is very intuitive. Since I have only used Quickbooks since 2006 and haven’t upgraded to a new version I can’t compare the interface development but the same problems exist in Quickbooks year on year. For reference I am comparing the Premier versions of each.

Edit: Well I have 2008 Premier R5 now and I am disappointed. The usability people took a comment I have seen on the forums “The help window covers up QB!” and decided all on their own that the help window has to dock to the right side of the QB window and you have no choice, you can’t move it at all. On a single screen that means the main QB window is scrunched down in size, and when you close the help window the darling programmers at Intuit forgot to restore the size of the main window so it stays scrunched down. And for the growing number of users who use dual monitors like me – if QB is open on the left monitor, the help window spans the divide and the physical border of the monitors is right in the middle of the help window! This docking feature should have be a user option, to do it or not to do it.

And the help file has been changed, there is no index anymore, so you can no longer type one word and see all the topics for that one word, now if you don’t type the same words the developers used you may not find it at all.

And in some areas they added videos instead of typed instructions you could cut and paste for reference, videos should be an adjunct to a help file not a replacement for directions and explanations.

End Edit

Quicken has always been able to extract the previous year (or several years) transactions and create a seperate file, an archive (which reduces the current file size) – Quickbooks can’t.

Quicken has always been able to pack the database, getting rid of deleted transactions that use up space – Quickbooks can’t.

Quicken has always been able to track the specific cost of an item (stock), and that cost can include other costs (commissions – think inbound shipping expense for a business), track the sales, and determine profit (schedule D) by any period – Quickbooks can’t (it only does average cost).

Quicken allows you to select which purchase of stock you wish to sell – Quickbooks can’t. This could be used to implement FIFO, LIFO or specific cost inventory systems. And by the way Intuit, FIFO, LIFO and Specific Costs is being handled by all your competitors and is a much requested feature by Quickbooks users.

Quicken can attach a pic of the transaction document to the transaction — Quickbooks can’t.

Quicken’s user interface to set up a loan, either one where you borrow or one where you lend is far better than the one Quickbooks uses (there isn’t one).

Quickens scheduling of repeated transactions and the reminders to use them is so far out in front of Quickbooks, it makes Quickbooks look like a High School Freshman programming project – IMO.

Quickens asset manager (Property and Debt it is called) is very intuitive – Quickbooks works but you have to work at it.

Quicken puts all the accounts and current balances (Banks, Credit Cards, Loans, Investing, Property) in a scrollable window on the home page – Quickbooks puts the accounts it thinks should be shown and you have no options.

Quickens graphs are easy to find for any account, one click – Quickbooks – well there is that Freshman programming project again. And for property that has a debt, the debt is linked and shown in the graph – awesome!

Quickens report center and memorized reports are much better than the canned Quickbooks reports. And Quicken tells you when you have added something (a category, a stock, whatever) to the database that is not in the memorized report and asks you if you want to modify the memorized report to include the items – Quickbooks doesn’t do anything at all.

And keep in mind that both these products use a data base, I don’t have the SDK so I don’t know it if is the same data base software or not, but that really makes little difference. The interface you see when you use either one is basically a form the programmers create to fetch, display and manipulate the data contained within the database.

— singing —
I wonder wonder why….. one desk or department doesn’t talk to another at Intuit.

And yes the song is actually worded “I wonder wonder who …” I took a little literary license here.