I still think QuickBooks is one of the best deals on the planet in terms of financial management impact for the dollar invested. But knowing that the shrink-wrap software industry must ply annual upgrades to maintain revenues, I maintain a healthy skepticism about if and when it’s worth upgrading. So I put the question to Carrie Sheret, Small Business Logic Inc.’s QuickBooks guru.

She says that if you’re using QuickBooks 2005 or earlier… definitely upgrade. QB 2007 supports our long-standing recommendation: enough improvements are added over two years to make it worth the upgrade. 2005 users will need to get used to a new look and feel, which changed markedly with QB 2006.

If you’re using QuickBooks 2006, the choice is not so clear cut. Product-based companies and anyone using in-house (Intuit) payroll should probably upgrade. For other companies, the upgrade is less compelling.

For product-based companies, Intuit’s alliance with Google let’s you market your business online more easily, including near real-time posting of inventory updates to the internet from QuickBooks. The new Sales Fulfillment worksheet makes processing Purchase Orders and shipping reports easier. And QB 2007 lets you buy products in one unit of measurement (e.g. yards) and sell it in another (e.g. feet). Most of these are in Premiere only.

The new organizing tools and schedules to keep you compliant look promising for doing payroll in-house. Other improvements relate to managing sales tax, backing up the data file, and data entry screen options.

Before rushing to install the upgrade, though, Carrie cautions that you should:

• Wait until December to install the upgrade. Let other users ‘beta test’ the inevitable bugs. Intuit historically releases patches and updates within a few months to resolve the initial glitches that cause users the biggest problems.
• See if you need an IT upgrade, not just QuickBooks upgrade. Network installations in particular are tricky from an IT-perspective. Check out Intuit’s Network/Multi-User Set Up  or ask your IT or QuickBooks Consultant to assess the situation.

From my perspective, a few of the trumpeted features are a little ho-hum. Google search indexes QuickBooks and your desktop. But this doesn’t help you in a networked environment, it slows down performance, and the existing QuickBooks “find” feature works pretty well. And the quicker access to Google Adwords? Helpful if it’s part of your strategic marketing plan, but just another unnecessary expense if it’s not.

Questions or feedback with your own use of QB 2007? Please tell us what you think; you can e-mail us.

P.S. Why pay retail? You can buy directly from Intuit but save money by clicking through one of many affiliates, such as The Sleeter Group Store.