The IT context of using QuickBooks® has grown increasingly complex and expensive over the last few years. For example, Intuit® recently warned users that if you upgrade to Windows® Vista® you must use QuickBooks 2007; Vista is not compatible with QuickBooks 2006 and earlier versions. QuickBooks users are therefore advised to exercise “prudence” before upgrading to Vista.

Intuit said to “stay tuned” for information about third party solutions that are supposed to let you run QuickBooks 2006 and prior on Vista in a simulated Windows environment. But our take on this? Upgrade to QuickBooks 2007. Don’t introduce another layer of software complexity to your accounting environment.

The QuickBooks/Vista issue above is independent of the QuickBooks/IE7 issue we wrote about before, and which Intuit has since resolved with recent releases to make its flagship software compatible with IE7. So be sure to download the latest releases for your QuickBooks software.

For a final example of QuickBooks’ increasing IT complexity, note that since version 2006 the multi-user version of QuickBooks should be run on a true client/file server network, not a peer-to-peer network. So we’ve had to tell clients that while QuickBooks Pro multi-user costs $500, they might need a $5K to $10K network upgrade.

When you fully load multi-user QuickBooks with its IT costs, the ever-improving QuickBooks Online edition with its modestly priced monthly subscription looks more and more attractive. Several of our clients are very happy with it. And moving up the food chain, the price points of on-demand SaaS applications like Intacct, and NetSuite start to look more affordable. We’re monitoring some of the buzz about Web 2.0 accounting systems for small businesses, but for now, we haven’t seen a “killer app” that’s causing a mass exodus away from QuickBooks.