Quicken Financial Statements

Posted by Scott on January 4, 2009, 7:39 pm

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I need to generate yearly financial statements (income statement,
balance sheet, cash flow) for a partnership that has very few
financial transactions. Does Quicken provide these standard financial
reports or do they need to built with some kind of report writer tool?

Posted by R. C. White on January 4, 2009, 9:47 pm

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Hi, Scott.

Mechanically, Quicken can handle it. But it's not the best tool for at
least a couple of reasons.

First, Quicken was designed as a checkbook program. Many other features
have been added over the years, but it still is not a true double-entry
accounting system. It can be made to work to produce financial statements,
but that never has been the goal that Intuit's developers have aimed for.

The other reason is that Quicken provides absolutely NO internal control.
That is a phrase that accountants use to mean methods to guard against
errors, either intentional or accidental. Any user can delete or change any
past entry at any time without leaving a trace. This is great for me,
keeping my own books for my own purposes. It might be OK for me to keep
books for my son or elderly aunt or other close relative who has little
choice but to trust my honesty and ability anyhow. But it is not OK for
what I call "third-party accounting", where the records are for reliance by
anyone who does not have control or oversight over the Quicken files. So,
in my opinion, Quicken is not suitable for the treasurer of a charity, for
example, who must manage OPM (Other People's Money) and prove his proper
handling of that duty. And it is not OK for a partnership unless all the
partners are "all in the family".

Others will disagree, of course, and I'm sure many thousands of partnerships
are using Quicken. But I hope that no partner ever accuses anyone of
embezzling or otherwise mishandling partnership assets. Quicken's files are
too easily manipulated to be used as proof otherwise.

I've never used QuickBooks, but others here have used that program and might
be able to advise you whether it might suit your needs. And, of course,
there are several other programs available. I haven't done any bookkeeping
for anybody (except myself) in nearly 20 years, so I'm not familiar with
products on today's market.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2009 and Windows Live Mail 2009 1202 in Win7 x64 6801)

> I need to generate yearly financial statements (income statement,

> balance sheet, cash flow) for a partnership that has very few

> financial transactions. Does Quicken provide these standard financial

> reports or do they need to built with some kind of report writer tool?