Should I Upgrade from Quicken 2007 to Quicken 2008 Home and Business?

Posted by james on September 6, 2007, 6:14 pm

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Hello all,

I have been a Quicken user (junkie) since 1999.  I've upgrade every
year since.  I'm currently running Quicken 2007 Premier.

I'm interested in upgrading to 2008, but am considering the Home and
Business edition this time around.  What has changed?  Well, I will be
doing the taxes for a home business and would love to unify the
finances under one application (as opposed to coming up to speed on
QuickBooks).

I'd love to hear some opinions about my current train of thought.  If
there are some hard core QuickBooks users that think I should stick
with separate programs (Quicken for Personal and Quick Books for
business), I'd be happy to entertain the possibility.  If anybody
thinks that unifying everything into Quicken Home and Business is the
right way to go, I'd be happy to hear that opinion as well.

Any comments around this subject would be greatly appreciated!!!

James

Posted by The Streets on September 8, 2007, 8:18 am

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I've been a Quicken user since Quicken 6 and have been using the H&B
version for the last 4+ years.

Something to consider ... this year my business got the point where I
converted it to an LLC (limited liability company).   And my CPA now
wants me to use QuickBooks rather than Quicken H&B for all my business
transactions.  So I've gotten QuickBooks and some books and started moving
all my business stuff over.  It is *not* and easy transition.  In addition
to
the difficulty of moving all my business address, etc. over there is the
(for
me) much more difficult mental transition from basically an eletronic
check book (Quicken) to a full accounting system (QuickBooks).

My advice -- if you think you'll want or need QuickBooks in the future,
begin using it from the start.  Just my opinion.

Posted by L on September 10, 2007, 10:21 am

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Yeah. What he said.

Quicken is a great product. I like it much better than QuickBooks. But it is
personal finance management software, not accounting software. Yeah, there
is overlap, but certain business structures really require business
accounting software.

You don't mention the type of home business you will be running. In my
personal experience, it was entirely possible to track and prepare taxes for
a sole proprietorship using Quicken. If, however, you are thinking of having
a different tax structure, such as an LLC, or if you will be employing
others, you might consider using QuickBooks from the get-go.

The best person to ask for an opinion would be the accountant who will be
preparing your business tax returns.