OFF TOPIC
I've been thinking buying Quickbooks to simplify the handling of my stock records.
You've picked a sensitive subject with me. Quickbooks has become a really good product over the last several years. Our firm has been very supportive of it. However, Intuit has just pulled one of the worst stunts I've seen after years of watching the software business.
With QB 2000, they are selling what amounts to "crippleware". After 60 days, if you do not purchase their tax table update service (which you really shouldn't need anyway), the payroll module ceases functioning. Here's the bad part, though. To purchase the update service, you MUST use your internet connection and allow their software to manage a download of the tax tables to your system. Of course, you have no way of knowing whether they are at the same time uploading your financial information for sale to the highest bidder.
There's a lot more about this over at the quickbooks website. There is talk of a boycott, class action, and more. Retail stores are reporting huge numbers of returns of the QB 2000 product.
So, while I like the product, I'm am furious with the company, and can't recommend it at this time. Stay tuned, as I am reasonably certain Intuit is going to have to back down on this. The tax tables in QB 99 are all set to expire on February 15. My guess is the outcry will be big (maybe an opportunity to short the stock, after its rise this week).
Now, to take it one step further, QB isn't the right tool for your application anyway. You'll find that handling stock records is bulky with QB, and it offers no real built-in functionality at all for this.
You probably want to check out Quicken (from the same ripoff company) and Microsoft Money. Both of these are set up to handle stock transactions. Over on the Intuit thread on SI there is a fairly deep discussion of the plusses and minuses of Quicken for stock transactions. In particular, they say it doesn't handle the wash sale rule very well. This is an issue that excites many taxpayers, but in reality, even professional level tax software doesn't do that -- the preparer has to recompute the basis on all wash sales anyway. Intuit owns Turbotax, and you can import from Quicken to Turbotax, but from what I've read only the simplest returns will really import well.
I really think Quicken is probably the better product, but I just can't bring myself to recommend Intuit because of this crap they've pulled with QB. Hope this helps.... |
