As I’ve often said, it is possible to save quite a bit of money on the more expensive software, such as QuickBooks and Microsoft Office, by buying them from eBay sellers.  I have saved substantial amounts of money that way over the past several years, including some times where I bought an earlier version of a program in order to be able to buy the newest version from the manufacturer at their much lower upgrade price.

The most expensive version of QuickBooks is their heavy duty Enterprise Solutions (ES), which used to come only in a 10 user version that cost $3,500.  I have been using ES for our books here since it first came out, but only because I received a free copy as part of my ProAdvisor membership. For accountants who are not ProAdvisors and who have clients using ES, it could get expensive being able to support them.  Luckily, Intuit recently started expanding the flavors of ES, offering versions for 5, 10, 15 and 20 simultaneous users, costing as much as $9,000 plus another $2,000 per year for their service plan. 

The best aspect to this product line expansion, from a purely selfish sense, has been the introduction of a special single user version for professional accountants that allows us to work with client files from any of the other larger programs.  It retails for only $849.   

I am discussing this now for an even more selfish reason.  As a beta tester for the 2008 program, Intuit sent me a free copy of this special accountant version of the newest Enterprise Solutions program.  Since I already had a copy as part of my ProAdvisor update, this redundant copy has been put up for sale on eBay by Sherry at a huge discount off of the retail price.  The auction expires next Sunday, January 6, 2008. 

Labels: QB

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 12/31/2007 03:21:00 PM Send this post: