QuickBooks 2000: The Official Guide

Along with Quicken: The Official Guide, this is a core title in our Quicken Press line. The previous two editions have sold 35,000 units to date. By continuing to work with Intuit on promotional efforts, we plan to spur continuing growth across Quicken Press titles. -- QuickBooks with over 80% retail market share and more than 2.2 million users is the undisputed leader in accounting software for small businesses. Over 7 out of 10 small businesses who purchase accounting software use either QuickBooks or QuickBooks Pro. -- Osborne's Quicken Press will cover the significant new features in QuickBooks 2000 which is a much more significant upgrade than QuickBooks 99. This is the most complete, authoritative book available on QuickBooks and QuickBooks Pro. As the Official Guide, it is the only book endorsed by Intuit and has received unanimously positive reviews.

For businesspeople who can't seem to justify a dedicated accounting department, QuickBooks 2000 can provide the needed recordkeeping and reporting capabilities. QuickBooks 2000: The Official Guide, the latest official QuickBooks book from respected author Kathy Ivens, decodes the QuickBooks (and QuickBooks Pro) interfaces and shows you how to fit these popular accounting packages into your way of doing business.

Strangely, the Customer Center receives no mention, but Ivens covers practically everything else, making it easy for you to flip right to a discussion of whatever is confusing you at the moment. You'll usually find the discussion organized around standard business procedures rather than the software's design and terminology.

Ivens is at her best when she explains how to reconcile the inflexibilities of QuickBooks with the realities of business: for example, how to deal with a customer who pays after 20 days but takes the three percent discount that was supposed to be good for only 10 days. (QuickBooks wants to stick the customer with the remaining three percent, but Ivens shows how to account for your own generosity.) She also explains such mysteries as how to create a template that yields warehouse pick lists along with invoices, and how to properly collect sales tax from customers in multiple states. Overall, this is a highly practical guide to using QuickBooks 2000 as a management tool for small and medium-size businesses. --David Wall

Topics covered: Intuit QuickBooks 2000 and QuickBooks Pro 2000 as accounting and management tools. This book documents these features of the programs completely, touching on initial setup before explaining payables, receivables, payroll, taxes, inventory, time tracking, and paper forms.