Why doesnt apple just once and for all fix the finance software issue on the Mac side? just hire a bunch of CPAs and book keepers to work with a team of engineers to build the business logic needed with the basic plumbing that is there with Numbers.
The personal finance stuff in Numbers is pretty good, just make a few tweaks and maybe a different and more task specific UI and add some business intelligence and sell it for what? $99 in the app store? they would make a killing!
I looked at Quickbooks - no thanks. For personal finances, I'm still using Quicken 2006 - which will only work up till Snow Leopard. Since there was a 30 day refund if you bought Quicken Essentials, I decided to buy it for Lion compatability. I asked for my refund the next day. It doesn't even have a YTD comparison with last year. What a piece of trash - like an electronic piggy bank. I'll switch to MoneyWell or iBank for personal finances. Goodbye Intuit. You're like an alcoholic, full of meaningless promises, refusing to go to rehab. Enjoy your Windoze addiction.
So they do their market research and its tells them:
"For example, the average QuickBooks for Mac user has a much smaller business size compared to a QuickBooks user on PC. Intuit revealed that 60 percent of its QuickBooks for Mac customers are sole proprietors of their business, and most of them are in service-based industries."
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
They make and sell a product aimed at sole proprietors and lo and behold ... its used by sole proprietors? What an amazing and insightful bit of market research!
I looked at Quickbooks - no thanks. For personal finances, I'm still using Quicken 2006 - which will only work up till Snow Leopard. Since there was a 30 day refund if you bought Quicken Essentials, I decided to buy it for Lion compatability. I asked for my refund the next day. It doesn't even have a YTD comparison with last year. What a piece of trash - like an electronic piggy bank. I'll switch to MoneyWell or iBank for personal finances. Goodbye Intuit. You're like an alcoholic, full of meaningless promises, refusing to go to rehab. Enjoy your Windoze addiction.
I use SEE Finance instead of Quicken. Moneywell and iBank would not import my transaction history properly.
SEE Finance has a terrible UI - I hope they fix it in in future versions, but at least it gives me accurate numbers and imported my 15 years of history.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary54
So they do their market research and its tells them:
"For example, the average QuickBooks for Mac user has a much smaller business size compared to a QuickBooks user on PC. Intuit revealed that 60 percent of its QuickBooks for Mac customers are sole proprietors of their business, and most of them are in service-based industries."
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
They make and sell a product aimed at sole proprietors and lo and behold ... its used by sole proprietors? What an amazing and insightful bit of market research!
Exactly. They did the same thing for Quicken. They left out a lot of key features (like not including stock options in the Mac version) and then stated that Mac users didn't use sophisticated functions.
My favorite is still that the previous version of QuickBooks for Mac wouldn't even network - and especially couldn't access a network of Windows QuickBooks customers. Amazing - it's 2011 and Intuit was still selling a product that doesn't even recognize the concept of a network? (I haven't checked whether they fixed it with the newer version - Intuit isn't worth the 5 minutes it would take to find out).
So they do their market research and its tells them:
"For example, the average QuickBooks for Mac user has a much smaller business size compared to a QuickBooks user on PC. Intuit revealed that 60 percent of its QuickBooks for Mac customers are sole proprietors of their business, and most of them are in service-based industries."
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
They make and sell a product aimed at sole proprietors and lo and behold ... its used by sole proprietors? What an amazing and insightful bit of market research!
But, what about the argument that Apple doesn't do enterprise because there's no money in it? What about "Macs are for consumers, not professionals"? If Intuit is acting out a self-fulfilling prophecy, could it be inspired by Apple and the Mac user's own anti-enterprise, anti-professional arguments? If Apple doesn't care about enterprise and professional markets, why should Mac developers?
And again, why is QuickBooks being criticized so much more harshly than Microsoft Office, especially Outlook for lack of feature parity?
I've seen a number of comments here suggesting that the data we cite about Mac small businesses is merely a reflection of the capabilities of QuickBooks for Mac and who uses it today.
The piece of data we cite showing that Mac small businesses are much more likely to sell services exclusively compared to Windows based business is looking at Mac small businesses overall. This data does not just include QuickBooks for Mac users. Similarly, although the data we shared on number of employees was based on our current user base, we have survey data on this for the overall Mac small business population. This data shows significantly more sole proprietors and more home-based businesses (loosely correlated with business size).
Also, it looks like some have construed our words as denial that there are Mac users out there with different needs than those we're focused on addressing. That's not the message; rather, we're just articulating what a majority of the Mac small businesses out there (whose needs we're focusing on) look like.
Although we've never promised to be everything to everybody, we're working hard to improve QuickBooks for Mac to better meet the needs of a majority Mac small businesses.
I've seen a number of comments here suggesting that the data we cite about Mac small businesses is merely a reflection of the capabilities of QuickBooks for Mac and who uses it today.
The piece of data we cite showing that Mac small businesses are much more likely to sell services exclusively compared to Windows based business is looking at Mac small businesses overall. This data does not just include QuickBooks for Mac users. Similarly, although the data we shared on number of employees was based on our current user base, we have survey data on this for the overall Mac small business population. This data shows significantly more sole proprietors and more home-based businesses (loosely correlated with business size).
Also, it looks like some have construed our words as denial that there are Mac users out there with different needs than those we're focused on addressing. That's not the message; rather, we're just articulating what a majority of the Mac small businesses out there (whose needs we're focusing on) look like.
Although we've never promised to be everything to everybody, we're working hard to improve QuickBooks for Mac to better meet the needs of a majority Mac small businesses.
Best,
Will
Product Manager
QuickBooks for Mac
Yes, you can rationalize anything.
If I were an Intuit shareholder, your handling of Quicken would have me furious. You've alienated roughly 10% of your customer base with crappy, useless products and then 'fixed' it by offering them a castrated product that has even less features.
Furthermore, you've been wasting resources. For both Quicken and QuickBooks, your 'side by side' development process is incredibly wasteful. Since the Mac switched to Intel processors (maybe you've heard that - although your Mac software doesn't give any signs that you're even THAT up to date on the Mac), there's no excuse for not separating the UI from the core processing. You could use the same core processing for both platforms and only have to differentiate the UI. That would lead to a more robust package with less expenditures.
Of course, the 'consolation' is that your software stinks on Windows, too. I spent DAYS trying to figure out how to move my QuickBooks Point of Sale (appropriately abbreviated 'POS') from one server to another. The response I got was that I had to delete not just the server software, but also the client software from every computer on the network, then move the file, then reinstall everything (which required several upgrades because of an incompatibility with .NET). And it did require days because your tech support was worthless. For every single problem, their answer was "uninstall everything, do a clean installation of Windows, then reinstall the software". Even when I said "I just did that", they required me to do it again or they would not help. And I eventually found the .NET incompatibility myself. Your tech support people were unaware of it - even though it was reported in a number of places on the Internet.
Of course, it's not surprising that POS had networking problems. You apparently think that networking is a fad which doesn't need to be supported. After all, your QuickBooks Mac doesn't network at all and certainly can't be used to access a Windows network (I haven't checked whether you've finally gotten around to adding that in the latest version - you're not worth the bother).
I was a beta tester for Quicken for years (both the Mac and Windows versions). It absolutely amazed me how you could ignore countless requests for features on the Mac with a short "Mac users don't need that feature" - even though the people who actually use Macs were telling you that they do.
It's really a shame. Intuit used to make decent software.
I am glad a PM is reading these posts. We have been on Quickbooks since 1994 and are now using Premier 2010 on five machines. We are migrating to Mac and have to buy Parellels and Windows in order to work with our file using a Mac, adding expense and complexity to what should be easy for the small business owner. I wish this was our only frustration. Buggy online banking - God forbid you get a new credit card number (compromised or lost card) and try to import transactions and have hundreds if not thousands of duplicates to deal with. God forbid you call technical support on an issue only to speak with someone in India over a low bandwidth VoIP line... who not only cannot help but consumes hours of time, then has the nerve to try to upsell you. God forbid you replace a PC and have to make a phone call (to India) to register the software by phone (and listen to pitches for upgrades. If I could only relate the hundreds of hours that have been wasted over the years. And with Intuit payroll amending a single W-2 and one quarter's 951 took 9 months. Nine months!
So as we transition to Mac, the earned loyalty quotient to Quckbooks is really low. In fact we hate the product but have tolerated it in a small field of competitors. And reading this thread and others elsewhere on the Internet, we are not alone in our feelings. We are actively looking at alternatives. It is too bad whe you really feel a company could not give damn about its customers but Intuit has accomplished this very well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wlynes
Hi everyone,
I've seen a number of comments here suggesting that the data we cite about Mac small businesses is merely a reflection of the capabilities of QuickBooks for Mac and who uses it today.
The piece of data we cite showing that Mac small businesses are much more likely to sell services exclusively compared to Windows based business is looking at Mac small businesses overall. This data does not just include QuickBooks for Mac users. Similarly, although the data we shared on number of employees was based on our current user base, we have survey data on this for the overall Mac small business population. This data shows significantly more sole proprietors and more home-based businesses (loosely correlated with business size).
Also, it looks like some have construed our words as denial that there are Mac users out there with different needs than those we're focused on addressing. That's not the message; rather, we're just articulating what a majority of the Mac small businesses out there (whose needs we're focusing on) look like.
Although we've never promised to be everything to everybody, we're working hard to improve QuickBooks for Mac to better meet the needs of a majority Mac small businesses.
Saw the news on Macsurfer that QB 2012 was now available for Mac users. So I went to the Intuit site.
On the FAQ page, one of the questions answered is "Will QuickBooks 2012 for Mac work for my Canadian business?"
The answer is verbatim from last year's release. They could not spare one programmer to implement basic changes to the printing of cheques that were announced in 2005. That by itself is pathetic.
But it gets worse. No mention is made of taxes, which is the only reason some people even do their accounting in the first place. Ontario implemented a new Harmonized Sales Tax in the last year. Shouldn't it be mentioned whether QB Mac 2012 can handle Canadian taxation?
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
More to the point, why should Intuit care if anybody buys its Mac product when users will buy its Windows product instead and run it under a VM?
The solution to getting them to build a good Mac product is buyers not only not buying the Mac product, but not buying the Windows product as a substitute.
Comments
The personal finance stuff in Numbers is pretty good, just make a few tweaks and maybe a different and more task specific UI and add some business intelligence and sell it for what? $99 in the app store? they would make a killing!
"For example, the average QuickBooks for Mac user has a much smaller business size compared to a QuickBooks user on PC. Intuit revealed that 60 percent of its QuickBooks for Mac customers are sole proprietors of their business, and most of them are in service-based industries."
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
They make and sell a product aimed at sole proprietors and lo and behold ... its used by sole proprietors? What an amazing and insightful bit of market research!
I looked at Quickbooks - no thanks. For personal finances, I'm still using Quicken 2006 - which will only work up till Snow Leopard. Since there was a 30 day refund if you bought Quicken Essentials, I decided to buy it for Lion compatability. I asked for my refund the next day. It doesn't even have a YTD comparison with last year. What a piece of trash - like an electronic piggy bank. I'll switch to MoneyWell or iBank for personal finances. Goodbye Intuit. You're like an alcoholic, full of meaningless promises, refusing to go to rehab. Enjoy your Windoze addiction.
I use SEE Finance instead of Quicken. Moneywell and iBank would not import my transaction history properly.
SEE Finance has a terrible UI - I hope they fix it in in future versions, but at least it gives me accurate numbers and imported my 15 years of history.
So they do their market research and its tells them:
"For example, the average QuickBooks for Mac user has a much smaller business size compared to a QuickBooks user on PC. Intuit revealed that 60 percent of its QuickBooks for Mac customers are sole proprietors of their business, and most of them are in service-based industries."
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
They make and sell a product aimed at sole proprietors and lo and behold ... its used by sole proprietors? What an amazing and insightful bit of market research!
Exactly. They did the same thing for Quicken. They left out a lot of key features (like not including stock options in the Mac version) and then stated that Mac users didn't use sophisticated functions.
My favorite is still that the previous version of QuickBooks for Mac wouldn't even network - and especially couldn't access a network of Windows QuickBooks customers. Amazing - it's 2011 and Intuit was still selling a product that doesn't even recognize the concept of a network? (I haven't checked whether they fixed it with the newer version - Intuit isn't worth the 5 minutes it would take to find out).
So they do their market research and its tells them:
"For example, the average QuickBooks for Mac user has a much smaller business size compared to a QuickBooks user on PC. Intuit revealed that 60 percent of its QuickBooks for Mac customers are sole proprietors of their business, and most of them are in service-based industries."
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
They make and sell a product aimed at sole proprietors and lo and behold ... its used by sole proprietors? What an amazing and insightful bit of market research!
But, what about the argument that Apple doesn't do enterprise because there's no money in it? What about "Macs are for consumers, not professionals"? If Intuit is acting out a self-fulfilling prophecy, could it be inspired by Apple and the Mac user's own anti-enterprise, anti-professional arguments? If Apple doesn't care about enterprise and professional markets, why should Mac developers?
And again, why is QuickBooks being criticized so much more harshly than Microsoft Office, especially Outlook for lack of feature parity?
I've seen a number of comments here suggesting that the data we cite about Mac small businesses is merely a reflection of the capabilities of QuickBooks for Mac and who uses it today.
The piece of data we cite showing that Mac small businesses are much more likely to sell services exclusively compared to Windows based business is looking at Mac small businesses overall. This data does not just include QuickBooks for Mac users. Similarly, although the data we shared on number of employees was based on our current user base, we have survey data on this for the overall Mac small business population. This data shows significantly more sole proprietors and more home-based businesses (loosely correlated with business size).
Also, it looks like some have construed our words as denial that there are Mac users out there with different needs than those we're focused on addressing. That's not the message; rather, we're just articulating what a majority of the Mac small businesses out there (whose needs we're focusing on) look like.
Although we've never promised to be everything to everybody, we're working hard to improve QuickBooks for Mac to better meet the needs of a majority Mac small businesses.
Best,
Will
Product Manager
QuickBooks for Mac
Hi everyone,
I've seen a number of comments here suggesting that the data we cite about Mac small businesses is merely a reflection of the capabilities of QuickBooks for Mac and who uses it today.
The piece of data we cite showing that Mac small businesses are much more likely to sell services exclusively compared to Windows based business is looking at Mac small businesses overall. This data does not just include QuickBooks for Mac users. Similarly, although the data we shared on number of employees was based on our current user base, we have survey data on this for the overall Mac small business population. This data shows significantly more sole proprietors and more home-based businesses (loosely correlated with business size).
Also, it looks like some have construed our words as denial that there are Mac users out there with different needs than those we're focused on addressing. That's not the message; rather, we're just articulating what a majority of the Mac small businesses out there (whose needs we're focusing on) look like.
Although we've never promised to be everything to everybody, we're working hard to improve QuickBooks for Mac to better meet the needs of a majority Mac small businesses.
Best,
Will
Product Manager
QuickBooks for Mac
Yes, you can rationalize anything.
If I were an Intuit shareholder, your handling of Quicken would have me furious. You've alienated roughly 10% of your customer base with crappy, useless products and then 'fixed' it by offering them a castrated product that has even less features.
Furthermore, you've been wasting resources. For both Quicken and QuickBooks, your 'side by side' development process is incredibly wasteful. Since the Mac switched to Intel processors (maybe you've heard that - although your Mac software doesn't give any signs that you're even THAT up to date on the Mac), there's no excuse for not separating the UI from the core processing. You could use the same core processing for both platforms and only have to differentiate the UI. That would lead to a more robust package with less expenditures.
Of course, the 'consolation' is that your software stinks on Windows, too. I spent DAYS trying to figure out how to move my QuickBooks Point of Sale (appropriately abbreviated 'POS') from one server to another. The response I got was that I had to delete not just the server software, but also the client software from every computer on the network, then move the file, then reinstall everything (which required several upgrades because of an incompatibility with .NET). And it did require days because your tech support was worthless. For every single problem, their answer was "uninstall everything, do a clean installation of Windows, then reinstall the software". Even when I said "I just did that", they required me to do it again or they would not help. And I eventually found the .NET incompatibility myself. Your tech support people were unaware of it - even though it was reported in a number of places on the Internet.
Of course, it's not surprising that POS had networking problems. You apparently think that networking is a fad which doesn't need to be supported. After all, your QuickBooks Mac doesn't network at all and certainly can't be used to access a Windows network (I haven't checked whether you've finally gotten around to adding that in the latest version - you're not worth the bother).
I was a beta tester for Quicken for years (both the Mac and Windows versions). It absolutely amazed me how you could ignore countless requests for features on the Mac with a short "Mac users don't need that feature" - even though the people who actually use Macs were telling you that they do.
It's really a shame. Intuit used to make decent software.
So as we transition to Mac, the earned loyalty quotient to Quckbooks is really low. In fact we hate the product but have tolerated it in a small field of competitors. And reading this thread and others elsewhere on the Internet, we are not alone in our feelings. We are actively looking at alternatives. It is too bad whe you really feel a company could not give damn about its customers but Intuit has accomplished this very well.
Hi everyone,
I've seen a number of comments here suggesting that the data we cite about Mac small businesses is merely a reflection of the capabilities of QuickBooks for Mac and who uses it today.
The piece of data we cite showing that Mac small businesses are much more likely to sell services exclusively compared to Windows based business is looking at Mac small businesses overall. This data does not just include QuickBooks for Mac users. Similarly, although the data we shared on number of employees was based on our current user base, we have survey data on this for the overall Mac small business population. This data shows significantly more sole proprietors and more home-based businesses (loosely correlated with business size).
Also, it looks like some have construed our words as denial that there are Mac users out there with different needs than those we're focused on addressing. That's not the message; rather, we're just articulating what a majority of the Mac small businesses out there (whose needs we're focusing on) look like.
Although we've never promised to be everything to everybody, we're working hard to improve QuickBooks for Mac to better meet the needs of a majority Mac small businesses.
Best,
Will
Product Manager
QuickBooks for Mac
And again, why is QuickBooks being criticized so much more harshly than Microsoft Office, especially Outlook for lack of feature parity?
Because Bill Gates isn't on the Apple Board of Directors.
On the FAQ page, one of the questions answered is "Will QuickBooks 2012 for Mac work for my Canadian business?"
The answer is verbatim from last year's release. They could not spare one programmer to implement basic changes to the printing of cheques that were announced in 2005. That by itself is pathetic.
But it gets worse. No mention is made of taxes, which is the only reason some people even do their accounting in the first place. Ontario implemented a new Harmonized Sales Tax in the last year. Shouldn't it be mentioned whether QB Mac 2012 can handle Canadian taxation?
Fancy that. Since QB Mac does not offer the features big business needs ... there is no feature parity .... why would anyone expect that big business would be using the Mac version when its the Widows version that has the features desired?
More to the point, why should Intuit care if anybody buys its Mac product when users will buy its Windows product instead and run it under a VM?
The solution to getting them to build a good Mac product is buyers not only not buying the Mac product, but not buying the Windows product as a substitute.