As was report to begin with Wednesday , thelatest version of QuickBooks , Intuit ’s small business finance trailing program , offer up four major raw features and more than fifty other enhancement or refinements . QuickBooks for Mac 2012 is n’t slated to get in until the end of this calendar month , but I had the chance to pass some time with these features , mould a few first impressions of the update .
Redesigned forms
QuickBooks 2012 ’s new manikin interface looks like a pretty thorough redesign of the way you interact with estimates , invoices , and your client data . While data debut on these form remains the same as it was in earlier versions of the program , there are now a figure of new buttons that give you warm access to feature for printing , emailing , and preview the form you ’re search at .
There are also two new sidebars , one of which exhibit a inclination of all the bill or estimates you ’ve created and the other which offers up account information for the customer whose invoice or estimate is currently being exhibit in the independent windowpane .
The info display in the invoice sidebar can be strain using a public eye - similar search battleground and each entry in the sidebar offers visual cues that let you know when an account is delinquent . The accounting entropy sidebar displays your customer ’s phone issue and email address as well as the current exposed balance and a list of recent customer proceedings . Intuit has also add a unexampled clit that lets you preview your descriptor without expect you to use the print preview option usable in every OS X print dialog .
A redesigned interface for invoices, estimates, and other forms gives QuickBooks 2012 users up-to-date customer information and a nice print preview all in one place.
These are all great add-on to the practical app that make your customer and trafficker data light to access without requiring you to to jump off between the app ’s many modules .
A redesigned interface for invoices , estimate , and other forms gives QuickBooks 2012 users up - to - engagement customer information and a nice mark trailer all in one blank space .
Better search tools
Like the Finder , Mail , iTunes , and other Mac oculus sinister savvy applications , QuickBooks now include some sophisticated hunting features that allow you to find transactions and other fiscal information based upon very specific criteria . As is the typesetter’s case with other applications that pop the question these kinds of search putz , data in your query ’s found set is updated as you typewrite and the data can also be OK - tuned by filtering out information in specific battlefield . Once a query has been create you have the option to economize the search so that you’re able to expend it again by and by . An important preeminence here , though : QuickBooks has always had a pretty sophisticated but challenging - to - consumption tool for finding transactions . That tool has not run short away and is available from the novel find interface with the click of a button .
Progress invoicing, better looking reports
One of the Modern feature film I really care in QuickBooks 2012 is progress invoicing . premature versions of QuickBooks made it difficult to do partial invoices . In many cases , if you need to invoice for a share of a job that had been dispatch , you had to habituate some kind of spreadsheet or other ledger organisation to track what portion of a job had been completed , what portion of that percentage had already been charge for , and then pecker for the portion that you ’d just completed .
onward motion invoicing in the newfangled version of QuickBooks should eliminate the need to use third - party applications for tracking fond account . When creating a progress invoice , you have the option of billing for a share of the study that has been done , choose only the items that you want to invoice for , or you may choose percentages or dollar amounts for specific line item on your account .
Graphs in QuickBooks 2012 have taken on a new color scheme and have lost their decidedly old - schoolhouse look .
Graphs in QuickBooks 2012 have taken on a new color scheme and have lost their decidedly old-school look.
Graphs and reports in QuickBooks 2012 appear to be much improved , having shed the pre - OS X spirit that has persisted throughout the years . Data from reports can be exported , without additional apparatus , to Apple ’s Numbers and Microsoft ’s Excel where you could then tweak your data and add together it to printed report you make in applications like Pages and Word .
Better banking
Although I ’ve pick up it in activity , one of the feature I have n’t yet had the chance to personally test out is the robotlike categorization tool that Intuit picked up in its purchase of Mint.com a few year ago . Like Mint , QuickBooks is now able to take any of the proceedings import from your bank , image out where and with what institution the dealings took seat and then automatically rename the payee and properly categorise the transaction in a elbow room that makes signified , with very short interaction from the drug user . This is one of my favored Mint.com boast and if it work like it does on Mint it ’s tie up to be a immense clock time - saver to anyone import banking data , as most banks utilize odd naming conventions for ATM withdrawals or purchases made at strand memory .
First impressions
It ’s grueling for me to screw yet whether or not the update QuickBooks is all that it promises to be , but it seems that , unlike previous variation of the broadcast , QuickBooks 2012 is much more than modification to the façade . I care the raw forms interface , and I recollect the program ’s new smart search lineament are probable to make it easier for user to make the kinds of useful customs searches that most businesses need .
Whether or not this translate into puddle QuickBooks the app that every small business needs to run a business remains to be seen , but I ’m looking onwards to digging in and seeing what QuickBooks 2012 really has to bid .