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I work in accounting and completely disagree with your statements. Quickbooks is VERY easy to learn and use. It is almost like word where you can kind of just

I work in accounting and completely disagree with your statements. Quickbooks is VERY easy to learn and use. It is almost like word where you can kind of just jump into it and learn as you go. That's how easy it is to use. Compared to other "higher end" accounting software packages, Quickbooks is a dream come true. That's why people prefer to use it. It is easy and straight forward. Same story for turbo tax. Another big reason so many companies use it is because the available labor pool of people who know how to use Quickbooks is huge which helps to keep labor costs low. If you have some obscure accounting software then you will struggle to find a qualified candidate for a fair wage. Then it eventually becomes a moat for Intuit because everyone is using it and people are hesitant to move away from it - similar to Windows. Most CPAs aren't using Turbotax, they are using the higher-end professional tax prep software programs. Turbotax is mainly focused at people who want to do their own taxes quickly without having to pay a professional.

curun1r 9y ago
Quickbooks isn't that hard, but it's got a lot of inconsistencies. For instance, when I'm viewing a list of customers, I have to drill way down to the individual customer edit screen to make the customer inactive, but when I'm viewing a list of transactions, I can delete one simply from the right-hand menu on the list item. Both are similar list widgets, but the actions you take to interact with the widgets are completely different. It's not hard once you learn it, but you have to learn how to use each screen individually instead of learning patterns that can be applied across different screens. Intuit's pro tax offering is called Lacerte and it has many points of integration between TurboTax and Quickbooks. To Intuit, the relationships they have with CPAs and bookkeepers don't apply to a single product. Not having worked in the tax group, I tend to be careless about saying TurboTax when I'm referring to the larger tax group, but you're right that I probably should have been clearer that most of the CPAs they deal with are not connected with TurboTax.

curun1r 9y ago

Quickbooks isn't that hard, but it's got a lot of inconsistencies. For instance, when I'm viewing a list of customers, I have to drill way down to the individual customer edit screen to make the customer inactive, but when I'm viewing a list of transactions, I can delete one simply from the right-hand menu on the list item. Both are similar list widgets, but the actions you take to interact with the widgets are completely different. It's not hard once you learn it, but you have to learn how to use each screen individually instead of learning patterns that can be applied across different screens. Intuit's pro tax offering is called Lacerte and it has many points of integration between TurboTax and Quickbooks. To Intuit, the relationships they have with CPAs and bookkeepers don't apply to a single product. Not having worked in the tax group, I tend to be careless about saying TurboTax when I'm referring to the larger tax group, but you're right that I probably should have been clearer that most of the CPAs they deal with are not connected with TurboTax.