Small Businesses Get Smart With QuickBooks 2013

Small businesses can work smarter and more efficiently with the 2013 version of the best-selling QuickBooks® financial software from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU).

A reimagined and improved design helps small businesses complete financial tasks faster than ever so they can spend more time building their businesses. QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2013 deliver all existing QuickBooks features, plus new enhancements requested by users, in a clean and simple experience that’s optimized for efficiency, and that makes adding functionality, such as third-party applications, as easy as one click. The software is scheduled to go on sale Sept. 24.

“Over the past 20 years, we’ve addressed small businesses’ financial management needs by expanding the functionality of QuickBooks,” said Dan Wernikoff, senior vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Financial Management Solutions division. “This release delivers the QuickBooks small businesses love with an easier-than-ever user experience. With QuickBooks 2013 small businesses can complete their financial and accounting responsibilities as quickly as possible, letting them spend their time on other priorities, like serving existing and attracting new customers.”

A Clean and Simple Experience

QuickBooks 2013 takes a three-pronged approach to make the product easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to look at. Based on a 2012 survey, two-thirds of beta testers agreed that QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2013 will help them work more efficiently. Users will find:

• A unified look and feel: Visual cues, such as icons, help users find the controls they need faster than before and quickly determine what actions to take from screen to screen.
• Familiar interactions: A design that’s similar to popular Web applications means there is virtually no learning curve so users can get right to work.
• Clear steps: Design elements remove the guesswork from workflows, speeding task completion. For example, specific colors signal specific actions across the product.

In addition, a new navigational Ribbon displays and groups the most commonly used menu items across the top of transaction forms, such as invoices and sales receipts. The Ribbon provides fast access to the controls small businesses need in forms – eliminating a number of clicks, and uncovering helpful features that users may have overlooked.

“Intuit put a lot of careful thought into the new look of QuickBooks 2013. The new interface is sleek and modern – and makes QuickBooks even more user friendly,” said Joe Woodard, CEO of Woodard Consulting Group, Atlanta, Ga., and host of Scaling New Heights, an annual conference for QuickBooks ProAdvisors. “I’m excited to start using QuickBooks 2013 in my practice, to share this new QuickBooks experience with my fellow QuickBooks ProAdvisors and to introduce the product to my clients.”

Optimized for Efficiency

Updates and additions to QuickBooks 2013 help small businesses complete tasks and find the information they need faster than ever. These include:

• New Navigation Panel: Access shortcuts to the most commonly visited parts of QuickBooks in one click via a persistent navigation panel on the left side of the screen, saving time moving from one activity to the next. Users can also add their favorite reports to the panel, so the latest insights about business performance are only a click away.
• Updated Centers: Consolidate and organize more important customer and vendor information in the Customer and Vendor Centers to save time searching for data typically stored outside of QuickBooks. Small businesses can now assign multiple contacts to customers and vendors, and pin to do’s to customers. In addition, users can track twice as many types of contact information for customers and vendors, such as Facebook pages or Twitter handles.

To boost efficiency, Intuit also addressed dozens of user-requested improvements. For example, tables in QuickBooks 2013 sport larger fonts and taller row heights to improve legibility. Small businesses can also now add multiple notes to contacts and add notes to inventory reports.

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