I worked in hi-tech for many years and I am comfortable creating and use custom spreadsheets in Excel. I recently became a small business owner and decided to try Quickbooks, because other professionals use it for their small business, so I figured there must be some advantage, right? I signed up for a 3 month trial period and so far it feels like a convoluted mess just to do simple things. I continually ask myself what I gain by adding income and expenses into Quickbooks instead of my custom Excel spreadsheet, which is clear, straight forward, and easy to read. If I need a new category it takes only a few seconds to add another column. Here, I am boxed in by preexising categories, many of which I don't use. I've spent hours trying to resolve problems in Quickbooks that would take me seconds to record in Excel.
Here is a recent example. I have been paying many vendors and 1099 contractors using cashier's checks drawn from my business checking account. I see within the contractor section of Quickbooks there is an option to record these checks, so I do it. At the end of the month it looks like I'm negative thousands of dollars due to these outstanding checks which have already been paid. I do reading in the help section and it looks like I should have recorded those transactions under Expense and not Check. Oops, user error, right? So I spend the hours to go through and fix everything. What do I gain? How many hours of my life have I lost? I'm already working 80 hour work weeks. I'm paying for a software that is taking more time out of my life, not making my life easier.
Here is what I like about Quickbooks. The automatic mileage tracking, the receipt photograph function in the mobile app, and the ability to send invoices to my customers. That's it.
What am I missing about Quickbooks? Does Quickbooks actually save you (other business owners) time over using Excel? What other benefits do you (other small business owners) gain from using Quickbooks over Excel that I might be missing?
