QuickBooks Premier 2007 Box Shot is the latest version of perhaps one of the all time most successful small and medium business accounting packages on the market. It wasn't until QuickBooks came out that it was feasible, affordable, and easy for small and even medium sized businesses to do their own accounting. By using QuickBooks to do their accounting many small and medium sized businesses not only saved money from not having to hire an accountant, but were able to take better control of their businesses finances so that they could see and understand where their money was coming from and going too and thanks to all of the report options figure out ways to cut back and save money. In the end it is keeping organized, keeping tax time less stressful, keeping an eye on where your money is coming from and where it is going to and making sure that your customers and employees are managed correctly that has made QuickBooks if not the most successful, one of the most successful small and medium business accounting packages ever.

There are many reasons to go with QuickBooks, probably as many reasons why you should go with QuickBooks as there are reasons for handling your own accounting. These include:

• Save time on everyday tasks.
• See your businesses big picture at a glance.
• Accurately manage your businesses financial data.
• QuickBooks is easy to learn and easy to use.
• QuickBooks and Intuit help you get started.
• It makes tax time easier and less stressful.
• With the large number of report options you can see and analyze all aspects of your business, allowing you to make intelligent and informed decisions.
• And so much more.

Over the years Intuit has put out updates to QuickBooks with some being better than others. However, the last two updates (including this new 2007 version) have been stellar. They have not only made good improvements to the programs interface so that the ease of use and ease of understanding what you are seeing is better, but they have added features that makes it easier to not only manage your business but to help you grow it too. QuickBooks Premier 2007 offers some nice new features and enhancements. My favorites are:

1. Improved setup. QuickBooks Premier 2007 makes setting up QuickBooks easy thanks to its simple step-by-step interview process. You simply answer some questions and you're done.
2. Improved sales tax management. While we all hate sales tax it is a fact of life for any business. QuickBooks Premier 2007 makes it easier to manage your sales tax by merging the preferences, reports and sales tax payment options in to one place. This alone saves time as you waste less time looking for the information and settings you want to view and/or change.
3. New Google Maps support, which allows you to post a free online business listing, even without a Web site, to reach qualified, prospective customers. The business owner can also add printable coupons to attract new customers and retain loyal ones.
4. New Google AdWords support plus $50 in free AdWord credits allows you to advertise your business online and risk free. You can select search terms that best describe your business and then create customized ads that appear when shoppers search on Google for products or services that you offer.

These are just some of my favorite new features and improved features in QuickBooks Premier 2007. For a list of new and enhanced features see the features section below.

Each new version of QuickBooks makes it easier and I dare say a bit fun to manage your businesses finances as well as help you grow your business. If you are looking for a package that will not only help you manage your businesses finances, but make tax time easier (QuickBooks data can be used in Intuit's Turbo Tax software and its reports can be used by most Tax preparers if that is the route you choose to go), it makes it easy to see where your money is coming from and going to, it helps you grow and expand your business and it does all of this with a clean easy to use interface that is not only attractive but easy to understand. QuickBooks Premier 2007 is the ultimate in small and medium business software.

• Improved setup. New users can get up and running quickly after answering questions in a simple step-by-step interview. If they have questions during the interview, there is help along the way. As part of the interview, QuickBooks 2007 recommends a simplified Chart of Accounts Screen Shot of the most commonly used accounts for each industry, based on feedback from expert accountants. As a result, users benefit from increased accuracy from better classified income and expenses, especially at tax time, because each account is mapped to tax codes for TurboTax and Intuit Professional Tax products.
• Improved form customization. QuickBooks 2007 makes it easier than ever to customize forms, such as invoices, with new auto-preview functionality. The most commonly used customization options are easy to access with real-time preview for instant results.
• Improved sales tax management. QuickBooks 2007 provides one access point for business owners to manage sales tax information. This latest upgrade consolidates preferences, reports and sales tax payment options all in one place.
• New search Screen Shot. Users can more easily find customer, vendor or financial information and quickly get a complete contextual list of matching files with Google Desktop. For added security, users can only search QuickBooks data from within QuickBooks. The search tool is also tied to QuickBooks user permissions so search results are limited by authorization levels.
• Save time. QuickBooks reduces redundant and repetitive tasks by auto-classifying account information for frequently entered business expenses. Bill entry goes faster because users won't have to go back and look up the right expense account for each vendor every time. QuickBooks will learn an account when used three times in a row for the same vendor.
• Comprehensive financial management made simple. QuickBooks Pro and Premier help business owner's complete routine accounting tasks quickly and easily. In QuickBooks, a check looks like a familiar check, not a Web form. Invoices can be created directly from sales orders or estimates. As any transaction is made - from invoices to bills to expenses - QuickBooks tracks all the data, making it readily available to see and use at any time. Users can also quickly run reports so they can be ready for tax time.
• Home page Screen Shot. The home page provides users with a clickable, graphical overview of their key tasks and shows how they are related - all on one page. It's so easy to navigate that users are never more than two clicks away from their most important activities. From the home page, users can also see key account balances, further customize QuickBooks, change preferences and add products and services that work with QuickBooks.
• QuickBooks Centers. The Customer, Vendor and Employee Centers provide users with the ability to view and manage all their customer, vendor and employee information and transactions from one simple screen. All the tasks and data that belong together are grouped together, making it easier for users to find and act on certain information.
• Improved Payroll Center. With a subscription to QuickBooks Payroll (additional fees apply), users can manage payroll and payroll taxes right from at-a-glance screens. There's no double entry and nothing new to learn. The Payroll Center guides users through the payroll process -review, confirm and submit - giving full confirmation that payroll is correct and ready to go. There is no time wasted double checking. QuickBooks Payroll also provides automatic calculations and the latest tax tables and forms, helping improve payroll accuracy. New scheduled pay groups allow business owners to create groups of employees according to pay frequency and schedule for easy batch processing.
• Give simultaneous access to multiple users as a business grows. Users can work in QuickBooks simultaneously across a Local Area Network. Separate access permissions and passwords are easily configured. A new Three-User Edition for QuickBooks Pro 2007 and a Five-User Edition for QuickBooks Premier 2007 are available to easily add more users. Five simultaneous users require multiple copies of QuickBooks and a LAN.
• Create and customize a business plan. Using existing QuickBooks data, business owners can easily create a business plan with three-year projected financial statements. It's possible to export these statements to PDF format for effortless distribution or to Microsoft Excel (sold separately) for further analysis. A plan review feature helps to ensure that a user's plan is complete and accurate. This feature is available in Premier only.
• New Google Maps. From within QuickBooks 2007, business owners can post a free online business listing, even without a Web site, to reach qualified, prospective customers. The business owner can also add printable coupons to attract new customers and retain loyal ones. Google terms and condition apply to this feature, and are subject to change.
• New Google AdWords. Starting with $50 in Google AdWords credits, QuickBooks users can use AdWords to advertise their business online, risk free. QuickBooks users can select search terms related to their product or service and create customized ads that appear when shoppers search on Google for those products or services. Users have control over their budgets, allowing them to stop or pause their campaign, monitor their spending or change their advertising messages at any time.
• New QuickBooks Product Listing Service. Retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors can let online shoppers know they carry a specific product by making their merchandise searchable on Google, Froogle and Google Maps. This service enables businesses to automatically transfer product information, images and availability to Google's database, Google BaseT, and even show near real-time inventory levels. This service will be in beta at the time QuickBooks 2007 is released.
• Improved item management. The improved Unit of Measure feature in QuickBooks 2007 enables users to automatically convert units of an item into different quantities, such as packages to pairs, as well as prices and costs. This makes it easier to meet customer and vendor needs and reduce errors from manual calculations. This feature is only available in QuickBooks: Premier Manufacturing & Wholesale Edition, Premier Retail Edition and Premier Accountant Edition
• Improved Shipping Manager. Users have the ability to ship multi-parcel and high-value shipments with FedEx and UPS, handle third-party billing and print labels directly from QuickBooks, using popular thermal printers available at leading office supply retailers.
• New Accountant's Copy. It is now easier than ever for accountants to make changes to their clients' company files, without interrupting the business owner's day-to-day business transactions. By setting a Dividing Date, the user can no longer edit transactions before a specific point in time, and the accountant cannot create transactions after that point, preserving the data integrity. When the accountant completes the adjustment, the business owner can quickly review and import those changes directly into QuickBooks.
• Automatic tracking of activities in QuickBooks. Accountants and small business owners can have peace of mind knowing that changes to important QuickBooks data will always be tracked. The "always-on" audit trail in QuickBooks 2007 lets users easily track any changes or errors that they, their employees or their accountant may have made. Users and their accountants will also save time when trying to understand the work done by other users in the company. And, because QuickBooks is built on an industry-standard SQL database, the always-on audit trail does not affect speed or performance.
• Easily transfer data to and from Microsoft Excel and Word. For years, QuickBooks has integrated with Microsoft Excel and Word to easily share data and print memos and envelopes. When importing from Excel, users can simply assign columns in the Excel spreadsheet to corresponding QuickBooks fields. To export to Excel, users need only select the desired worksheet and QuickBooks automatically fills it in, replacing existing data with the new QuickBooks data. In Word, business owners can easily create letters for collecting overdue payments and print envelopes, without having to re-enter any data.
• Synchronization with Microsoft Outlook. There's no longer a need to re-enter contact or job information in multiple places. The free QuickBooks Contact Sync for Outlook add-on enables business owners to manage their contact information more easily and get in touch with customers and vendors faster. A simple click on a button in the Outlook toolbar conducts a two-way sync with QuickBooks, so changes made in either program are automatically merged. The QuickBooks Contact Sync for Outlook tool, is available for download from the QuickBooks web site and requires Outlook 2000, 2002 or 2003.
• QuickBooks add-on applications. For more specialized or industry-specific tasks, QuickBooks has an extensive community of developers who have built more than 450 applications that work with QuickBooks. Seamlessly sharing data with these applications provides the power, ease and comprehensive functionality of QuickBooks, plus the unique benefits of the add-on applications, without ever having to enter data twice. QuickBooks add-ons are sold separately.
• New QuickBooks Time Tracker saves time and reduces the hassle of collecting and tracking timesheets. Employees and contractors simply submit timesheets over the Web, and one click downloads the data instantly into QuickBooks for invoicing, reporting and other tasks.
• Payroll Services range from easy-to-use QuickBooks Standard Payroll and QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll Plus do-it-yourself offerings to QuickBooks Assisted Payroll.
• QuickBooks Credit Card Processing Kit is the low-cost, easy way to start accepting all major credit cards anytime, anywhere.
• QuickBooks Merchant Service for Web Stores makes it easy to open a full-service Web store, accept credit cards and manage Web finances in just four steps.
• QuickBooks Billing Solutions is a convenient and simple way for small businesses to bill customers and accept payments via e-mail from within QuickBooks.
• Support plans include several options for QuickBooks users, including the Ultimate Support Plan, offering an unlimited number of phone and e-submission incidents for 12 months.