This month we are celebrating the Sleeter Group’s tenth Anniversary. When we started the company in 1994, QuickBooks was still a DOS program and was just becoming known in the market. Our growth and success is due primarily to the support, trust and respect we have received from our clients, friends and colleagues and for that we are truly grateful. We are looking forward to new challenges and continued success in the next ten years!

In this issue, we've included a review of the latest version of QuickBooks Online Edition. Intuit has made some big progress with the online edition, so if you haven't taken a look lately, please check out our review.

Also in this issue is a continuation of my review of iHarmony from Serenade Solutions.

As always, please forward this newsletter to others you think may find it useful!

Have you checked out the Online Edition of QuickBooks lately? If you haven't looked lately, it really deserves another look. As I've always said, even though the early versions of the product were not very impressive relative to other products in the market (e.g., Netledger), this product has really come a long way.

Intuit is the turtle in the “turtle and hare” race for dominance of the online accounting market. Other vendors may have jumped out ahead with great products and features, but in the end, Intuit will be there, with a great product, and with a lot of happy customers.

I predict that Intuit will eventually dominate the online accounting market in much the same way that they currently dominate the desktop. Primarily because they tend to do things RIGHT rather than FIRST. They study the problem, design for the user, test thoroughly, and then they release and start the process over again.

Ok, so I'm a fan of what Intuit is doing with the Online Edition and you may conclude that I’m biased. Maybe I am. However, Intuit EARNED my respect by staying focused on the long term, and by paying attention to those small things that really make the product usable by real people. They don't have all of the features we want yet, but what they do have is very well implemented, and very well presented to the user. And in my opinion, it's much more important to do fewer features well, than more features poorly.

With the latest version of the QuickBooks Online Edition (QBOE), the only significant features (relative to QuickBooks Basic Edition) not available in the Online edition are Inventory, Purchase Orders, and Online Bill Pay.

They've created a couple pricing options to taylor the product to the needs of customers by adding two “Plus packages.” The Business Plus Package includes Budgets and Class Tracking and the Sales Plus Package includes Time Tracking, Expense tracking by customers, customized invoice styles, and a feature called “delayed charges.” The delayed charges feature allows you to record “charges” as you do work for each customer. Then, when you create an invoice, you can post one or more “charges” onto the invoice. This is similar to how QuickBooks desktop editions work with time tracking except that charges can include time or other “items” that are to be charged to the customer. Also, unlike timesheets in QuickBooks, charges are not specific to a single employee.

As noted in my last newsletter, this is the second installment of a multi-part review of iHarmony, a new business management system for small and mid-size companies that use QuickBooks. iHarmony includes a number of integrated modules that supplement QuickBooks’ functionality. These include inventory management, sales order management, procurement, customer/vendor management, and e-commerce. In this month’s issue, we will review iHarmony’s inventory management module. In the next two issues, we will provide reviews of the sales order management and procurement modules.

Inventory management is a key reason why users outgrow QuickBooks. QuickBooks includes a very basic feature set for inventory management that works fine for smaller businesses with simple requirements, such as a company with a low-volume, single-flavor product line. However, many QuickBooks users have more complex inventory requirements, as measured by the breadth of inventory they carry, the sheer number of inventory items they need to manage, the high value of their inventory items, or their requirements for tracking inventory across multiple internal and external locations.

We're revamping the forums on our web site, as some of you were having problems accessing the great information there. We expect them to be active again by the end of the month.

The 2004 QuickBooks Consultant's Workshop are beginning in June. Don't delay in registering for the one nearest you as the seats are filling fast. Here is our June schedule:

Atlanta on June 2
Chicago on June 15
Los Angeles on June 22
Baltimore on June 24
Sacramento on June 30

And you won't want to miss the 2004 QuickBooks Consultant's Conference in Fort Lauderdale November 3rd through the 5th. Don't miss this opportunity to network with your colleagues, learn how to succeed in the QuickBooks consulting market, and learn in-depth technical skills from the country's leading QuickBooks Expert Advisory Group. All in one of the most beautiful places on earth! Bring the family and enjoy the whole experience in Boca Raton, Florida.