Quick Look: New QuickBooks Pro 2006 For Mac.

There’s no shortage of quality accounting packages for Mac OS X. Enter QuickBooks Pro 2006 for the Mac. What’s new? Is it worth $199.

How does QuickBooks compare to MYOB’s Accounting?

If there were an accounting shootout between the two, which would win? Fortunately, we’re not doing a shootout. Intuit continues support for the Mac by way of QuickBooks: Pro 2006 for Mac.

As you’d expect of Intuit, Mac support does not equal the support of QuickBooks on Windows. Of course, the Mac version doesn’t equal the Windows versions cost either, which ranges from $99.95 for Simple Start to $3,000/$6,000 or more for the Enterprise Solutions 6.0 versions.

$199 for QuickBooks: Pro 2006 for Mac doesn’t sound quite so bad.

For a comparison of all the QuickBooks versions, Click Here. Prepare to be wowed. And disappointed.

Many of the features you’d love to have in the Mac version aren’t there. Forms are merely ‘intermediate’ and not Advanced. There’s no vendor center as there is in the Windows version.

Also missing the ability to manage key data on a single screen in the Employee Center. There’s a payroll management and compliance function on the Windows version of Pro 2006; absent in the Mac version.

Accept credit card payments? Sorry. You need the Windows version. Works with other software? Sorry. You need the Windows version. Access data on QuickBooks from another computer? Sorry. You get the idea.

Is Intuit trying to tell us something?

What you do get with QuickBooks: Pro 2006 for Mac is a featured feature. It’s called ‘Organize Finances All In One Place.’ That’s a euphemism for, ‘Doesn’t Play Well With Others.’

Regardless, if you’re a small business whose needs have outgrown regular Quicken and you run a Mac and you can live without a few rather cool features found on Windows, the Mac version is workable, and easy to setup and use.

How does QuickBooks compare to MYOB?

At the top level, MYOB has much going for it. It’s truly cross platform with most basic features available on the Mac version, and comparable to Intuit’s QuickBooks; only the more esoteric MYOB features show up only on the Windows version.

From Expense Tracking to Customer Management to Invoices to Job Tracking to Time Billing, MYOB’s Business Essentials Pro for Windows and AccountEdge & Network Edition for Macintosh are quite similar (not perfectly so).

Credit card processing? That’s an A-OK on the Mac version of MYOB. There’s even FirstEdge for Macintosh, a low-end $99 ‘starter’ accounting system. The higher end AccountEdge for Macintosh is the same price as the Windows version, $299, so it competes well with Windows versions.

The AccountEdge Network edition is $399. To compare all the MYOB versions, Click Here.

Unlike the Intuit Mac version of QuickBooks, MYOB seems to relish support for the Mac and keeps near feature parity between the two versions.

Especially handy for small business users is the credit card processing, direct deposit of payroll checks, and even vendor payments via electronic deposit.

Summary
Competition is a good thing. When Intuit dumped accounting for the Mac on the back burner, MYOB stepped in with an attractive, competitive, affordable product.

Bambi Hambi
We started out on MYOB Account Edge and switched over to Intuit QuickBooks Pro a few years ago when it began to look better for the Mac. Pouring over the feature comparison, I wish we’d stayed with Account Edge and then upgraded to the full MYOB version.

Alexis Kayhill
Not being as business minded as my elder friends above, I stick with Quicken for Mac. It works, though I love the new version of iCash.

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