Upgrade or Screw Up

In the past, my poor experiences with updating or upgrading have generally centered on Windows and Microsoft products. The newest products are almost always heavily laden with bugs, so I avoid them until the inevitable "patch" or "service pack upgrade" comes out. Sometimes I avoid them altogether. I, for instance, still run Office 2000 on all my work computers but one, and on my own laptop at home. I am sure when I return to school I will have to get Office 2007 or whichever version is current, but I will avoid that change for now.

This week, though, I am dealing with a problem with an upgrade to Quickbooks. We first upgraded several years ago from Professional to Premium, having been told by a technical support person that the file size was simply too massive to be accommodated by Professional anymore. A year or so ago, we upgraded to Enterprise Solutions (the highest end version, as far as I know) for the same reason - file size. The reason we called, though, was because speed had become a real issue. Inputs from the keyboard were sometimes not noticed because the file was so busy checking something, causing data entry meltdowns. Processes that previously took me twenty minutes ballooned to hours. Simple procedures that had been fast and easy required the user to wait for each step in the entry process to finish the hourglass-wait before entering more.

I started writing this post as I was waiting on hold with Quickbooks. Since starting it, though, they came on the line, fixed all my problems, and now have me running faster than ever. Anyone who ever doubts why I recommend Quickbooks should read this post. Truly, they upgrade their products and services all the time. Thank you, Intuit, and thank you Quickbooks Tech Support.