Should you upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise in 2018?

It is important to first note that if you are a current QuickBooks Pro/Premier user, there are a few important CORE features that make QuickBooks Enterprise a much more powerful system compared to its Pro and Premier counterparts:

  1. QuickBooks Enterprise has a database designed for larger data files, where you can surpass 250mb of a company file and still work securely. Additionally, there is no 14,500-list limit that Pro/Premier have.
  2. QuickBooks Enterprise was built to work within a network (multi-user system); therefore, it works faster and is more stable than Pro and Premier, when working with multiple, simultaneous users. Additionally, QuickBooks Enterprise can have 1 to 30 users, while Pro is limited to 3 users and Premier is limited to 5.
  3. Enterprise gives you the ability to set up roles and specific task-based user security access. Pro and Premier have a very limited user-permission scheme.
  4. QuickBooks Enterprise was built with windows terminal services (remote desktop) in mind, which means that it works great with multiple users connected to the same Windows Server, either locally or remotely.
  5. QuickBooks Enterprise can have up to 15 custom item fields and 12 custom name fields, whereas Pro and Premier are limited to 5 and 7. Additionally, the custom fields can be set with input specifications, and even drop down menus in enterprise.
  6. Search items within transactions, such as Purchase Orders and Invoices.
  7. Ability to add Advance Inventory and Advanced Pricing Features.
  8. QuickBooks Enterprise gives you the ability to have two companies open at the same time.
  9. With Enterprise, you can Consolidate reports from multiple QuickBooks files.
  10. There’s US-based technical support, and you can automatically upgrade to the latest versions available, with an active Full Service Plan or Annual Subscription

If you are coming from another system or QuickBooks Online, its important to do an in-depth analysis including all features across all versions of QuickBooks

Also, let review all the new features and improvements exclusive to QuickBooks Enterprise over the past 7 annual releases, since 2011

QuickBooks Enterprise 11 (2011)

  • Multiple Inventory Locations: This is the first of the Advanced Inventory Add-on features, very necessary for companies with multiple warehouses.
  • Balance Sheet by Class: this is also available in QuickBooks Premier/Accountant 2011, but is worth mentioning, because it has been a hugely requested feature for years!

QuickBooks Enterprise 12 (2012)

  • FIFO Inventory Costing: an alternative to the traditional average costing method
  • Enhanced Inventory Receiving: separates the receiving process from the accounts payable process which is great to maintain the receipt date of inventory from the bill date separated
  • Serial or Lot Number Tracking: you can now track individual inventory items by serial number or by lot number
  • Automatic Price Markup: you can configure the MARGIN or the MARKUP of an item to be fixed, and QuickBooks will automatically update the sales price if the cost changes
  • Find and Select Items: very fast way to search for an item by name or description within a sales form, such as an Invoice

QuickBooks Enterprise 13 (2013)

  • Auto PO Creation: Ability to create a Purchase Order automatically to stock up to recommended levels.
  • Default Classes: Ability to automatically assign a class in transactions to a Name (Customer/Vendor/Employee), item or Account
  • Bin Location Tracking:  Inventory sub-locations within one location, allowing you to track inventory by bin number.
  • Bar Code Scanning: Basic functionality, allowing bar code scanning whenever selling or receiving inventory has been added.

QuickBooks Enterprise 14 (2014)

  • Sales Rep and Custom Fields in Vendor Transactions: Now, you can add a sales rep or custom field to checks, bills, purchase orders and credit card charges.
  • New Contractor Reports: New true WIP Summary Report, with percentage of completion calculation and Committed Costs by Job Report, as well as calculated costs of open purchase orders and timesheets assigned to jobs.
  • New Assembly Features for Manufacturers: Ability to automatically build assemblies with subassemblies, quickly remove or replace discontinued components in an assembly, and the option to auto calculate cost of assembly items, based on Bill of Materials.
  • Added Min and Max reorder points: Instead of single reorder pointAuto PO feature suggests the quantity to order.
  • Advanced Pricing: Now adds Price Rules, which supersedes Price Levers, and also adds advanced pricing functionality, including expiring discounts, quantity discounts and package conditional pricing.

QuickBooks Enterprise 15 (2015)

  • Disallow Negative Quantity on Items: This is a HUGE feature. For the first time, you can disallow users to sell (invoice or sales receipt) items that have less quantity than the amount being sold.
  • Accompanying Negative Item Listing Report: With all the items that are currently on negative quantity on hand, it’s great to catch inventory errors.
  • Shortage Report: List of all items needed, in order to build an assembly that falls short and is marked as pending. Also, there’s an Inventory Shortage Detail Report with all pending builds and items required to be able to completed the assembly.
  • Report Filter enhancements: ability to hide zero quantity on hand, and only show full assemblies on Inventory reports.
  • Transaction Improvements: Subtotal on item quantities and custom fields, ability to sort by any column, print footer on last page only and alternate gray lines available when printing/PDF transactions.
  • Cost available on Sales Forms: This includes Sales orders, Invoices, and Sales Receipts, previously only available on Estimates.
  • Hide opening balances on items and names: Option to disallow users from putting in this information, when creating new item, customers or vendors.
  • Disallow selling to overdue customers: Optional feature to prohibit users from creating invoices for customers that have at least one unpaid invoice that is aging beyond due date.
  • Advanced Reporting: Fully customizable pivot-style advanced reporting within QuickBooks Enterprise.

QuickBooks Enterprise 16 (2016)

  • Updated Advanced Reporting: now with more ready-to-use templates
  • Enhanced Assembly Shortage Report: great report to pinpoint inventory issues during the assembly process
  • Improved Subtotal Item: now you can multiply any numerical value (Amount, Price, or any Custom Field), useful for calculating total weight

QuickBooks Enterprise 17 (2017):

  • Column Sorting: on customer payment screen is now available

QuickBooks Enterprise 18 (2018):

  • Mobile Picking with an Android Device allows the back-office team to send orders to the warehouse team with instructions of which Sales Orders to pick through a mobile device via WIFI and the warehouse can notify the back office team that a Sales Orders has been partially or fully picked and ready for shipment all via the mobile device without touching QuickBooks.
  • Mobile Barcode Scanning with a special Android Device that has a built-in scanner, the warehouse team can also scan the barcodes of the product while is being picked to confirm that the right product and quantities are being picked for shipping

And here is a video on “Why upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise?”:

 

As Intuit Premier Resellers, we have a strong passion for QuickBooks Enterprise. Feel free to e-mail us any questions you may have about upgrading to QuickBooks Enterprise 18, including pricing:
hector@garciacpa.com

or call 954-414-1524

Hector Garcia

Hector Garcia

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