Windows 10 and Quickbooks 2016

I've never been an early adapter of operating systems, and there's a reason why. I don't care much for being an unpaid beta tester that gets frustrated and experiences loss of productivity at work.

Now... I have a couple of clients who have this new duo and are experiencing frustration and loss of productivity and turned to me for help. I'm sorry, I had to tell them to file this experience in "lessons learned". Please call your trusted professionals for their opinion BEFORE major upgrades. Please don't trust the big-box geeks.

Last week all worked until we tried to edit downloaded bank transactions. They would not save and we ended up manually entering the transactions. Lucky for us this client has a one page bank statement. I have another with a 13+ page statement who luckily has followed my advice.

Last month another client was so frustrated she went out and bought a new computer... this time a Mac... argggg.... I'm sorry, I know I'm going to get a lot of people mad, but Mac's aren't built for accounting. They are very great with high-end graphics. While the Mac version of QuickBooks is getting better, today we were unable to locate the USB thumb drive to import the data file. I recommended she go to the Mac store and ask for a referral to a bookkeeper that that knows Macs... or, keep installing updates and restarting her Win10/QBK2016 PC until all the bugs are worked out.

While I may know a few things about computers and software, I'm certainly not the expert, but I can steer you in the right direction for good advice. I follow many different forums and blogs, I read about all the frustrations the early adapters are experiencing, and see the links to the "workarounds" that others have discovered, many too complex for the average computer user to attempt. So, I sit and wait and give you the best advice I can.

For everyone using QuickBooks 2013, you must buy QuickBooks 2016 NOW, while it's on sale. But... wait until next spring to install it. Your QBK 2013 will run until April 15th. By then, the majority of the bugs may be worked out.

Happy Holidays!