Client Quickbooks for Mac

 The complaints come from people who come from the PC version and are expecting the same functionality or those who do not read the product description/user guide. For you to offer service you are going to have to become familiar with how it works, what it can and cannot do, and how to interact with it.

I have worked with several CPAs that had to learn it on my time. Not acceptable! To say one is better than another is an opinion. What I can say is that if the client is a Mac based business, such as ourselves, and they have made the decision to use this product, which in my opinion is the best available to us in the market, then you should be either providing support to meet their needs on the Mac version or telling them that you do not offer this service, but do not tell them to change their ways. To me this is a basic business proposition. Either you can meet and/or exceed your client's expectations thus developing a niche for your services and growing your business or join the masses of accountants and bookkeepers out there vying for nothing more than sustaining what they have.

My suggestion is you do some research on the trends of business owners, home and business computer purchasing, as well as university requirements for computers. I think you will find that the next five to ten years will provide increased opportunities for you to market your services to Mac users.

 You and your client should be ok as long as you both use the same year (or latest) versions of both platforms. QB for the mac works the same way as the windows version but the latter does have more features and third paty plugins available. If your client is migrating from the Windows version to the mac we recommend this person reads the differences between both platforms which are easily available on QB site. If this is a first time biz and they are starting out with the mac there should not be any issues.

There are very clear instructions that allow the mac user to convert the file to QB for Windows so that a Windows accountant can make changes to it and then reconvert that file back to QB for the mac. This is called round tripping and it is very easy and well documented.

If what I read on Michelle Long's LinkedIn group for ProAdvisors is any indicator, more and more ProAdvisors are taking the trouble to learn QuickBooks for Mac and either purchasing a Mac to run that app or supporting their Mac-using clients in a remote/Web environment (e.g., Logmein).

I agree with ProMac. If you're going to serve Mac-using clients, put their needs and desires first.

I have it working on a Mac(not the old Macintosh) for a couple of clients. It works fine with QB-Basic and QB Plus.The only downside is the sluggishness attributable to the internet connection

Sandy Lenner

www.sl-cpa.net