As another review mentions, the bulk of the 29 reviews currently posted are by Vines members who received the product for free and beta testers who are coddled by Intuit. There are precious few independent reviews here. Why is that?
I've been a Quickbooks user since 1999. Up until QB 2005, it was a solid, nearly bug free and user friendly product. Unfortunately, Intuit "sunsets" their products and makes it increasingly impossible to use an older version after a few years. So I was forced to upgrade beyond 2005. The short version of a very long sad saga is each version after 2005 has been worse than the one before it with 2009 being the biggest mess yet.
2010 is *marginally* better than 2009 in some ways. Intuit has made the online banking actually function again (they completely broke it in 2009) and cleaned up a few other annoying 2009 issues. But, sadly, the "nag screens" have gotten even worse and there are even more things that are now expensive upgrades. It's completely insulting to be forced into buying new versions of Quickbooks only to have it increasingly function like "trial ware" or some "light" or limited functionality version until you spend even more money with Intuit.
Not only is it annoying, but all the nagging literally makes the product harder and slower to use. When you're just trying to get things done, another offer is in your face to spend more money with Intuit. It's not good for one's blood pressure or productivity.
Quickbooks behaves almost like malware. Their online update system runs all the time even when you don't have Quickbooks open. And not only does it get updates for the software itself, it also seems to feed yet more "special offers" to your PC to spend more money with Intuit. I've used ad-supported freeware that's less invasive and annoying than Quickbooks is. If you have a PC firewall set to alert you when software attempts to connect to the outside world, you'll be shocked how often Quickbooks contacts the Intuit Mothership for who knows what?
Many of the new features in 2010 have a revenue stream for Intuit tied to them--including attaching documents. I agree with the other review that Intuit seems to focus nearly all their considerable resources on ways to extract more money from customers, and further hype their buggy bloated products, rather than making them easier to use. They also seem to have taken to actively managing online reviews such as the ones here.
I encourage others who have issues with Intuit products to post their experiences here and elsewhere. Intuit has a near monopoly with Quickbooks. I think only if the problems are voiced loudly enough (such as with the online banking debacle in 2009) will Intuit have any desire to change their ways and actually focus on what customers want rather than ways to milk ever more money out of them.
Get more detail about QuickBooks Pro 2010.
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