This version is great for:

• All small business owners who want a complete bookkeeping software and don't have the need for sales and expense forecasting, grouped tracking by class, or the ability to create a business plan with their bookkeeping software.
• Anyone who wants a robust bookkeeping software for their small business, but does not need remote access to their books online.
• Businesses that need inventory tracking and want to be able to set levels of inventory that will alert you to order more of that product  
• Companies that need to track international sales in various currencies
• (Online access is not available for and Desktop or Desktop Plus Software. If mobility is important, try one of the QuickBooks Online products)

Conclusion:

QuickBooks Desktop Pro is for those who want the comprehensive features of the best bookkeeping software for small businesses, but do not need the ability to forecast sales and expenses or create a business plan within the software. Desktop Pro includes more than 100 detailed reports and creates a copy of your business’ books on your desktop for easy access. Also, unlike the Online versions, this software will save a local copy of your books to your hard drive, which users will find especially valuable if your Internet connection gets disrupted or the Intuit website goes offline.

New for QuickBooks: QuickBooks Desktop software now lets you see invoices, billing dates, and other scheduled tasks in an integrated calendar view. They have also added the Document Center which will let you scan and attach receipts, estimates, and other documents to invoices and customer files. Another addition is a "Lead Center" that allows you to manage valuable business leads and transfer them easily into the "Customer Center" with a single click. Also with this new release, all Desktop software comes with Industry-specific report templates created by other QuickBooks users that you can populate with your own financial data in one click of the mouse. Keeping your exported reports in Excel up-to-date has been made easier as well. By connecting these files with your QuickBooks software, all you have to do is refresh the Excel file and your reports are automatically updated every time you need it. A few more additions to the QuickBooks software are covered in the detailed review.

Ease of Use

QuickBooks Pro received 4 stars for Ease of Use.

Setting Up Your Books: QuickBooks Desktop software is more slightly complex and harder to set up than the Online versions. However, all of QuickBooks' Desktop software now include one-hour of setup assistance with a QuickBooks support agent, an initial setup guide, and interface guidance tools such as a searchable help database and question and answer forum. Although the installation process itself is simple, it is still more time-consuming than setting up the Online versions that don’t require any software installation whatsoever.  With the Pro software, you can import your financial and accounting data from Quicken, Peachtree, and Microsoft Office Accounting. Desktop Pro also can import customer information and other contact data easily from any QuickBooks for Windows software, Excel, Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail.

Day-to-Day Operations: QuickBooks Desktop Pro is very easy to use along with your daily business activities. Desktop Pro allows you to import bank and credit card transactions into your QuickBooks software, which is incredibly important because it dramatically reduces the time required to record and categorize expenses and deposits. Pro’s interface is easy to navigate since the home screen is set up as a flow chart categorized by Vendors, Customers, and Employees. The arrows represent a general flow of money between accounts, which give a visualization of the accounting process. The interface provides nodes that act as quick links to different parts of the software, such as invoices, time entry, estimates, statements, bills, sales orders, etc. This version does not include online or mobile access, but it can be added for an additional $9.95 per month with QuickBooks Connect. This add-on gives users access to essential QuickBooks customer and transaction data online from any computer with Internet access, but not complete access to your books like the Online software.

With QuickBooks Desktop Pro, all information is stored on your local machine. Unlike the Online and Desktop Plus versions, this software does not include online backup, but for an additional $4.95 per month QuickBooks will automatically save your bookkeeping data (up to 5 GB) every day. This can be a life saver because if you lose the local copy of your financial information, all of your files will be saved on QuickBooks’ remote servers. If you pay $24.95 per month for the QuickBooks Connect bundle, you will get online backup as well as online and mobile access with the QuickBooks Connect app, and 24/7 customer support.

Managerial Features: Customer Invoices, Estimates & Budgeting

Desktop Pro has an extensive set of Managerial Features that are essential for a growing business. QuickBooks can create invoices for whatever business you operate, including traditional retailers that need to include sales tax, contractors providing a service that invoice customers based on time and expenses, and anything in between. You can easily create invoices by entering your customer’s name, the products or services you’re invoicing, sales tax, and a personalized message all on one page. Desktop Pro also allows you to schedule invoices to be sent out automatically and periodically. With this software, you can print and email invoices directly from the interface. This version also allows you to track sales by the quantity of items sold or the total revenue generated by sales of a particular item. Through the software, you can also create an estimate for a customer for work that is going to be done in the future.

Unlike any of the Online versions, Desktop Pro lets you create batch invoices so that you can invoice multiple customers who share regularly scheduled expenses all at once. In addition, this version will give you the ability to track international sales and expenses in multiple currencies. Desktop Pro also allows you to create a budget and compare actual income and expense activity with budget projections.

QuickBooks provides an add-on to manage your payroll for an unlimited number of employees for an additional $279.96 per year or $28 per month when paired with the purchase of either QuickBooks Pro or Premier. There are also various other payroll services that can integrate with QuickBooks software. You can accept credit and debit cards through QuickBooks if you apply for a Merchant Account through Intuit Payment Solutions. Your first two months are free, after which a $19.95 monthly fee is charged.

Reporting

QuickBooks Desktop Pro provides an extensive collection of more than 100 types of financial, sales, and tax reports that include accounts receivable aging, profit versus loss, and reconciliation reports. Like the Online Essentials and Online Plus software, Desktop Pro includes a Company Snapshot that summarizes profit, expenses, revenue, transactions, previous period information, outstanding bills, outstanding money owed, etc. With any of the QuickBooks software you can create custom reports by adding to or editing the report templates.

Desktop Pro also includes inventory reports to help you better plan future purchases, which is not built in to any of the QuickBooks Online versions. In addition, this version gives you access to a Customer Snapshot that allows you to view your customers’ purchase history, average days to pay, and outstanding balances at a glance.

Tracking Payments to Vendors & Inventory

QuickBooks allows you to set up a vendor list where you can easily enter in bills as you receive them and create vendors as-you-go. In addition, this version gives you the ability to view and pay all current bills. You can set up a schedule to automatically pay bills as they come in or delay bill payment to a different time than when you record them. You can also create customized purchase orders by vendor, itemized goods, and services, as well as add notes and view purchase history. If you use contractors, you will need to send them a 1099 tax form, which you can do with this QuickBooks version.

Unlike the QuickBooks Online versions, Desktop Pro includes an inventory management system, which allows you to designate levels of inventory that will alert you to reorder each product. With the QuickBooks Desktop software you can batch invoice multiple vendor and employee time sheets for those who share the same work hours. In addition to this, the new software lets you run automatically recurring transactions like bills and invoices, and customize the schedule to fit your needs.

Online Banking

QuickBooks provides bank account reconciliation, which means they go through every transaction in your bank account and make sure the information you have in your software matches. The software also allows you to print checks by letting you fill out the onscreen withdrawal form and selecting Print. QuickBooks offers in-depth deposit records that provide details, such as who made a deposit, which account a deposit went to, and the payment method used. The software allows you to view histories of credit card expenses, check expenses and cash expenses across all your accounts, as well as view each of these expenses by transaction.

Pricing and Support

QuickBooks Desktop Pro retails for $299.95 for a single-user license but is currently available for $199.95, and includes a 60-day money-back guarantee. Additional user licenses can be purchased for $200 each and three user licenses can be linked together under the same account. You can use these user licenses to monitor usage and set different permission levels for individuals in your organization.

Desktop Pro charges an extra fee of $299.95 per year or $89.95 for three months for access to their 24/7 U.S.-based phone and email customer support. QuickBooks does not currently provide live chat technical support for Desktop Pro, but they do offer sales live chat support. QuickBooks’ searchable FAQ section is helpful, as it provides a list of relevant topics when a user enters a query. Intuit also provides many user forum categories such as QuickBooks Tasks, Intuit Products, Intuit Resources, Intuit Payroll, and more, which we found very helpful.