History of accounting software package Intuit QuickBooks
Discuss about the Accounting Software Package Intuit Quickbooks.
The Literature review depicts the importance of adapting online accounting software packages to manage vast amount of information stored in medium to small business industries. In order to represent the history of adapting online accounting software in place of traditional accounting software, features of Intuit QuickBooks are analyzed. This particular literature review illustrates the development and adaptation of online Intuit QuickBooks accounting software.
After the development and adaptation, the current market size of the organization will be analyzed to understand the commercial and exponential growth of the company. The review also discusses the leader of the accounting software market. In addition to this, during analysis the users of QuickBooks are identified the current challenges and gap of the products delivered by the company. In order to overcome the drawback of Intuit QuickBooks certain relevant recommendations are also provided.
In order to manage the financial structures, most of the medium to large organizations of Australia uses accounting software packages. Online accounting software always ensures that the expenses, income and stock market of an organization is effectively recorded, monitored and controlled by this manual system (Premuroso and Kirkham 2013). Moreover, it can be said that, in the field of financial development and management online accounting software is referred to as one of the most efficient tools. After adaptation of great technological advanced the owners become capable to run their business in a more effective way. Moreover, the businesses have come to rely on invention and intervention as well. In the year of 1983 and in the modernized accounting digital age Intuit has started to play a significant role to develop the financial statements of small to medium businesses.
Figure 1: Official Logo of Intuit QuickBooks
(Source: Quickbooks.in, 2017)
The range of products delivered by QuickBooks are appraisable and even these are the most widely used system throughout Australia and New Zealand. According to Schiff and Szendi (2014), Currently QuickBooks offers three different software packages such as SimpleStart, pro and Premium and even QuickBooks has become an ideal solution for small to medium businesses. During the processing period, the overall time for processing always get reduced than the traditional system.
The year wise development of the accounting software package is shown in the table below:
Year |
Development |
2002 |
Feedback through email statements and estimation made. The password system helps to protect data. |
2003 |
Various templates are implemented in the Software packages |
2004 |
Implementation of cash flow projectors Improved reconcile discrepancy report. |
2005 |
Fetching of required information from the information storage. Security access system has been introduced. |
2006 |
Multiple sales order and back up tracking system has been introduced. Inventory management implementation |
2007 |
Inventory based conversion get reduced. |
2008 |
Contact synchronization become easier Manual payroll management system |
2009 |
Application resilience and backup recovery has been introduced. |
2012 |
Invention of CRM modules and new transaction oriented tab. |
2013 |
The email processing system has become more convenient. |
Figure 2: Online subscriber of Quick books
(Source: Rosen 2016, pp-31)
For each and every business Quick Books is referred to as the most effective, bookkeeping programming system. Progressive changes are brought to the existing business system after adapting QuickBooks (QuickBooks and Premiere 2013). The QuickBooks accounting software system software implementation is referred to as the simplest approach in business. The system is easy to afford and the security system served by accounting system helps an organization to keep the records secured.
Development and adaptation of accounting software packages
The main thing served by the accounting software deploys that only the authenticated users can fetch the data regardless of time and location whenever required (Hingorani, Beasley and Bradford 2015). The features covered by the system privileged both the organization and the users at the same time. Due to the easy usability, most of the employees are familiar to QuickBooks services (Rosen 2016). As the software is developed as a generic toll thus in order to meet the critical requirement of the consumers the developer of the system are still working hard on the process development.
Customer satisfaction: Only the medium to small organizational consumers can use this particular online accounting software package. Most of the functions served by Quick Books are helpful from the consumer’s perspectives.
Employees: The employees working for the organization are enough experienced and due to implementation of regular training and development programs, they are capable to handle many information on a single server (Dunbar, Laing and Wynder 2016). Moreover, they have the capability to keep the information secured.
Company infrastructure: According to the functionalities and business operations, only the small and medium organization can use Intuit QuickBooks accounting software packages. Different items and services served by QuickBooks are impressive for the consumers (van Almelo, Ketterings and Cela 2016). The inventory management and activities become easy to be monitored and controlled.
Banking: In the banking organizations, the financial details can be properly handled by the top managerial team if they are using the concept of online accounting software system (Arcega et al. 2015). Most of the issues occur during the period of money transaction. Therefore, proper management of the system is needed to be acquired while operational and functional properties are served.
While analyzing the market and the competitors of Online accounting software it has been found that, mainly for medium to small businesses, QuickBooks is widely used throughout Australia (Rathi and Given 2016). More than 4.5 million users are currently using QuickBooks online accounting software (Bode and Marcinko 2013). It has been assumed that, Intuit QuickBooks is capable to convert the entire existing consumer desktop into QuickBooks online subscription. It will be referred to as the minimum market size.
While evaluating the current market size of QuickBooks two factors such as the ideal consumer of the organization and the number of people using the service served by company are needed to be considered (Adams 2016). The company is required to be more realistic about the delivery approaches while evaluating the market size of the organization. After calculating the revenue structure of QuickBooks, the current market size has been found during analysis which $3 Billion is (Yeboah et al. 2014). Over the past years, the growth rate has evolved up to 50%. While comparing, the service served by QuickBooks with others the growth rate has found to be around 66% over the last years.
Features of Intuit QuickBooks
Figure 3: Growth Revenue Status of QuickBooks
(Source: Premuroso and Kirkham 2013, pp-20)
While identifying the market leader of it has been found that, QuickBooks is of the most widely used online accounting software in Australia. Mainly there are many competitors of QuickBooks. From the current analysis, it has been found that, Saasu, cloud based online accounting software which is, requested by most of the small to medium scale organizations to maintain their information stored in the data storage including financial as well as personnel.
Figure 4: LTV Calculation of MYOB and XERO
(Source: Zaheer 2015, pp- 60)
If looking forward to QuickBooks software, the leading competitor of the organization is Xero (Rosen 2016). As Xero serves quicker and modern quality service, holds 80-90% market share, over 717,000 businesses throughout 101 countries (Dunbar, Laing and Wynder 2016). The growth rate is about 21% for Xero, and it gave a neck to neck competition to QuickBooks (Adams 2016). Currently, Xero offers around 24 U.S states payroll to its users.
During analysis of the market challenges it has been found that, different phases are there which are needed to be developed to gain competitive advantages in the market place. The challenges are as follows:
Cost: QuickBooks serves costly products for their users throughout Australia. The users are not capable to afford the products whenever required (Schiff and Szendi 2014). Due to adopting the rapid changes in technologies, the developed system is found to be very expensive than the others.
No concept of cloud computing: While implementing the products of QuickBooks they do not consider the concept of cloud computing (QuickBooks and Premiere 2013). As cloud computing technology provides many additional features but QuickBooks solution was not originally developed by considering these technologies.
Not scalable: For small to medium organizations, QuickBooks is referred to as a budget and forecasting software. The company has over 6 full time employees for their organization (Adams 2016). In order to scale up the business, quality cloud computing software has been build. Therefore, the accounting software is not scalable from the user’s perspectives.
Factors |
Impact |
Cloud addition |
In order to develop the entire process cloud platform is required to be adapted. It will help to manage the overall system and also the data management process will be easier and appreciable by the users and organization as well |
Training and development |
The developers should arrange appropriate training and development program so that the employees working for the development project feel familiar to work on that product project. |
Security |
Proper encryption key is needed to be adapted so that, during transaction period the users feel free to share their banking and personal details for the organizational database. |
Conclusion
From the overall discussion, it can be concluded that Intuit QuickBooks is one of the most widely used accounting software package in Australia. The integrated manual system is easy to use. It also provides a huge number of templates to the users to be used for the real-time practices. The literature review has mentioned the history of the QuickBooks accounting software and the development and adaptation of the online accounting software. Apart from this, it has also elaborated the current market size and the competitive market. In addition to this, it has also illustrated the current market challenges and their mitigation approaches as well.
References
Adams, K.A., 2016. Accounting Strategies for Small Business Law Firms’ Sustainability
Arcega, C.K., Datinguinoo, E., Guerra, J., Guno, C., Mayuga, H.J., Villamena, E. and Manongsong, J.L., 2015. Computerized vs. Non-computerized Accounting System of Small and Medium Enterprises in Lipa City, Philippines: A Comparative Analysis. Asia Pacific Journal of Academic Research in Business Administration, 1(1)
Bode, G.L. and Marcinko, D.E., 2013. 7 Internal Audit Control Measures for Medical Practices and Clinics. Financial Management Strategies for Hospitals and Healthcare Organizations: Tools, Techniques, Checklists and Case Studies, p.157
Dunbar, K., Laing, G. and Wynder, M., 2016. A Content Analysis of Accounting Job Advertisements: Skill Requirements for Graduates. The E-Journal of Business Education & Scholarship of Teaching, 10(1), p.58.
Hingorani, K., Beasley, B. and Bradford, J., 2015. ENHANCING STUDENT LEARNING OF ERP CONFIGURATION THROUGH A QUICKBOOKS TUTORIAL. Issues in Information Systems, 16(1)
Premuroso, R.F. and Kirkham, T., 2013. Offering a’Menu’of Software and Case Study Options for the Group Project for Students Enrolled in the Introductory AIS Course: An Experimental Application Study. AIS Educator Journal, 8(1), pp.1-23
QuickBooks, I. and Premiere, C., 2013. Accounting Software Supported: Accounting Software Version MISys Manufacturing Version. Sage, 6, pp.0-7.
Quickbooks.in. (2017). Accounting Software for Small Business – Intuit QuickBooks. [online] Available at: https://www.quickbooks.in/ [Accessed 10 Jan. 2017].
Rathi, D. and Given, L.M., 2016, November. Use of Technology in Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) for Knowledge Management. In Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS/Actes du congrès annuel de l’ACSI
Rosen, B., 2016. Best Practices for Accounting Procedures for Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Businesses. Ariz. J. Int’l & Comp. L., 33, p.31
Schiff, A. and Szendi, J., 2014. Helping Small Business Entrepreneurs Avoid Critical Mistakes in Quickbooks Accounting Software. The Entrepreneurial Executive, 19, p.169.
van Almelo, J., Ketterings, Q.M. and Cela, S., 2016. Integrating Record Keeping with Whole Farm Nutrient Mass Balance: A Case Study. Journal of Agricultural Science, 8(6), p.22
Yeboah, E., Owusu Kwateng, K. and Oppong, C., 2014. Information Systems and Accounting Practices in Ghanaian Public Institutions. Accounting & Taxation, 6(1), pp.121-132
Zaheer, H., 2015. HOW DO INNOVATIVE DIGITAL START-UPS ACHIEVE SUCCESS? PERSPECTIVES OF AUSTRALIAN FOUNDERS (Doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University Sydney, Australia).