Created: 2017.02.07
Quality accounting, doing accounting properly, would be better than 'Quick and Crappy' accounting.
Why is it that a well financed product like QuickBooks has error messages like:
Blunder code 3260 Error. Lacking authorization level to play out this activity: Failed to include id=.
When a much smaller company like mine doesn't?
And when you find 'help' on it by outside sources they start with things like 'On the very unlikely chance that it is because you are Lacking authorization, check first ...' and then they go on to describe how to find and fix the more likely real problems, and these comments on this error go back years - so for years it has been well known that the error message is WRONG but Intuit leaves the wrong, unhelpful message alone.
I am constantly amazed at how companies put out products like CrapBooks, and people keep buying them.
I know my companies are not perfect, but we strive to have good, useful, helpful error messages for all our problems. And here are 2 a big differences between us and QuickBooks:
We try very hard to think about every error condition and write good explanations of the error and how to fix them
As soon as we find out that one of our error messages is terrible - we FIX IT. QuickBooks should have had this fixed very shortly after it was found to be useless. But even in their help (as of today at least) - rather than fix the error message, they at most provide suggestions for finding the real problem. Which means it isn't just the community that knows the error is wrong, Intuit KNOWS the error message is wrong and has been wrong for years - but they STILL do not fix it.
And this is only one of dozens of CrapBooks errors that fit this profile.
I would prefer they created 'QualityBooks' rather than 'Quick - because we can't be bothered to take the time to write it correctly - Books', accounting should be done properly, and accounting software should be done properly - not 'quick and sloppy'.
Years ago, the owners of QuickBooks bought out a product named: MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) - a very high quality Accounting package. But they bought it for the customer base, not the quality of the product, and then told all of us customers of MYOB that MYOB was dead and we had to downgrade to the much inferior product QuickBooks.
No wonder if you say 'CrapBooks' everyone knows what product you are talking about.
It is sad. They bought a good product, and buried it, rather than build on it. But I guess the management of the company likes producing fluff and misleading and confusing error messages instead. At least their TV ads are good quality and brag about the fluff.
Years ago I was in charge of the development of a Municipal Accounting package (I owned 1/3 of the company) that I think was much better than QuickBooks. I admit though, I sold the company, and it was bought out 3 more times until it was buried. Sad. If I had know that was going to happen, maybe I would have kept the company and kept improving the product.
I've had people through the years tell me I should create another company to compete (based on Quality) with QuickBooks, I decided years ago I didn't want to create another accounting software company. Every year I work with products like QuickBooks, Sage, Wave and other accounting systems ... I get closer to thinking maybe I should take another stab and create another Quality Accounting. Maybe call the company "Correct Accounting' or 'Quality Accounting' or 'Accounting done Correctly' or 'Accounting Properly'. But the marketing would be a lot of work and it would take several million to start up something like that properly so no, I probably won't unless a VenCap or something like that were to come to me and court me! (And yes, I know that is not likely going to happen', the only time they come to me is AFTER I have something that is profitable - at which point I have no interest in them.)
So I guess I will have to continue for now and put up with Crap Accounting systems with horrible error messages and fundamental design flaws. (Did you know that in Canada, we use Accrual accounting by law with very few exceptions - but QuickBooks doesn't support the Accrual method? When we asked, their support said that we had to manually write hand GL transactions to 'fix' the cash accounting errors, and then remember in the next fiscal period to revert those hand undone changes. And no, Wave and Sage don't do it correctly either.)
Obviously I'm wrong though ... QuickBooks has made a lot more money than I have. So clearly consumers disagree with me.
So I've ranted enough. I guess if I'm not willing to create another accounting software company, then it's my fault.