Monday, March 10, 2008

Tablet PCs and QuickBooks - Perfect Together


"I am not going to need to pay for 2 seats of Quickbooks any more. You just saved me 200 bucks. I'll be contacting you when I'm ready to get that tablet pc."


Talking to a prospective customer today made me think of all the people who are small business owners and use QuickBooks for their accounting software. That includes my company - we have a 5 user version of QB which we use internally.


So what does accounting software have to do with Tablet PCs?


Many small business people use QB for quotes and work orders in the field. While QB can run on a tablet PC the same way it does on any other computer, there are security issues with having it on a mobile computer as well as backup concerns. To run even a multi-user version on a tablet requires the transferring of a lot of data (the most recent QB file) and this can be very slow over a wireless or even a broadband connection. The solution is LogMeIn, a free software program that lets you log onto another computer remotely and control it as if you were sitting at the keyboard. The major advantage for QB users is that since the data file doesn't have to be sent over the internet and updated with every change, the person can make changes to QB very quickly. The gentleman who gave me the quote was using a 2 user version of QB and waiting for quite some time when using the program from the field. Now, he can access his accounting data, creates quotes and invoices, and know that his data is secured and backed up in the office rather than on a mobile device.

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