With QuickBooks 2012, it’s clear that Intuit is refining the way you work with your data, by adding features and making it easier for you to find and use the information that you need. While QuickBooks 2012 offers some compelling new features, it also has a number of bugs and interface shortcomings. The reality is that QuickBooks for Mac is held hostage to the success and expectations created by the feature-set and ubiquity of Intuit’s eponymous Windows-based product. In fact, it lives in a kind of rarefied air, under the enormous shadow (to mix metaphors) that is QuickBooks for Windows- the application used by most small business accountants and, frankly, a large number of Mac users via Bootcamp, Parallels, or VMWare Fusion. Unfortunately, QuickBooks doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a very good product that, when looked at in a vacuum, is easy to work with, offers a number of excellent features, is updated on a regular basis, and is a truly useful product. As has been the case with past versions of Intuit’s accounting and business finance application, QuickBooks 2012 for Mac is a bit of an enigma.
