QuickBooks

QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as cloud based versions that accept business payments, manage and pay bills, and payroll functions.

History

Intuit was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in Mountain View, California, USA. After the success of Quicken for individual financial management, the company developed a similar solution for small business owners.

Initial release

The initial Quicken software did not function as a "double-entry" accounting package. On September 27, 1994 Intuit purchased the right to use the double-entry accounting program called MoneyCounts, developed by Bob Parsons' company Parsons Technology. This new integration of the programs was then named QuickBooks. The software was popular among small business owners who had no formal accounting training. As such, the software soon claimed up to 85 percent of the small business accounting software market. It continues to command the vast majority of this market. Professional accountants, however, were not satisfied with early versions of the system, citing poor security controls, such as no audit trail, as well as non-conformity with traditional accounting standards.