There are some hurdles in transferring data from an old QuickBooks version, however. And the C anadian version of QuickTax doesn't seem to recognize this version of QuickBooks Pro yet. Installation is quick and painless. If you want to convert data from an older version for use with QuickBooks Pro 2000, you might have to update the older version first, using updates on the supplied CD. A warning message that this may be necessary is given if the install process detects an out-of-date, older version. This not mentioned in documentation or help files. A plethora of interfaces are offered. New to this version is the use of "Centers" to bring together all information on a particular entity. Found in several places in the menu choices on the top of the screen, or on the Navigation Bar, there are Centers for company, customers, customer detail and vendor detail. A center can bring together activities from different menus. Each allows viewing and manipulation of all information on a particular entity. The Navigation Bar is a slightly souped-up version of the old Icon Bar, allowing commonly used menu items to be placed together. There is a Customize button on the bottom of the Navigation Bar that calls up a window where you can change what's in the Navigation Bar. Any open window can be added, complete with current parameters, and more than 100 supplied reports can be customized and stored for later use. This is all a little awkward to configure, with some options showing up in the window presented by the Customize button and others showing up when you choose Windows from the menu bar on the top of the screen. More integrated placement of controls would have been nice. The QuickZoom feature allows you to drill down for more information, such as details from graphs and reports. In addition to the online help, most windows sport a How Do I? Button that brings up an appropriate help screen and lists common, contextual tasks. Updates from the Internet can be performed without user intervention. Several forms (invoices, purchase orders, credit memos and estimates, but not statements) can be sent via e-mail. This creates a .pdf file and brings up an e-mail program with the .pdf attached and the message body and e-mail address filled in. The e-mail address seems to be formatted for Outlook, possibly creating problems for other e-mail programs. Clicking on the e-mail address of a company contact will also bring up a message window, however, without the address problem. The Internet integration is a good first attempt, but more could be done -- e-mailing letters and statements come to mind. QuickBooks Pro integrates with other products, including Microsoft's Excel, Word and Outlook and Symantec's Act! Report and list data can be exported to Excel, letters can be written and exported to Word, and contact information can be synchronized between Outlook and Act! QuickBooks Pro supports up to five users working on the same data file. Access rights can be assigned to each user, with options to limit rights. Canadian users should wait to upgrade if they're used to transferring QuickBooks data into QuickTax to do company income tax. QuickTax looks for a copy of QuickBooks when you do this and QuickTax did not find Quickbooks Pro during several tests, despite using the latest version of QuickTax. A sample company is payroll enabled, but the supplied tax tables are good only until June 30, 2000. You can't create a company with payroll until you've paid $72 US ($59.95 Canadian; the Canadian version is cheaper) for a year's use of the feature. A final irritation: in low memory situations, the program may quit faster than one can save. While probably harmless, this is unnerving. Reviewer's rating: 3.5 / 5 Comments: If you are not using Microsoft Office or if you require extras, such as multiple currencies, there is no compelling reason to upgrade to QuickBooks Pro 2000. If you're a Canadian who intends to use QuickTax to file your income tax this year, delay upgrading until after your taxes are filed: QuickTax will not detect QuickBooks Pro 2000 to transfer tax data. Minimum system requirements: Pentium-166, 32 MB, Windows 95/98/2000 or NT 4, 256-color (or higher) video. Need 85 MB of disk space for installation. Internet Explorer 5 will install if not already on system, requiring another 55 MB. Any Windows-compatible printer will do. More info: http://www.quickbooks.ca/ or http://www.quickbooks.com/ Price: QuickBooks Pro 2000 (U.S): $220 US for one user. QuickBooks Pro 2000 (Canadian): $259.95 Canadian - one user. Payroll Tax Compliance Service (Canada): $59.95 Canadian per year. Basic Payroll Service (U.S.): $72 US per year or $6 US month
  
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Adding RAM is easy, 