A little while back I decided it was time to get some accounting software to keep track of money coming in and going out for various projects that I am doing. I really only had one requirement: the software needed to figure out my taxes.

I looked at AccountEdge for Mac and QuickBooks.

In the end, I bought QuickBooks. It had the added benefit of allowing me to process credit cards right from the software. I thought this would be a good benefit to have in working with clients.

Since day one, I have regretted that decision. Not only does QuickBooks nickel and dime you for every last feature, but doing even simple tasks is endlessly complicated.

Quickbooks will indeed figure out your taxes, but only if you buy some stupid add-on subscription for "payroll." Then, even when you've purchased that, it won't fill out your tax forms for you unless you also purchase a more advanced package. The basic package only gives you the hard numbers which you then have to work with yourself.

Credit card processing only appears to work through their dumb gateway service, but they wouldn't give me an account. So I am not able to use that feature even though that's the only reason I paid for the "pro" package.

Don't even get me started on how complicated it is. Every single time I try to do something, I end up having to troll the forums on their website for answers. Doing something like "Billing a Client" which seems like it should be pretty straightforward, usually consist of no less than 50 steps and navigation of dark, hidden, dust-covered sub-menus in some obscure corner of the software.

I'm constantly inundated with advertisements and alerts to upgrade or buy this or that to make the software do what it should just do out of the box. It was, after all, a few hundred dollars. What did I get with that amount of money? Nothing but invitations to buy actual functionality after I installed.

I really don't understand how or why people use QuickBooks. I'd think you'd need a 4 year degree in QuickBooks just to operate it.

Note to Intuit (The maker's of QuickBooks): Decide what you want to include in your software and include it. Charge people up front for it. I'd rather pay $400 for software that does what it says than $200 for software that does nothing and keeps asking me to buy crap.

Oh, and fire your interface designer/poorly trained monkey.