I have QuickBooks. Isn’t that all I need?

QuickBooks appeals to small business owners because they market their product as being so easy anyone can do it. To an extent, they are right; but, QuickBooks doesn’t make you an accountant any more than word processing software makes you a best-selling author. If you don’t understand what is happening behind the scenes, you can mess up your accounting more quickly and completely using software than you ever could by hand. The worst part is, correcting accounting errors is like a game of whack-a-mole. When you fix one problem, it causes 3 more to crop up.