Should you drop the $400 it'll cost you to upgrade to this year's small business accounting software of choice, QuickBooks Premier Edition 2013? Tricky question. If you're already using QuickBooks (or any other small business accounting system), you know that the pace of change in the field has slowed over the last several years. The growth of these products has become evolutionary rather than revolutionary. They've come a long way in the two decades or so since they were first available and affordable on personal computers, meaning that you have about all of the tools you need to process your receivables and payables, run payroll and track inventory, and create reports.

But there are a couple of major areas where these applications can improve. They can move more of their operations into the cloud to take advantage of what the internet offers and/or improve their aging, crowded work screens. Intuit is working on the first by continuing to build out QuickBooks Online. And a long overdue revamp of the desktop program's user interface is the highlight of QuickBooks 2013 (all versions, though we reviewed Premier). Whether you upgrade to this new edition depends on how old your current version is and the importance of usability to your accounting staff. The program's actual functional enhancements don't offer enough incentive to spend a few hundred dollars to update your software, but the other enhancements well might.

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Unfamiliar With QuickBooks?
If you've never used QuickBooks or read much about it, here's what you need to know. For many years, it's won our Editors' Choice award. Though it has some formidable competition like Sage 50 U.S. (formerly Peachtree Accounting), I've recommended it above the others for several reasons, including:

• Its simplicity and usability. 20 years of growth had taken a toll on QuickBooks' interface, but it was still the easiest overall to learn and master.
• Its blend of features. Intuit's family of desktop applications offered a set of tools that would meet the needs of many small businesses, but it wasn't so feature-packed that it was overwhelming.
• Its extensibility. The Intuit App Center has grown to include hundreds of add-ons that integrate with QuickBooks and provided specialized functionality.

QuickBooks is a double-entry accounting system, which basically means that it follows standard bookkeeping rules. You don't have to worry about that because the program takes care of the debits and credits in the background. You'll do your work much as you do on paper or via another software program.

Numerous Lifelines
When you have questions, as you will, you can choose from a variety of support options. QuickBooks has a fairly comprehensive built-in help system, but it's slower and more troublesome to use than the one that appeared in long-ago versions. There's an online troubleshooting database and community forums, and many accounting professionals provide assistance; you can find a local expert on the website.

Be aware, too, that QuickBooks' long history and countless upgrades and revisions have made it a very complex piece of software. If you have hardware that's more than a couple years old, you may experience slow operation at times.

Accounts, Records, Transactions and Reports
QuickBooks may organize things differently than you do now, but it accomplishes the same tasks. It sets up a Chart of Accounts for you based on your business type and helps you create bank and credit card accounts. You can still hand-write checks if you want and enter them in the program's registers, but it's easier to do so within the software. QuickBooks accommodates online banking and merchant accounts, so you can accept credit cards and electronic checks.

Information about your customers, vendors and employees is stored in individual records. When you begin entering financial data on forms like invoices and purchase orders, these records will be used to automatically populate fields on your transaction forms. Record and transaction information will also be used to create the reports you'll need to run. QuickBooks contains dozens of ready-made templates and allows you to customize your output and/or export it into Excel. Because of the close integration throughout the system, you should be able to avoid duplicate data entry.

The transaction forms and other screens where you actually do your work look like their paper counterparts in many cases. You use them to do the same accounting chores you're used to doing, like sending invoices, estimates and purchase orders; entering and paying bills; running payroll and dispatching paychecks, filings and taxes; and tracking inventory. QuickBooks uses a lot of the same conventions that you're familiar with from other Windows software, like icons, pull-down lists and menus.

Slimming Down
Intuit had three goals for the new versions of QuickBooks. The company wanted to make it, "...easy to use, easy to understand and easy to look at." QuickBooks 2013 achieves all three of those goals with its totally redesigned interface. The difference between 2012 and 2013 is startling. You can now move quickly to the most commonly-used functions from the opening view.

The new home screen contains three basic components by default. The old interactive process map that illustrates your workflow remains, but the icons are larger and more spread out. All of the extra navigational links that had been tacked on over the years are gone, absorbed by other, hidden parts of the program.

Standard file menus are still there, but there's a new vertical navigation panel that contains a customizable list of shortcuts to QuickBooks functions on top. Directly below are links to reminders and alerts; account balances; your favorite reports; and open windows. And the lower pane provides access to additional Intuit services. You can display the toolbar to the left, across the top, or not at all.