QuickBooks Desktop 2017 – New Features

The following new/updated features are available in all Windows versions of QuickBooks 2017 (Pro, Premier, Accountant, and Enterprise)

Scheduled Reports

• The ability to automate sending reports via email at scheduled times.
• Automatically email reports on a schedule that fits your business and quickly see their status in the Schedule Reports Centre.

Search Improvements

Locating the information that you need, quickly and efficiently, can be important if you have a large amount of information to work with in your QuickBooks file. A number of search and filter improvements have been implemented that may help you with this task.

• Type in any drop-down and you’ll see all possible matches. Relevant matches narrow as you type more.
• Search transactions by Amount, Date, Word, Number and much more

If you have a large amount of information in your QuickBooks file, particularly in lists, any method of improving search capabilities is welcome. QuickBooks 2017 has a number of helpful improvements.

In Between Amount Search

Another search improvement is in the advanced tab of the Find feature (press ctrl-F). If you select the Amount filter, now you can enter a range of values to search for.

This helps if you have a general idea of the amount you are searching for, rather than an open ended “less than or equal to” kind of search.

The amount range can also be used in the Search feature (press F3).

You’ll also find this added to the Amount filter in report customization.

Customer/Vendor Type Filter

In both the Customer Center and Vendor Center you can filter the list with a Custom Filter to limit which records you see. QuickBooks 2017 adds the ability to filter by the Customer Type.

Report Customization Improvements

You can now view and print information about what filters have been included in the report, as well as make multiple-record filter selections more easily.

Security Improvements

Intuit has changed what components are used by the program to improve security, as well as some other security-related issues.

• Data security is an important topic, and Intuit continues to make updates that will improve the security of your data, as well as maintain compliance with payment, payroll, and taxation laws. There are a number of security-related changes in QuickBooks 2017.
• QuickBooks 2017 is only supported on Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 Update 1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2008 R1 SP1, or Windows Server 2012 R2. This drops Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2011, all of which are less secure versions. Not a big deal, but you do need to be aware of these kinds of changes.
• Versions of Internet Explorer older than IE11 are no longer supported. That might catch some people who haven’t upgraded, but it is a good change. Note that QuickBooks is hard wired to use Internet Explorer in some cases, even if you are using Chrome or another browser as your primary browser.
• Adobe Flash has been removed from QuickBooks, due to security issues.
• QuickBooks 2017 will include the .NET Framework 4.6, which is an updated version of this Microsoft toolkit that many programs rely on.
• QuickBooks payment services have been migrated to TLS 1.2 (transport layer security), which is the minimum level recommended for PCI compliance.
• Intuit continues to make EMV compliance an important goal, which mostly affects integrated payment solutions rather than QuickBooks desktop itself.

Miscellaneous Improvements

• There are a number of smaller improvements, some of which can be significant depending on your situation.
• The Record Deposits icon shows the number of deposits that are available.

Record Deposits Icon

If you have open payments, the Record Deposits icon in the Home Page will now show you how many are available to deposit. If you use the Home Page, this helps point out that there are some records available to work with.

A Cleared flag shows on cleared credit card charges.

Intuit has added a “Cleared” flag/icon to theCredit Card Charges window if a transaction has been cleared, similar to what is done with Checks.

If a User is deleted, the deleted user’s name will still show on the audit trail.

In most cases (but not always), when you delete aQuickBooks user account you will find that the user name may no longer show in the audit trail. You may see “unknown user” for the name. This makes it difficult to trace what user made changes to your file if you suspect a problem. In general, I have recommended that you do not delete a user from your file (just change the password AND change their user access to limit what can be accessed).

With QuickBooks 2017 the audit trail will show the deleted name along with an annotation. This is a great improvement.

Your Company name will print on the deposit summary.

QuickBooks now prints your company name on the Deposit Summary report, which is nice if you are dealing with multiple companies. Prior to this you didn’t know which company the deposit was for. This update is helpful if you work with multiple companies.

You can copy/paste detail lines on weekly timesheets.

In Weekly Timesheets you now have the ability to copy and paste a detail line in the transaction. This helps speed data entry in some situations.

There are improved notifications when you switch from multi-user mode to single user mode.

Here’s a nice improvement in multi-user access. If you want to switch from multi-user mode to single-user mode you now can see a list of the users who are logged in and send them information. I’m not sure if this is limited to QuickBooks Enterprise or if it is found in all versions.

More features can be used in multi-user mode.

The following features are no longer locked when you are in multi-user mode:

• Pay Bills
• Print Checks
• Scan Checks
• Link Estimate to Invoice
• Link Purchase Order to Bills

Support for high resolution monitors.

• Customers using the newer generation of high resolution monitors (2k, 3k, 4k) have found that QuickBooks desktop can be hard to see. Icons and window controls can be very small, the calendar can be unusable, and the home pagemight not load. With this release Intuit is starting to update the program to accommodate these kinds of monitors.
• This changeover is not complete, it is going to take several revisions to update the entire user interface. At this time they’ve focused on “money in/money out” transactions, core workflows.

QuickBooks Enterprise Quality Improvements.

• There are a number of miscellaneous improvements limited to QuickBooks Enterprise.
• If your file resides on a file server and you schedule a backup from a workstation, and that backup is to be made to either the file server or another workstation, that backup will now complete successfully.
• A user with limited or no access will no longer be able to change company general preferences.
• The memorized transaction list will no longer show as blank when you are filtering for frequency.
• Pasting serial numbers into the “quick add” window of a serial number file on a Bill transaction will result in the correct message when the character limit is reached.
• QuickBooks will no longer crash when printing a transaction after the transaction had been edited.
• Sales tax on manually entered Accounts Receivable transactions will now show correctly classed on reports.
• A Build Assembly transaction will no longer be changed to pending status when you edit a previously built assembly transaction for which there are sufficient quantities of component inventory.
• The Advanced Excel Import function will no longer permit the change ofinventory part items to non-inventory parts.
• The Advanced Excel Import function will no longer result in an unrecoverable error if an item includes a unit of measure.
• You will be able to successfully save transactions that contain items that have previously been converted from an inventory part, non-inventory part, or purchased assembly to any other item type.
• The inventory valuation summary and inventory stock status by item reports will now accommodate long item descriptions by showing them partially.