is a
U.S. Software Company that develops financial and
Tax preparation software and related services for
Small Business es,
Accountants and individuals. It is incorporated in
Delaware and headquartered in
Mountain View ,
California .
The company was founded in
1983 by
Scott Cook and
Tom Proulx in
Palo Alto, California . It is a notable rare example of a successful
Microsoft competitor. According to their website, "Intuit's source of success is not as much technological prowess as it is a relentless focus on the customer."
Intuit makes the popular personal finance programs and '''TurboTax''', (in
Canada known as '''QuickTax'''), the popular
Small Business accounting program '''QuickBooks''', QuickBooks Point of Sale solution for small retailers, the market leading professional tax solutions
ProSeries and
Lacerte , and the Web-based corporate workgroup productivity solution '''QuickBase'''.
The company maintains a number of foreign sales offices, but today, the only foreign subsidiary with significant R&D activity is
Intuit Canada headquartered in
Edmonton, Alberta . Foreign product versions are now predominantly produced by third-party localizers or licensees.
Intuit was reportedly conceived when Scott Cook, then an assistant product manager at
Procter & Gamble , realized that
Personal Computer s would lend themselves as replacement for paper-and-pencil based personal accounting. On his quest to find a programmer he ended up running into
Tom Proulx at
Stanford . The two started Intuit, which initially operated out of a modest room on University Avenue in
Palo Alto . The first version of Quicken was coded in Microsoft's Compiler
BASIC for the IBM PC and
UCSD Pascal for the
Apple ][ by Tom Proulx and had to contend with a dozen serious competitors. Intuit struggled financially until they found their formula for success, which revolved around direct marketing campaigns, favorable reviews in industry and consumer magazines and word of mouth from satisfied customers. Intuit's focus on
Usability and customer support in its early years was legendary.
Although by based in
San Diego . The time after the
IPO was marked by rapid growth and culminated by buyout negotiations with
Microsoft in
1995 , when Intuit's
Market Capitalization reached $2 billion.
When the buyout fell through because of
DOJ scrutiny, the company came under intense pressure in late
1990s when Microsoft started to compete vigorously with its core Quicken business. In response, Intuit launched new web-based products and solutions and put more emphasis on
QuickBooks and on TurboTax. The company made a number of successful investments around this time. Among others, it purchased a large stake in
Excite and acquired Lacerte Software, a
Dallas -based developer of tax preparation software used by tax professionals. It also divested itself of its online bill payment service unit and extended and strengthened its partnership with
CheckFree .
Today, Intuit is one of the largest software companies in the world with about $2 billion in annual
Revenue and $8 billion market capitalization.
Intuit has been ranked in Fortune Magazine's "Top 100 companies to work for" for the past several years.
TurboTax is a popular U.S. tax software package. There are a number of different versions, including TurboTax Deluxe, TurboTax Premier, etc. TurboTax is available for both Federal and state income tax returns (for those states having income tax). The software is designed to guide users through their
Tax Returns step-by-step. TurboTax became an Intuit product via the Chipsoft acquisition. In 2003 Intuit faced vocal criticism for its TurboTax activation scheme. The company responded by removing the product activation scheme from its product. In 2005 TurboTax extended its offering by allowing any taxpayer to use a basic version of its Federal product for free as part of the
Free File Alliance .
Intuit's
ProSeries tax software evolved from TurboTax and grew over the years to become a full-fledged professional preparer product and a leader in the market. It serves full-time tax preparers who are predominantly sole proprietors with no other employees working on tax preparation. In 2004 two additional ProSeries versions were released - ProSeries Basic and ProSeries Express.
Lacerte is
Tax Preparation Software . It is used by professional
Accountant s who prepare taxes for a living. It is a sister product to ProSeries; however, it is generally used by larger firms with more complex workflows and clients.
Lacerte was originally produced by a company of the same name; this company was acquired by Intuit in
1998 .
TaxAlmanac is a free online tax research resource. Content on TaxAlmanac is written by tax professionals from across the country and takes advantage of the knowledge of academia as well as practioners. The site includes key information including the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, Tax Court Cases, and a variety of articles.
Modeled after
Wikipedia , TaxAlmanac was launched in May 2005. The June 6, 2005 edition of Time magazine featured an article entitled
"It's a Wiki, Wiki World." on Wikipedia in which TaxAlmanac was highlighted as "A Community of Customers". The November 21, 2005 edition of
Business Week magazine featured an article titled "50 Smart Ways to Use the Web" in which TaxAlmanac was selected as one of the 50. TaxAlmanac made the short list as one of the 7 in the collaboration category.
A web-based collaborative database application. QuickBase was created when Intuit acquired Turning Mill Software in 1999. The application is hosted by Intuit and sold by subscription.
Quicken is a very popular personal finance management tool, with a vast array of features. The UK version of Quicken was discontinued at the start of 2005.
QuickBooks is the most commonly used small-business
Accounting and management
Software software in the
U.S. .
QuickBooks Online Edition http://www.qboe.com is the
Web-based version of QuickBooks. Some features in the desktop version of QuickBooks are not present in the Online version, so look closely for the features you need. Like other web-based software, this is strong for small distributed organizations with limited resources. As of September 2005, a 20% discount was offered for non-profit organizations.
Despite being web based it requires
Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer, which is currently available only on
Microsoft Windows .
QuickPayroll is the company's successor to the QuickPay add-on to Quicken. Sporting a similar interface to QuickBooks version 5, the software is used for processing payroll in house. Updates to
Tax Table s and software updates, once offered on
Floppy Disk s by mail are offered online on a yearly subscription basis.
QuickTax is a popular Canadian tax software package. The software is designed to guide users through their
Tax Return step-by-step. It is available on CD-ROM or online at
QuickTaxWeb.ca , which is free for persons earning less than $25,000.
A
CRM application that focuses on integration with other tools such as
QuickBooks ,
Microsoft Office Outlook , and more.
Zipingo is a free
Website where users can rate services such as
Contractors ,
Restaurants , and other businesses. Ratings and comments can be entered from the website or from
Quicken .
Notable cases of vocal public criticism include policy changes in customer support, forced payroll table updates in 1999
QuickBooks , an activation scheme from
Macrovision in
2002 TurboTax , and a
sunset policy that stops online features from working after a certain amount of time.
Intuit's products for OS X have drawn some criticism for being crippled in comparison to their Windows products. These complaints seem to be primarily directed at the way that Intuit license their QFX format for online banks. Banks are required to pay an additional fee to allow their customers to use the OS X version.
- http://www.intuit.com/
- http://www.quickbooks.intuit.com/
- http://www.qboe.com/
- http://www.turbotax.com/
- https://support1.turbotax.com
- http://www.itsdeductable.com
- http://www.lacertesoftware.com
- http://www.proseries.com
- Intuit's TaxAlmanac Wiki
- http://www.snaptax.com
- Intuit's Zipingo - Consumer Opinion Site for Local Search and Ratings
