Keeping Uncle Sam at bay.

New QuickBooks Pro 2001, a quicker way to track finances

QuickBooks Pro 2001 by Intuit (www.intuit.com) has written another chapter in financial reporting: with new e-mail and fax capabilities. You can now e-mail and fax invoices and estimates directly from the program in plain text or HTML. The program connects to the Web to send your invoice, so you won't find the e-mail in your outbox. You'll have to pay a fee (after the first five which are free) to use the service to send fax estimates.

Another noteworthy feature is online bill payment. When you e-mail an invoice, your client can click on a link to enter credit card information.

In addition, Pro 2001 offers new time-saving features. You can now print several reports at once or batch print a set of frequently requested copies. Also, you can customize the icon bar and reconfigure the way a report looks or what's reported. For instance, you can click on the Modify Reports button to choose cash or accrual accounting, set filters, have negative numbers in parentheses, with a minus sign, or bright red if you so desire.

Pro 2001 provides integration with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and Act!. Its only real weakness is that it still can't handle heavy inventory needs. QuickBooks Pro 2001 retails for $249.95. If you need multiuser capabilities, the price is $549.95. Standard QuickBooks retails for $149.95.