QuickBooks 2014: The Missing Manual

Appendix A. Installing QuickBooks

QuickBooks’ installation process offers two basic options: Install the program from scratch or upgrade from a previous version. When you upgrade, you can run both the old and new versions on your computer at the same time, which is essential if you’re an accountant or bookkeeper who works with company files from several different clients. Even if you use QuickBooks to run your own business, you might want to keep your old version around in case you decide that you don’t like the new one. Be sure to back up your company file before you open it with the new version; once you open it in the new version of QuickBooks, it won’t run in the earlier version (see the box on Installing Multiple QuickBooks Versions).

This appendix walks you through both paths of the installation process. You’ll also find out how to install QuickBooks 2014 on a company network, including where on a network you can store your company file—and which location to choose for best performance. (If several people need to access your company file at the same time, everyone has to run the same version of QuickBooks, so set aside time to install the program on all those machines.)

Before You Install

Intuit recommends a 2.4 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM for a single user of QuickBooks Pro. Add another 1 GB of RAM for more than one concurrent user—but doubling the recommended RAM (at least 2 GB, as a rule of thumb) will probably bring you closer to acceptable number-crunching speeds. You ...