26 November, 2011
We got another new business customer 2 weeks ago, the we wish we had met 6 months ago. They have very simple computer requirements – they are not trying to launch space shuttles or split atoms. In this case they only needed two business computers running QuickBooks over a simple network. I had previously received a call from them 3 months prior just to ask for some advice due the frustration level from the problems that they had been having then. They had purchased two new computers from a computer shop in Rockhampton for around $2500 but then spent another $4000 in call outs and labour trying to get them working properly.
During that time (3 months) they had barely been able to get their own invoices out and had lost days of their own time sitting in front of crashing PC’s and constant errors in their QuickBooks accounting software. Also during that time they had been told all sorts of excuses like they needed different wireless adaptors, different software, different ram – they were even told at one point that the QuickBooks disk they had was corrupt or that their QuickBooks version was wrong!
I listened to all of the problems and suggested that the problem came back to the setup of the PC’s and also the lack of UPS’s (uninterruptable power supplies). Unfortunately at that time due to the fact that their existing PC’s were under warranty they choose to keep persisting with the existing PC’s and supplier. 3 Months later again (after 6 months of trouble) and only two weeks ago they came back to us after giving up all hope of having the issues resolved.
We went onsite and looked at their existing setup – crazy. Our school age trainee would have done a far better attempt of setting things up on his own. There were wrong network settings, junk software, dodgy hardware and even hard drive errors in the event logs dating back 5 months that had remained ignored. No wonder both computers constantly crashed and QuickBooks had never been successfully networked.
Just as a side note – if you are having any issues running an accounting package such as QuickBooks or MYOB and your computer support company is telling you that it is a problem with the software – rubbish. Ditch them and go elsewhere! If a world-wide company such as QuickBooks or MYOB had major errors in their software then they would be out of business – fast. In this case we chose to replace both PC’s and their network equipment and reload all of their data and software.
We completed the job in two days and charged $3000, asking them to call us if there were any issues at all. I have just called them again today (Thursday the 24th ) two weeks later and there has not been even a single small issue – they PC’s just work and QuickBooks is properly networked without errors. The moral of this story – if a computer is setup properly it will just work. Kerr Solutions is at 128 Musgrave Street & is contactable on 49 222 400.