It’s been a while since Intuit updated its popular small-business accounting package and, at first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much that’s new in Quickbooks 2008.

Delve further, however, and you’ll find plenty of more subtle enhancements designed to make this already accessible product even more user friendly.

One of the most obvious additions is support for Windows Vista. The previous version could be made to work with the latest Windows OS, but the workarounds were imperfect and it wasn’t an officially supported platform ­ a crucial consideration for companies just starting out and buying a new PC to run their accounts.

New users will similarly welcome the enhanced Easy Step interview process, which enables the software to be customised for use with up to 29 industry types. Previous versions featured a similar setup interview but the new one is much shorter and requires even less knowledge of accountancy terms.

The user interface has also had a major makeover, starting with a new home page. From here it’s possible to perform the most common tasks needed to run a business and do so without having to navigate lots of menus and dialogue boxes. This is a lot easier for new users and those upgrading will need to spend time finding out where the various tools have been moved to. However, as the new interface borrows heavily on the one introduced in the previous version, it doesn’t take too long to get to grips with.

Other new features include customer and supplier centres, designed to bring together all the tools and information related to key business areas. It’s possible to assign multiple postal and email addresses to each customer or supplier and set default cc addresses when electronically mailing invoices and other documents.

Likewise there’s a new self-contained centre for managing employee data and, if you subscribe to the payroll service, a payroll centre with new facilities to automate payroll runs, as well as pay employees

There’s lots of scope to customise the interface plus improved integration with Word and Excel. For example, you now turn an invoice into a personalised letter in just a few clicks. The ability to synchronise customer information with Outlook contacts is another new option, using a free plug-in available from the Intuit website. Google Desktop can be used to find information in this release of Quickbooks.

It’s not all good news, however, particularly if you are upgrading from a previous version of Quickbooks. Existing company files are easy to upgrade for use with Quickbooks 2008 but changes to the way Vat is now processed mean that you may need to keep copies of old files and software in order to access some historical Vat information. The forms designer has also been enhanced and some of the standard data fields either dropped or renamed, which will mean having to rework invoices and other forms if they’ve been customised.

These are minor quibbles and overall we found the improvements in Quickbooks 2008 well worth waiting for. We tested the core Quickbooks Pro version, which is available with or without Payroll (£99.95 a year) and in multi-user formats.

In addition there’s a cut-down Simplestart implementation for start-ups (£49.95), while for larger businesses, Quickbooks Premier (starting at £499.95) adds financial planning tools plus remote access facilities and can, similarly, be bought with payroll and multi-user support.