Certain problems in Peachtree are easily resolved by keeping your software up to date. In Peachtree 2002 and later, select Check for Updates from the Services menu. Users of earlier versions can manually download any available patches from via this link: the Peachtree web site.

Certain problems in Peachtree are easily resolved by keeping your software up to date. In Peachtree 2002 and later, select Check for Updates from the Services menu. Keep in mind that if you're using an earlier version of Peachtree, e.g. version 6, 7, or 8, that patches for those versions are no longer available through Peachtree in accordance with their obsolescence policy.

A built-in spell checker was introduced with Peachtree 2004. You control this feature by choosing Options, Global, and then click on the Spell Checking tab.

In previous versions, the deposit ticket ID field on the receipts screen automatically populates. In Peachtree 2004, to enable this feature you must choose Maintain, Default Information, Customers, and then select In Receipts on the Pay Methods tab.

You can press F5 to save or post a transaction, instead of having to click the Save or Post button on the toolbar of Peachtree Accounting's transaction screens.

Need to set up additional state withholdings for an employee? It's not nearly as easy as simply entering the amount in the Additional Withholdings field on the Maintain Employees screen. Read PeachFact #33521 on the Peachtree web site to learn more.

Download Federal payroll tax forms (e.g. Forms 940, 941, etc) from the IRS Forms and Publications web site.

Peachtree's payroll tax service is an easy way to update your payroll tax codes each year. However, if you process payroll for states that don't have state income tax, e.g. Texas, Tennessee, Florida, you have to manually create a payroll tax code for the new year. The best way to do this is to edit the payroll tax table, then make a copy of the old code (for the previous year), but rename it for the current year. While you're there, make sure to set up new State Unemployment Insurance codes, too!

In the newsgroups, Jon Goldberg noticed a number of people having similar Peachtree network problems to his own, problems that could not be solved by Peachtree tech support's standard answers. This includes "lock table full" errors that persist after reboots and deleting the .lck files, "*.dat" file errors in the middle of a session, Error Number 35 in the middle of a session, and so forth. A Peachtree tech confirmed for him what he believed all along regarding Peachtree - it is designed for a single user, not a network, and any sort of network congestion will cause it to quit ungracefully, possibly resulting in database corruption. Moreover, Peachtree appears to have some sort of broadcasting mechanism that causes certain network configurations to create artificial network congestion, slowing down Peachtree and occasionally causing the above mentioned errors. In his case, the solution is to buy a network switch for about $100 to replace his hub. This eliminated his network problems, but also provided a significant speed boost to Peachtree over the network as well. (Thanks, Jon, for sharing your experience!)

To make printing W-2s easier, you can tell Peachtree to print multiple copies. However, before you do so, you must collate the blank forms in the proper order. For instance, to print six copies of your W-2s, stack the forms in order, copy 1 through 6. You can then place the collated sets in your printer, and tell Peachtree to print 6 copies. We've found that this is much easier than loading six individual sets of W-2s into the printer and going through the printing steps 6 times.