Which Accounting And Financial Software?

Top 2. Mar 2, 1999 11:34 AM

» RVLifestyle - Sole Proprietor & Quicken

I have been a Quicken user since it first appeared on the market many years ago. Although I didn't jump at every upgrade, I have taken advantage of a few.

The last upgrade took me to Quicken99 for Home & Business and I love it! I have always used Quicken categories to separate my work related expenses and income (for several different businesses over the years) but had no easy way to do my A/R on the older versions.

Now I can easily enter invoices for my writing assignments, print a professional invoice and easily enter payments against them.

There is much more as well and I haven't even started to see it all - just started using the portfolio tracking for my investments! Great for credit cards as well.

If you need more than is offered in this version, there is always Quickbooks or Quickbooks Pro - both of which are reputed to be good. (I haven't personally used either one).

-- posted by RVLifestyle

Top 3. Mar 25, 1999 1:39 AM

» olfoo - What a pain in the...

I work at a small furniture and carpet store.
Our DOS accounting program went out of biz after being gobbled up by Quicken.

I tried their 'Pro' program and being totally confused continued onto Computer Assoc.; Simply Accounting, PeachTree's One Write {far too simple}, M.Y.O.B., back to now Quick Pro '98 and PeachTree Accounting.

The sampling process was d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t.
The programs default retail furniture example would be selected. In nearly all cases this couldn't handle real world inventory

None offered any useful training mode.
That's were a person new to their program could use example data without coming up against the CPA audit trails and general accounting principals that make the process so obtuse.

When a new user wants to familiarize with how XYZ Accounting will want data entered you shouldn't need be referred to an 800 page manual!
AND as far as the wizards they popped up and 9/10ths of time gave out nothing of worth.

For reasons of better inventory handling relative to 2nd place Quick Books Pro and way superior to all the others +++ plus relatively better data import/export capabilities we went with PeachTree Accounting .

Five months into using PeachTree Accounting -
the learning path continues to be booby trapped
- and
we've found their technical support - DOESN'T!

-- posted by olfoo

Top 4. Oct 24, 1999 7:27 AM

» jazzfish - Money v QBooks Pro

I'd like to hear from anyone who has tried/used both of the latest versions of Money and QBooks Pro. I've used quicken for over 10 years and have become very comfortable with it for personal accounting. I retired 10 years ago and now am going back into business (electronic service business) and would like to choose the right one first... who wouldn't?!
I read recently in PC MAG that Money edges ahead of Quickbooks Pro, but would like to hear it from "real people" here in Suite 101.
Thanks

-- posted by jazzfish

Top 5. Oct 27, 1999 7:46 PM

» Pat_Good - Small Business Accounting Software

I teach Quickbooks and Quicken at the local community College and I use Peachtree 6.0 for my consulting business. My past experience has been as a V.P. of Finance, Comptroller, etc., so I have purchased and installed all levels of accounting software. For small businesses, I highly recommend the new Quickbooks 99 that interfaces with Microsoft Office. The formatted export is one of the nice features I have found very useful, but I come from a background where I know what I want and what it is supposed to do. Most small business owners don't. That's why I teach. In my classes we discuss at what point Quickbooks is not going to work for a business. And as mentioned, inventory and job costing are one of the weakpoints of Quickbooks, I feel. On the other hand I find that Peachtree is more geared for a person with a bookkeeping or accounting background and not for the small business owner himself. If you are going to do accural accounting and make journal entries to reflect a true "accounting" picture of your business, and someone with experience in accounts payable, accounts recievable and payroll,then Peachtree is probably for you. If you don't have an accounting background and your doing the books yourself or have a part-time person doing the books then Quickbooks is a good choice. You can pretty much fix any mistakes (although it might not be easy or quick). If you have inventory, components, routings, and extenstive job costing, you may be able to do some work-a-rounds, but it may be worth looking at an industry specific package and a good accounting person. It is a biased opinon, but I do recommend taking a class in your selected choice of software or even a basic accounting or bookkeeping class. It really does help.

-- posted by Pat_Good

Top 6. Sep 10, 2001 7:01 AM

» rwalters - Re: Small Business Accounting Software

In response to message posted by Pat_Good:

I agree with the thrust of this discussion. I teach MYOB accounting plus and the college is gearing up for V 11. This might be outdated before it starts because there are some errors in the newformatedd modules. (#2 has been sent out)

The versions are now becoming NEW programs. The changes becoming significantPersonallylly, I uQuickbooksoks currently V 7.4 wiamendmentsntsQb Qb seems to be smoother to use. The drill back from reports, the ability to filter data etc is getting close to SQL type searches. MYOB on the other hand is introducing the drill back from reports. There are usually a number of screens to drill through to get to the source input.

Recently in Australia the changing Tax laws has caused a rethink of the whole system from the top level Government to the tax collectors in the private sector. Small businessmen/women are attending classes in both main stream and adult education colleges to get a handle on the new tax system and how these programs (are supposed to) handle the reporting processes. I have found that small business people do not have time for the additional work loads and have becomplacenticent about the whole thing. MYOB might not be the best system to learn on because the terminology has not followed the business sector. V10 and V10.5 attempt to follow the requirements but there has been some upgrades to fix some of the problems. My students learn tipworkarroundsounQuickbooksckbooks has attempted with greater success totherealthereal world, The "forms" of input are easily used because they are representative of real documentscustomisationisation in each program is getting better.

I agree wholeheartedly that all levels of business people should go back to college and upgrade their skills.

-- posted by rwalters