Northern Maine Development Commission
Small Business Development Center

Commonly asked questions about electronic bookkeeping systems

Q: What accounting packages are available for small businesses?

A: Quickbooks, Peachtree, MicroBiz, MYOB, Quicken, MS Money, Account Pro, Great Plains, Real World, Caiman.

Q: Is it worth even looking at something other than Quickbooks or Peachtree?

A: Absolutely. For a DOS environment MYOB and MicroBiz fit well (as well as POS). Real World handles inventory very well and Caiman is great for multi-national currencies.

Q : Which is no holds barred the best?

A: All in all I would say Quickbooks Pro is the best product to fit most needs.

Q : Which is the best bargain?

A: Account Pro is a shareware program (PC Magazine winner) that is also tri-lingual.

Q: Are there any other shareware or freeware products to consider?

A: Besides Account Pro, other programs (most) do offer trial versions. Quickbooks has a 30 day trial CD for the asking.

Q: The major names like Quicken and Peachtree always seem overkill for many businesses. Too hard to setup and use. Can you recommend a simple program that is easy to use for small businesses with really basic accounting/bookkeeping needs?

A: Yes, I often recommend Quicken instead of Quickbooks (as well as MS Money) both are "personal finance" programs as opposed to double entry accounting systems, but they both handle simple invoices, track monies owed, budget recurring expenses and have strong reports and graphs.

Q: Then the question about having a program that will be able to handle changes as a business grows comes up. How adaptable are these programs once they are set up? Is there room for expansion and growth?

A: All the full fledged double entry accounting systems have room for growth. There are unique limitations to all of them though. Although Quickbooks now comes in multi-user versions, that limit is 5 users and no more. Quickbooks is not really made well for anything more than basic/simple inventory management. On the plus side Quickbooks is excellent for time billing. The more advanced programs usually run in the $2,000 to $10,000 range. Whereas Quickbooks and Peachtree are around $200.

Q: Can you trade up programs?

A: Usually there is upgrade pricing. Not always, and not always a "friendly one". For instance, in November 98 a client purchased the latest Quickbooks (QBKS 6) 2 months later Quickbooks 99 Pro came out. My client was out of luck other than being eligible for the $70 rebate, which required amongst other things the left flap of the BOX the old program came in.

Q: Can you migrate your accounting data from one program to another if your business grows and you need a more powerful system?

A: Besides exporting out to a .txt, .cvs or other cross platform format and then importing it in, migration is "iffy". Quickbooks will easily migrate Quicken info. Also about 3 years ago some financial program publishers - Microsoft, Intuit, TurboTax (pre intuit merger) agreed to a common financial file format. Although it looked warm and fuzzy to see these competitor's attempting an open source, it wound up being more spin than anything really meaningful.

Q: Speaking of Microsoft , where do they stand in accounting software?

A: For the most part MS is providing databases - Access, FoxPro, spreadsheet, and programming - VBA, Visual Basic and C++ to both custom build accounting solutions and also as the engine behind some of the higher end accounting packages. I would like to also mention the emergence of the growing ASP market. Application Service Providers are offering software (especially accounting) via web access. Your program and data stay on the ASP's server. You, your accountant, bookkeeper can access your current set of books regardless of what computer they are at (as long as there is an internet connection). Two worth pointing out are NetLedger and The eCompany Network.

Past Tips: