Keeping track of all the business transactions is important for any business, especially a small business. When you are a small business owner you are used to being everything from president, executive assistant, marketer, IT person and accountant. But while trying to do everything yourself there are some professionals you need to hire like a good accountant because trying to follow all the IRS and tax laws yourself would almost be impossible. And you could lose money unnecessarily, so you should get a good accountant that can help you with the accounting and finance side of your business. Once you get a good accountant, the first thing your CPA will tell you to do is to get a good business accounting software for your small business. This is a must and you can’t get around it.
Before purchasing an accounting software system, you need to consider the following:
- 1.Known Vendor – You should do your research and find a good seller, so don’t buy some cheap accounting software that no one knows. Ask your accountant for options. You can consider an accounting software system from Microsoft or QuickBooks. The important thing is to buy software that has a good track record.
- 2. Cost – You need to set aside a $100 -$200 to buy a good established accounting software system.
- 3. Time – You need to block some time from your busy schedule to actually set up the accounting software. You should plan for two hours to download it to your PC, register with the maker and set it up on your PC.
- 4. Simple – You should review the software and make sure it is easy to use and you can easily train another person to use it in case you need to.
- 5. Reporting and Accounting features – Before purchasing the software, you need to do research and find out if it can do basic accounting actions, such as, invoices, download information from your bank account automatically, create reports, and easily keep track of expenses and income.
Investing in a reliable accounting software is one of the major decisions you will make as a small business owner. If you invest in the right kind of software, your life will be much easier and your business transactions will be more efficient.
I’ve tried the mainstream software out there, mainly Microsoft, Quickbooks, and gnucash to name a few. Here is a short summary of my experience with them.
Microsoft small business accounting software
First of all, I had a hard time just find the right download for this software, there seemed to be different variations of it, and it was unclear which one I should use.
When i finally found the one that I needed, I then looked for reviews from customers, but there didn’t seem to be that many around. Mostly people just as confused as I was. Once I got it going, I had a difficult time setting everything up, it wasn’t easy to use like the other Microsoft products.
To make a long story short, apparently enough people felt the same way I did because Microsoft eventually discontinued it. Here is a screenshot of the message on their site for it.
Quickbooks
Known as the market leader, Quickbooks is usually the first name you encounter when doing your research on finding small business accounting software.
Like many, I went out to my local BJ’s and purchased it there since the price was lower there than on their website. I bought Quickbooks Pro 2010. Once I jumped through the hoops of registering the software and denying many of the upsells you get when you first install it, I thought I would no longer get more ads for more services. I was wrong.
While, it does do a decent job of what it says it does, keeping your books. EVERYTHING IS AN UPSELL. I found this very annoying, virtually every tab across the top such as payroll, banking, cards and echecks, etc… first take you to an upsell before offering you the standard option.
Excuse me, but I thought once I bought something it was mine, it shouldn’t give you a license to keep on harassing me with upsells.
Gnucash
While doing some more research into small business accounting software, I of course typed in the term “free small business accounting software” and came across gnucash. Since there was literally no risk in trying it out, I said what the heck. I wish I hadn’t.
Gnucash may be free, but I found it extremely cumbersome to work with, it may be worthwhile to those with high technical skills, even I as a webmaster had a hard time figuring out what it was asking for. I thought, okay, I’ll just uninstall it like I have the others.
What a mess, even after uninstalling it, it left a littered mess of folders. I’ll save you the trouble of trying to explain it and just show you a screenshot of my documents folder AFTER unistalling.
Okay, I’ve done enough bashing,so which one would I recommend? Well, I’m going to break two of my own rules in picking out a simple to use small business accounting platform. Just use excel to make your small business budget.
1. Known vendor – Sometimes the best companies to use are the little known golden nuggets, sort of like the neighborhood hardware store that has what Home Depot and Lowes doesn’t.
2. Cost - I mentioned above expecting to pay $100-200 or more. Well, I was wrong, you can actually get a very good small business bookkeeping platform for free-since I assume most of you have Excel, if not just use open office.
