Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I currently have a horribly complicated Excel spreadsheet that tracks all my data ... invoices out, invoices paid, payments owed and made to my 1099s, the expenses broken down into IRS categories, all my meetings and the milages for each, etc. The problem with this is that by the end of the year, it has so many entries and all the math involved, the thing runs REALLY SLOW.

So .. what accounting program do you use? And does anyone have one that will do all this? If you don`t mind me asking, how long did it take you to set it up? I can program an entire FileMaker or MySQL database for myself ... I just don`t feel like doing it.

There are a few out there but my preference is for Quickbooks [Pro Version], which I update every couple of years.

You can go online and download the free trial software.  I think you`ll like it.

Let us know what you think.

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Microsoft Accounting Express 2007 is available for free download from Microsoft, and should handle this just fine. Keep the spreadsheet for your mileage or integrate it with your contact manager software. www.ideawins.com

Quickbooks will also handle what you need. There are several versions with various features - www.quickbooks.com

The setup on either depends on your understanding of accounting. They are both accounting packages, not spreadsheets. Regardless, you`ll be far better off in the long run with a set of books rather than spreadsheet for your business records.

Scott Reynolds, CPA

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R Scott Reynolds, CPA
www.b2bcfo.com

I don`t know doodly about accounting or bookkeeping, but I also like Quickbooks.  The tutorials are very helpful. 

My plan for this first year of doing taxes as an entrepreneur (AND the first time to itemize at all since we also bought our first house last year) is to run everything through my TurboTax software and then take my Quickbooks records and everything to a CPA, suck it up and pay that person to make sure I`m not going off a tax cliff in some way. 

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I actually do know a fair bit about taxes and accounting, and did my entire small business taxes just a few weeks ago ... which is probably why I am so picky about things and ended up just writing my own. I will take another look at QuickBooks though, see what it can offer for the price.

One of the nice things about Quickbooks is that I can e-mail backups to the CPA I work with as well as to my clients` CPA`s. 

I don`t have to hand carry or snail mail the backup disks anymore that can end up damaged if not handled properly..

It`s a wonderful program and it`s not ABSOLUTELY necessary to buy the update every year.  I did it this year only because a couple of my new clients did.

You can get Pro 2007 now for about $139.  I`ve used PeachTree, AccPacc, SBT, Macola, and a few others in the past.  Quickbooks is SO much easier to maneuver.

Best of luck to you.  Be sure to let us know what you decide to go with.  I always like to hear what others have to say.

 

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If you are researching the net branch or are looking into opening your own mortgage net branch, we have an alternative to net branch opportunities. Ask us about mortgage branch opportunities, we love to talk and write about this.

Hi Nikole,

Just wondering what package you settled on?

Mark Bebout

I`m in the market for a good accounting program too. At present Excel isn`t  that bad for me since my sales trickle in at present. But in a year or two this may be different story, i`v heard Quickbooks is great but if you don`t want to spend time/or have time to learn it, there could be an issue.  I may look into the Microsoft 2007.

What did you choose Nikole?

 

 

iBiz and iBank for my Mac.

Learning all the principles of accounting and taxation may somewhat be a burden for small business, especially at start up.  If you do not want to worry about whether or not, a particular transaction should be allocated as business or personal, you should consider working with an accounting professional.  In the end this will save you a whole lot of headaches. 

Quickbooks is definately user friendly, it does give you tips on how to allocate such activity.  I will be testing the beta version of Quickbooks Pro 2008, theres talk about an improvement, so will see.