Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have spent the last couple hours reading accounting software reviews on Amazon, CNET, and SuN and find myself ... quite confused!  It is clear that all of the major labels have their downsides, so it`s hard to make a decision.  Our business is really making the jump to light speed now in so many ways and I want to be sure we start this new phase in the right direction in accounting & finance.

Considerations:

* Just started an S Corp so the software should "know" all about this.  Software should be able to generate quarterly payroll forms, like IRS 941.  This alone will save the $500 / year I would have paid my accountant for this. 

* I think QuickBooks is out if only because I do not want pay Intuit $200 a year for the "privilege` of writing paychecks to my employees.  I understand this subscription (read: blood money) is now mandatory with the 2007 version. 

* The business is currently my wife and I both working as consultants.  Our income comes from the webiste I run (I receive consulting fees and commissions) and Gretchen is a free lance illustrator (check her out at www.GretchenRaisch.com).  But there`s a good chance that Phase 2 (the name of our S Corp.) could purchase the website in the next year so the software should be able to handle this transition.

* Phase 2 currently owns two fix & flip properties which will be sold in Spring `07.  Also plan to purchase long-term rental properties under an LLC.  Software should provide support for both of these types of properties.

* In addition to our business accounts, I would also like to be able to keep up with all of our personal banking in this software.  (I`m currently using an old version of MS Money for this, mostly just as a general ledger to keep track of banking transactions and expense categories).

I was surprised to learn that QuickBooks is not a double-entry system.  My layman`s understanding is that any system worth its salt (electronic or otherwise) should be double entry. 

I like working with numbers but am not an accountant.

All thoughts & suggestions will be appreciated!!

Quickbooks is a double-entry system. Each transaction requires a balanced set of debits and credits. You may have misunderstood what you were reading, or the reviewer misspoke.

Payroll compliance ("blood money"). Intuit, Microsoft, Sage, etc think that payroll compliance is a value-added service, so they charge for it. I don`t recall seeing a decent accounting software that did not charge extra for payroll support. You don`t have to pay for it if you want to manually prepare your own forms, manually calculate withholdings, manually keep track of the data to fill out the forms, etc. Alternatively, an outside payroll service like PAYCYCLE is about $25 a month, including 941`s, 940`s, W2`s etc.  Weigh that against the value of your time and the cost of errors.

Your "fix & flip" properties, possible website purchase, etc are just debits and credits to the bookkeeping system. There are more tax issues with this than there are bookkeeping issues, and your CPA can help you identify them.

Quicken is a good choice for the personal books. Definitely better than an old version of Money.

Scott Reynolds (CPA)

Surprise, AZ

www.b2bcfo.com

I myself just purchase Peachtree and we love it, It does so much more and its very user friendly. You can create a quote, and it will automatically create a PO and a invoice along side with it. Oh ya did I mention the payroll side of it? Its a great program Quickbooks is good for starting off but once you grow you are going to want to upgrade, my recomendation is Peachtree due the fact that it does everything and more.