Quickbooks is a good software. Not too expensive and very easy to use. It will make your job easier and the reports are perfect to hand off to a CPA or tax guru. I think you can link them to Turbo tax as well...
The trick is in how any software is initially set up. Quickbooks will walk you through it by simply asking questions about type of business, etc. It will customize according to what you tell it. And remember CASH accounting is much easier than accrual!
I agree for somebody that isn't an "accounting geek", Quickbooks is quite good and adequate. For my work, I've used Great Plains at a couple of places. It's not a simple as Quicken or Quickbooks though.
Was in business 10 years, and I count Quicken and Quickbooks as best friends for doing business and keeping it simple. It provided my yearly tax man all the info he needed, and assisted me with some not so complex estimates. I was in the printing business, so for my estimates I needed the Quick Print Estimatation programs as well, but everything seems to be compatible with quickbooks, and your banks can provide you statements that merg right into your quickbook pages.
My tax man recommended the program cause he could work with it, so perhaps you would want to ask the person who does your yearly taxes? Just a thought. Came in handy for me when I made a few boo boos, he was able to repair my statements to work with my taxes....
:D
Course my husband was always Paranoid as most IRS Employees are, and by the way, if you are ever audited, Quickbooks seems to be a great asset as the IRS can also work with it too.......
Keep the tax man Mr. Auditor off your door, don't leave any RED FLAGS.....
I used Quickbooks for almost 8 years in our small business. At the time, it was a tossup between Quickbooks and Peachtree Accouting. I opted for Quickbooks. I really liked it. It was pretty simple to set up, though I did make a few mistakes initially.
Reports and graphs are pretty cool and help you keep a handle on how your business is doing.
We started out with Quickbooks, but only used it for a year or two. We do manufacturing so we need to be able to do bills of materials and we need to be able to run on a network with more than one person using the accounting system at any given time.
Knock on wood, we've done great with peach. It's been about 7 years now and we've never had any significant problems. Keep in mind that we have about 500,000 individual parts in inventory with over 1,000 part numbers and 3-4 users.
So, if you're going to grow your company and you need to do bills of material, or job costing you probably ought to start with peach. The support from peachtree kinda sucks, but there's lots of free tech support forums that are helpful. Otherwise, Quickbooks is fine.
Now I'm going to save you a bunch of time and money. First of all, find a good tax accountant. He/she will do your taxes every year. Get the tax accountant to set up your accounting package so that the different account codes in the package match up with the way he will enter the data into his tax program. This will make end-of-year way easy for you.
A note about Quickbooks/Quicken. They started out Christian. We started using Quicken/Quickbooks/Quickverse in the early 1990's, and also their card package Announcements from that period still can't be beat.
But Parsons Technology, the creators, went out of business and sold off the stuff.
And Quicken/Quickbooks has gotten more expensive, more complicated, requires more ram with every upgrade. I wish we had kept the last version from when it was owned by Parsons and never upgraded.
Except, as noted above, the bank statement information is downloaded directly into the programs now, and that is a real blessing.
Anything beats handwritten reconciliations. Maybe the Lord can send you someone who likes working with the accounting end to help you.
Now I'm going to save you a bunch of time and money. First of all, find a good tax accountant. He/she will do your taxes every year. Get the tax accountant to set up your accounting package so that the different account codes in the package match up with the way he will enter the data into his tax program. This will make end-of-year way easy for you.
I'd be happy to clarify anything that I've said.
AMEN -- Its always a good idea to have the program you use be COMPATIBLE with whatever your accountant uses AND of course your Bank's system so you can merge things with out hastles.
I have done AP/AR, Payroll, Taxes, budget projections, etc. with a few different kinds of software, and for several very different kinds of companies (food, construction, rentals, non-profit), and my general take is that I absolutely agree with the last three comments (Jim, Kit, and Jet)... so I will repeat them here:
Quickbooks is the definately the simplest to get started with and the easiest to do a small, basic bookkeeping type business with. However, they have gotten more complicated and more expensive as time has gone on, and their forms are not well suited for all types of businesses. And I find their insistance in tying in their "online assistance" at every turn quite annoying.
Peachtree is very similar in content to Quickbooks but a little less user-friendly to start with (only a little). It seems to have more flexibility and depth in terms of what it can do for you.
It's DEFINATELY a key factor to know what your accountant uses. It's SO nice to just hand them a compatible company file at the end of the year!!!!
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karmicdebt
Quickbooks is a good software. Not too expensive and very easy to use. It will make your job easier and the reports are perfect to hand off to a CPA or tax guru. I think you can link them to Turbo tax as well...
The trick is in how any software is initially set up. Quickbooks will walk you through it by simply asking questions about type of business, etc. It will customize according to what you tell it. And remember CASH accounting is much easier than accrual!
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moony3424
I agree for somebody that isn't an "accounting geek", Quickbooks is quite good and adequate. For my work, I've used Great Plains at a couple of places. It's not a simple as Quicken or Quickbooks though.
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jetc57
Was in business 10 years, and I count Quicken and Quickbooks as best friends for doing business and keeping it simple. It provided my yearly tax man all the info he needed, and assisted me with some not so complex estimates. I was in the printing business, so for my estimates I needed the Quick Print Estimatation programs as well, but everything seems to be compatible with quickbooks, and your banks can provide you statements that merg right into your quickbook pages.
My tax man recommended the program cause he could work with it, so perhaps you would want to ask the person who does your yearly taxes? Just a thought. Came in handy for me when I made a few boo boos, he was able to repair my statements to work with my taxes....
:D
Course my husband was always Paranoid as most IRS Employees are, and by the way, if you are ever audited, Quickbooks seems to be a great asset as the IRS can also work with it too.......
Keep the tax man Mr. Auditor off your door, don't leave any RED FLAGS.....
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act2
I used Quickbooks for almost 8 years in our small business. At the time, it was a tossup between Quickbooks and Peachtree Accouting. I opted for Quickbooks. I really liked it. It was pretty simple to set up, though I did make a few mistakes initially.
Reports and graphs are pretty cool and help you keep a handle on how your business is doing.
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Jim
Peachtree Complete Accounting Release 9.0
We started out with Quickbooks, but only used it for a year or two. We do manufacturing so we need to be able to do bills of materials and we need to be able to run on a network with more than one person using the accounting system at any given time.
Knock on wood, we've done great with peach. It's been about 7 years now and we've never had any significant problems. Keep in mind that we have about 500,000 individual parts in inventory with over 1,000 part numbers and 3-4 users.
So, if you're going to grow your company and you need to do bills of material, or job costing you probably ought to start with peach. The support from peachtree kinda sucks, but there's lots of free tech support forums that are helpful. Otherwise, Quickbooks is fine.
Now I'm going to save you a bunch of time and money. First of all, find a good tax accountant. He/she will do your taxes every year. Get the tax accountant to set up your accounting package so that the different account codes in the package match up with the way he will enter the data into his tax program. This will make end-of-year way easy for you.
I'd be happy to clarify anything that I've said.
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Kit Sober
A note about Quickbooks/Quicken. They started out Christian. We started using Quicken/Quickbooks/Quickverse in the early 1990's, and also their card package Announcements from that period still can't be beat.
But Parsons Technology, the creators, went out of business and sold off the stuff.
And Quicken/Quickbooks has gotten more expensive, more complicated, requires more ram with every upgrade. I wish we had kept the last version from when it was owned by Parsons and never upgraded.
Except, as noted above, the bank statement information is downloaded directly into the programs now, and that is a real blessing.
Anything beats handwritten reconciliations. Maybe the Lord can send you someone who likes working with the accounting end to help you.
Kit
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jetc57
AMEN -- Its always a good idea to have the program you use be COMPATIBLE with whatever your accountant uses AND of course your Bank's system so you can merge things with out hastles.
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TheHighWay
I have done AP/AR, Payroll, Taxes, budget projections, etc. with a few different kinds of software, and for several very different kinds of companies (food, construction, rentals, non-profit), and my general take is that I absolutely agree with the last three comments (Jim, Kit, and Jet)... so I will repeat them here:
Quickbooks is the definately the simplest to get started with and the easiest to do a small, basic bookkeeping type business with. However, they have gotten more complicated and more expensive as time has gone on, and their forms are not well suited for all types of businesses. And I find their insistance in tying in their "online assistance" at every turn quite annoying.
Peachtree is very similar in content to Quickbooks but a little less user-friendly to start with (only a little). It seems to have more flexibility and depth in terms of what it can do for you.
It's DEFINATELY a key factor to know what your accountant uses. It's SO nice to just hand them a compatible company file at the end of the year!!!!
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jetc57
One LAST added note. If you help make your tax accountant's job easier -- THEY CHARGE YOU LESS TO PROCESS YOUR FORMS.
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Hills Bro
Thanks for all your help..Will check out Quickbooks after I consult with my accountant. :D
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