Recommend small business accounting software

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a small, single-person business, with very simple needs: I need to issue invoices for services (not goods), accept payment, make deposits, track payables, income, and expenses, run P&Ls and balance sheets, and that’s about it. No payroll, no inventory. Nothing complicated.

I started out almost 20 years ago with Quickbooks, at the recommendation of my accountant. It worked fine for me, and still does: QB 6.0, the 1999 edition, does everything I need. I didn’t continue to upgrade it (or Quicken, which I had been using for my personal accounts) after Intuit started requiring that you update every two years or you could no longer access your data (or something–I forget the details).

However, I’m running Windows 7 now, and have to run QB 6.0 in an XP Mode window. Again, that works fine, but from what I’ve read, Windows 8 and 10 don’t support XP Mode. So if and when I decide to upgrade my computer, I’ll have to get a new accounting package.

From the comments on Amazon for the latest versions of Quickbooks, people absolutely HATE it. All of the reviews of the past six months are one- or two-star, and all have apologetic responses from Intuit after them, offering to try and fix the complaints. It can be reassuring when a company is responsive to occasional complaints, but when every commenter is complaining, responsiveness looks like desperation.

Sage (formerly Peachtree) gets better reviews, but one commenter says that after the first year, you have to pay an annual fee of $450-500 (about twice the purchase price) to keep using it. If true, that’s outrageous. I don’t want to be forced to upgrade – or keep paying for – a product if everything it working for me and I don’t need new features. That’s why I’m still running a 16-year-old program.

There are a few other accounting products at Amazon that I’ve never heard of and get mediocre reviews.

What do you use or recommend?

2

I’m sorry I don’t have advice to offer, but some of these reviews! “Performs like a walrus wearing chainmail in a jello tank…Anything, including an abacus, will serve you better.” Intuit must have hired a full-time person, “^Mark”, just to keep up with the reviews!

3

Can you use Xero? Really popular here in Australia and NZ, normally gets much better reviews than the comparable MYOB or Sasu alternatives. We also tried Freshbooks and WaveApps, both of which were fine.

4

I’m using QuickBooks Online for my nonprofit. That’s handy when we’re geographically dispersed as we are. I’m the treasurer so do most of the work, but one other person logs on to create invoices and occasionally fart around. We have the lowest subscription level at 29.99/month. It sucks to have to pay that, but that’s our best option given our needs.

5

I hear Wave Accounting mentioned a lot. Free and easy.

6

There are two problems with accounting apps.

One is that you really have to keep updating them if you’re using them as anything more complicated than a fancy spreadsheet; rules change, tax assignments change, payroll is a nonstop change item, etc. and you really can’t run a business of any scale on either a “spreadsheet” or an old version.

The other problem is called “Intuit.” Shitware from the start, gets only worse every time they “improve” it, and essentially no competition to either keep them honest or put them out of business. It’s QuickBooks (on their terms), low-end wares that have serious limitations past that micro-business-model, or other relatively costly commercial ware that needs continual licensing or upgrades to stay current for businesses that do need those features.

Sucks. My QB2012 is starting to throw outdate warnings and I really don’t know what to move on to.

7

Interesting stuff! Thanks for posting

8

A lot of the complaints about QuickBooks are purely cosmetic issues. It’s similar to the complaints about when Microsoft switched to the ribbon. And, really, the comparison is apt. Trying to do business without Microsoft is a hassle. Trying to do accounting without Intuit is as well. If you work with a bookkeeper or accountant, it’s a virtual certainty that they’re already familiar with QuickBooks. Very few know much about the competitors. Furthermore, if your third-party apps/services will integrate with anything, QuickBooks will be the first thing they choose.

Wave has a lot in its favor, but the way it tracks sales tax is a big limitation if you have many rates to track. It might be a good fit for your business, though. It’s the only one I recommend other than QuickBooks.

If you’re going to pay for Xero or Freshbooks, I think QuickBooks is both better and cheaper.

Both PeachTree and AccountEdge were written by accountants. You may not think QuickBooks is user-friendly until you give them a try. AccountEdge will at least give a free copy to your accountant, though, which means you can still exchange information with them.

9

I use this for my small law firm. Does absolutely everything I need. Payroll can be integrated for a small fee. Highly recommend.

10

A third problem with small business accounting is that users think it can be made “user friendly” in the sense that they don’t really have to learn anything - just poke a few numbers here and there and let the magic happen. It’s not clear that an accounting package will no more make you an accounting expert (or even journeyman) than Word will make you a successful novelist. You have to know how accounting works and how to use the tool the right way; for all the ease and automation it brings, it does NOT do the job for you.

I don’t agree on the Intuit/Microsoft comparison, either. Intuit belongs more on the shelf with Corel. MS Office apps can be beaten and stripped down into pretty good tools once you turn off the marketing flash, useless features and wankware. Intuit’s layers of crap are integrated and can only be muted, not eliminated. (F’rex, when was the last time Word scampered and squealed about extra services, special paper, new versions and required updates?)

11

Sorry not to get back to this thread sooner.

Thanks for all the suggestions, but despite the positive reviews for Wave Accounting and even Quickbooks Online, a) I’m uncomfortable with the idea of storing all my business’s financial information in the cloud, especially since I don’t need that degree of flexibility: I always do my accounts from my home computer and don’t have to share the data with anyone else. And b) even if that weren’t an issue, I really don’t want to have to pay for software every month. It’s just not worth that much to me. Why should I keep on paying indefinitely for the new version of a product that I paid less than $100 for 20 years ago, and which has served me perfectly since then with no updates?

If anyone else has any ideas, please share them, but if I don’t find anything, I may just start doing everything in an Excel sheet, or create my own Access database, or both.

12

I feel I should also explicitly thank Amateur Barbarian for his thoughtful and informed posts. The thing is, as I think I made clear in the OP, I don’t have payroll or complicated tax issues, so I am pretty much at the “spreadsheet” level you mention.

It’s just that doing everything on an actual spreadsheet, without, for example, a simple way to generate invoice forms, would be a pain in the ass and be much more subject to error.