I’ve been investigating small-business accounting software and thought I’d reach out to the hive-mind that is the Dope for some advice. I’ll describe the business set-up best I can and from that, I’d appreciate your input on what accounting software you think would best fit the situation.
I should say that this is not my business, but I am helping get the books sorted out for someone else’s. I’m pretty familiar with the inner workings though, so I should be able to answer any questions if you have them.
Ok, so this business will be looking at revenue under $500k per year (for now) but will likely grow beyond that at some point. For now, there are only three bank-type accounts tied to this business. A Paypal account, a bank account, and one credit card.
This business is similar to a beauty salon (though it’s really nothing like a salon) in that it has contracts with several different people that will each have their own revenue, expenses, and pay-outs. Each of these people are paid on separate terms and we need to be able to track them each separately.
Other than that kink, it’s a pretty standard business with revenue coming in from a few different sources and being shared among all “branches” (from the above paragraph) based on their contracts and some other factors. Say Suzie in Chair 1 at the Salon gets 20% of the revenue based on her booking 20% of the clients, and Frank in Chair 2 gets 10%, etc… This percentage will change from month to month based on the current numbers. They may also have their own revenue that will not share.
I’m looking into Freshbooks and inDinero but not sure if they’ll work as we’d like them to. Freshbooks seems like the best bet at the moment though.
I realize I’m probably not describing this business model very clearly so please ask any questions that will help clarify.
Will you be working with an accountant? If so, you might want to ask the accountant which program they prefer you use. I love being able to send up my Quickbooks file every quarter to my accountant. And also when I first started they could give me help with Quickbooks.
You can manage the accounts easily than preferring on an accountant. Now there are numerous online business accounting software like pettycashbook (dot)com.
Your business transactions are managed in an efficient way.
Data entered can be modified at any times.
3.You can also manage multiple companies.
There are many other advancing featurestoo.
You want two software pieces - every business should always have two.
The first component is the POS (that’s point-of-sale). It sits on the front desk and handles customers, inventory, commissions, etc. This is the system that everyone will use to record sales, run credit cards and manage the cash drawer. Even a cheap POS is worth it. If you have an industry with specific needs, you’ll be able to find one that specializes in your industry. Intuit would like you to think that QuickBooks can do this, but it doesn’t do it well for a volume with large numbers of small sales.
The second component is your financial accounting system, which sits in the back office and is used by the bookkeeper or equivalent. For your purposes, I would recommend QuickBooks for this. Not so much because I like QuickBooks. I recommend it because any CPA you work with will at least know and tolerate it.
I have several clients using Freshbooks and I don’t understand why they like it. More expensive, fewer features? Two of those clients only use Freshbooks for invoicing, though, and one uses QB for the full bookkeeping and the other just adds up expenses manually.
I can’t tell whether payroll is involved or if the pay is to contractors or owners, but please do yourself a favor and DO NOT try to do payroll yourself, with any software. Seriously. In an attempt to save $800 in service fees, you will end up paying $2000 in penalties and interest to the IRS. I have never had a client who did their own payroll without it costing them more in the long run. It is simply not worth it.
I have not used this myself because I don’t have a business, but many nerd friends have good things to say about Square. Their new point of sale system is cheaper than a lot of purpose-built PoS systems, and might meet your needs.
I was reviewing this thread and happened to realize that I omitted a work. When I said every business should have two accounting systems, I meant every retail business - the type that take dozens/hundreds of payments every day in lots of little sales that are completed at the time.
QuickBooks is actually just fine for managing invoices if you’re the type of company that does a $50k remodel or a $10k graphic design gig. But that doesn’t sound like the OP.
My former small business owner boss switched from having an accountant working with Quickbooks to doing it himself using Freshbooks. It worked really well for us, but we didn’t need a POS system. We used it for timekeeping, project management and invoicing.
When the company was purchased by a larger one and made a division of it, they actually kept on using Freshbooks instead of switching to whatever corporate software they use (it escapes me right now).
It ticks most, if not all of your boxes, is cloud based, and of Kiwi origin. They have been in the States for a few years now. I’ve been using it for a couple of years and it is a fantastic service. Xero regularly gets updates from your bank accounts (including paypal) which make reconciliation very simple. If you have any questions sing out.
I hope the OP doesn’t mind if I piggy back on his question, but what is the best software for inventory control? Essentially, we want a bar code scanner to scan items in and out. There will be a large quantity of items, but only 7 or so dirrent types. We just need to know how many we have on hand each day. Thanks.