There are fewer, but tougher, low-cost accounting software packages.
The number of accounting packages for small to mid-sized businesses continues to shrink. Products are bought up, consolidated or discontinued in favor of others. The advantage is that the ones that remain on the market have to be increasingly good just to stay even with the competition.
All accounting software for small-to-midsized businesses does general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll; most do inventory, job costing, and time and billing either built-in or as an add-on.
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You should be able to print quotes, sales orders, POs, checks, and have a wide range of customizable, professional-looking reports. Documentation should be complete and there should be an Internet user forum discussing problems with other users.
The product should also support multiple users with varying security levels, import and export accounting data in several formats, provide customer address books and to-do lists and let you update tax tables and email invoices, statements and reports.
Depending on your business, you may also want to make direct deposits and B-B payments or to set up a Web store using your company's inventory.
This article reviews five Windows accounting packages:
* DacEasy v16
* MYOB Premier Accounting 2009
* Peachtree Premium Accounting 2009
* QuickBooks Premier 2009
* Simply Accounting 2009
Evaluating the Products
Each product was evaluated using the following criteria:
Overall ease of use. Is the product easy to install and configure? Did the product feel easy to use? Was it necessary to pick up the manuals or go to the online help? Did each step in the new company setup make sense? Was it easy to add invoices and pay bills? Can data be imported and exported?
Product features. How complete is the feature set? How many sample charts of accounts are there? Are there add-on features such as Web store creation, fixed asset management or integration with other programs?
Documentation. Was the online documentation well indexed, useful and clean? Were the manuals complete, easy to read? Could I find information quickly?
Trial versions, moneyback guarantee. Finding the right accounting package is a challenge. It's a little easier to determine which package is right for you by trying before you buy.
Reporting and exporting options. Is there a good range of reports? Are there filtering and sorting options? Can you easily export report info and financial data to other formats?
DacEasy v16
DacEasy v16 from Sage has come a long way since its last review some years ago. It's made a successful transition to a full-featured Windows product. It has a few shortcomings in its look and feel, but it offers enough to keep current and new users satisfied.
Installation was a bit sparse, but DacEasy is noted for being somewhat less frilly than other products. Setting up a new company is not bad, although again not as smooth as you might expect. There is only a single chart of accounts, but you can customize it as necessary.
