 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Shawn
Date: 2005-08-16 14:43
I have finally converted to Mac, and I am looking for inexpensive software to run the business side of my studio. All I really need is a program that will generate invoices with the capability to email them, and a log to keep track of payments received. I've been looking at Quickbooks by Quicken, but it's $300 and it probably has more than I really need. Does anyone know of a program cheaper?
Thanks.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2005-08-16 14:56
QuickBooks Online might be a solution for you (and eases your backup woes at the same time).
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2005-08-16 15:06
Yes! Simply Accounting. For our really small businesses we've set up some sample Excel spread sheets that they can use as guides. Excel is great for basic bookkeeping needs. But for the next step we always recommend Simply. For first-time users be sure to pay for the one-year support service. If you can a bookkeeper friend to set it up for you it'll be much easier.
Our accounting office refers all our clients to this program. It's very inexpensive for what it offers, easy to learn, can be set up to e-mail invoices, do banking by internet, even will handle payroll and print out your T4 slips at the end of the year. It's very easy to print out the documents you need to give your accountant at year-end.
We've had the dickens of a time with other programs. We've seen other programs (not naming them on a public forum) allow unbalanced entries, ouch! Sometimes clients come in with a balance sheet showing A/P or A/R of one figure, and the detailed listing with a completely different total - same date. Another program took literally hours to display a full general ledger just so I could print it out for the year end - I'd get it started and go shopping for awhile. Simply hasn't given us any of these horrors.
I know that others swear by other programs, but this is the opinion of everyone at our offices - all five locations.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-08-16 15:18
I'll step out in public to say that Quicken has evolved from wonderful in its first incarnation on our Macintosh to a user hostile, illogical, arbitrary and inscruitable piece of crap in its latest incarnations. Without experiencing QuickBooks, I'd be leery of adopting it. Since TurboTax, by the same developer, is also flawed, arbitrary and awkward.
I've just transplanted 7-years of Quicken data to our new Windows machine and had trouble with the files, the Quicken installation --and the fact that the new copy of Quicken, installed on the new computer, couldn't open files that were created in the "same" edition of Quicken on our old computer.
I don't know of a decent alternative --or of one that will convert our (8-Mbytes) of historical data from Quicken. Microsoft Money was a turkey when we moved our personal accounting from Mac to PC several years ago.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Shawn
Date: 2005-08-17 01:30
Well, I thought I'd post my results. I did look into the online version of the Quickbooks, but apparently this service is only available to PC's. So, I bit the bullet and bought Quickbooks Pro for Mac, and I absolutely love it. It is doing everything that I need. I thank Mark for two recommendations that have turned out great. QuickBooks and Etymotic earphones
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Author: msloss
Date: 2005-08-17 12:22
I've done the transfer of Quicken across platforms for a couple people and you do have to be mindful of each version's ability to import, but... I've quite successfully exported files from one and then loading them up into the other. The .qdf and .qif files you can export (and whatever other extensions they use) are platform independent.
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