Sage Instant Accounts or Quickbooks?
The company I work with uses Intuit QuickBooks Online and have had zero problems with it. The functionality is effective and it fits the size of our company as well. (Not huge, but I wouldn't consider it a 'small business') Also, you can try a 30 day free trial. QuickBooks Simple Start focuses on small business accounting, so for this reason it has a cleaner interface and is simple to use. QuickBooks Simple Start compared to Quicken Home This article doesn't exactly have a bright light shining on Quickbooks, but I think it's fair to show you other alternatives: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382514,00.asp [Note that it is from 2011] "Note: Specific to UK. I can't recommend anything higher than Crunch - they act as your accountant and have their own cloud accounting software, so it's more expensive than just using cloud accounting software, but if you use an accountant to do your year-end anyway, then they cost about the same as using cloud accounting software plus using an accountant to do your year-end. The thing I like (as a software development contractor) is that I don't have to know or worry about different ledger accounts, or journal entries, or any of the other weird accounting things, etc. Most cloud accounting software claim to simplify accounting ""so that you can concentrate on running your business"" whereas the reality is that you still have to spend ages learning how to be an accountant just to fill it in correctly. With Crunch that's actually true, it does actually make it simple. I've used Crunch, Sage, and Xero, so my sample-set isn't very big - just thought I'd share my experiences. If you value your time and get annoyed by having to create multiple internal transfers between different ledgers just to do something simple, it's for you. This probably sounds like a sales pitch, but I have nothing to do with them and nothing to gain by recommending them. The only reason I'm so passionate is I started a new business to do an online shop and tried to use Crunch, but they don't do retail businesses. Only contractors/freelancers or simple service-based businesses (their software is geared up specifically for that which I guess is why it's more simple than the others). Anyway, so now I'm annoyed at having to use the more complicated ones."
"Since this is a cooperative I'm guessing your partners may want to be able to view the books so another key point you may want to consider is collaboration.  QuickBooks desktop has all of these same issues because it is meant to be used on a single desktop. We're in an age of mobile devices, and especially in a business like landscaping it would be nice if certain aspects of record keeping could be done at the point and time where they are incurred.  I'd argue you want a Software as a Service (SaaS) accounting package as opposed to ""accounting software"" which might come on a CD in the form of QuickBooks, Sage and others. Additionally, most of these will also have guides to help make sure you are properly entering your records. Most of these SaaS products also have customer success teams to help you along should you need assistance. Depending on the level of your subscription you may get more sophisticated handling of taxes, customized invoices or integrated payroll. Your goal is to keep accurate records so you can better run your business and maintain obligations like filing taxes. You're not keeping the records just to have them. Keep them in a place where they will work for you and provide the insights and functionality that will help your business grow and become successful. Accounting software will always win in this scenario over a spreadsheet. FULL DISCLAIMER: I work for Kashoo, a simple cloud accounting product designed for small businesses. But the points I mention above are true for Xero, QuickBooks Online and Wave as well as Kashoo. And if you really want expertise to go with the actual software consider service providers with a platform like: Indinero, Bench, easyrecordbooks or Liberty Accounting." "I use TIAA-Cref for my 403(b) and Fidelity for my solo 401(k) and IRAs.  I have previously used Vanguard and have also used other discount brokers for my IRA. All of these companies will charge you nothing for an IRA, so there's really no point in comparing cost in that respect.  They are all the ""cheapest"" in this respect. Each one will allow you to purchase their mutual funds and those of their partners for free.  They will charge you some kind of fee to invest in mutual funds of their competitors (like $35 or something).  So the real question is this: which of these institutions offers the best mutual and index funds.  While they are not the worst out there, you will find that TIAA-Cref are dominated by both Vanguard and Fidelity.  The latter two offer far more and larger funds and their funds will always have lower expense ratios than their TIAA-Cref equivalent.  If I could take my money out of TIAA-Cref and put it in Fidelity, I'd do so right now. BTW, you may or may not want to buy individual stocks or ETFs in your account.  Vanguard will let you trade their ETFs for free, and they have lots.  For other ETFs and stocks you will pay $7 or so (depends on your account size).  Fidelity will give you free trades in the many iShares ETFs and charge you $5 for other trades.  TIAA-Cref will not give you any free ETFs and will charge you $8 per trade. Each of these will give you investment advice for free, but that's about what it's worth as well.  The quality of the advice will depend on who picks up the phone, not which institution you use.  I would not make a decision based on this." Quicken has tools for this, but they have some quirks so i hesitate to actually recommend it on that basis. Systems to research that may help you out: Less Accounting and Wave are great because they can import data from banks / credit cards. I know you said your bank doesn't export it but it seems like something as a small business you would want. Here's a link with comparison of various online and offline PF software: http://personalfinancesoftwarereviews.com/compare-personal-finance-software/ I use QuickBooks online... It's really the best out there for the price, just make sure to never upgrade to an edition you aren't 100% sure you need or you're forever stuck essentially. That's the mess I'm in right now. Paying $20 more than necessary a month, but it's still cheaper than switching to, say, xero. The starter edition of QuickBooks online is a lot more powerful than the equivalent plans anywhere else for the price. A special 24/7 available QuickBooks support phone number helpline for users who are getting any issues or trouble or errors. You are just one call away to get world class QuickBooks customer support service. Dial or call today to know exactly how we can help you. visit our page - https://events.com/r/en_US/registration/quickbooks-customer-support-phone-number-1855-441-4417-los-angeles-june-62185 "Fair enough. FB extends out quite a bit from its core as billing software, but I don't know if it'd do the kind of inventory management you want. SAP, on the other hand, is as pricey as it is because it's *powerful* and ""enterprise ready"" ... probably way more than you need (or enough rope to hang yourself with, as they say). I wonder if the best solution might be to hire a competent contractor to fix / upgrade whatever your current system is lacking.   I still recommend taking FreshBooks for a test run; it might just do the trick for you. Care to elaborate on why you're looking to replace the 10-year-old custom solution you've got?" I use mint.com for tracking my finances.  It works on mobile phones, tablets, and in a browser.  If you don't mind the initial hassle of putting in the credentials you use to access your account online, you'll find that you're able to build a comprehensive picture of the state of your finances relatively quickly. It does a great job of separating the various types of financial transactions you engage in, and also lets you customize those classifications with tags.  It's ad-supported, so there's no out-of-pocket cost to you, and it doesn't preclude you from using the personal finance software you already have on your phone. Our Finance organization does much of their reporting out of Excel being fed out of SSAS cubes, and beyond that, there's significant need for PowerPivot charts, forecasting, and Monte Carlo simulation, as well as significant use of various plugins and VBA code.  We kept Office 365 ProPlus around for Finance and HR.  For the rest of the organization, they don't need particularly advanced capabilities for slides, drawing, or word processing, or light spreadsheet capability and we're quite content to output to PDF, Google Sheets, and other things as needed, as well as using cost free alternatives to MS Exchange/Outlook, Visio, and Project.  The collaboration is a particular plus, and Google Hangouts is really convenient working from multiple sites/screen sharing.  We've done our best to keep our data centralized and universally accessible, in lieu of living in Excel spreadsheets and MS Access databases as tribal knowledge. Update: I am now using another app called toshl and I am very satisfied with it. In fact, I am a paying customer. It is web based, but it has clients for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone as well.  Another one, I tried is YNAB.   Did you consider trying an online app? I am using Wesabe and I am happy with it. I found it much better these web-based ones because I can access my data from anywhere. "One easy way to monitor costs in QuickBooks is to establish sub-bank accounts.   For example, you may have an asset account called ""State Bank"" numbered 11100 (asset, cash and cash equivalents, bank). Convert this to a parent account for a middle school by making subaccounts such as At budget formation, transfer $800 from Operations 11110 to Family Fun Committee 11130.  Then write all checks for Family Fun from the Family Fun 11130 subaccount.   For fundraising, transfer $0 at budget formation to the X Grade accounts.  Do deposit all grade-level receipts into the appropriate grade-level subaccounts and write all checks for the grades from the grade-level subaccounts.   The downside to the above is that reconciling the check book each month is slightly more complicated because you will be reconciling one monthly paper bank statement to multiple virtual subaccounts. Also, you must remember to never write a check from the parent ""State Bank"" 11100, and instead write the checks from the appropriate subaccounts." There isn't one. I haven't been very happy with anything I've tried, commercial or open source. I've used Quicken for a while and been fairly happy with the user experience, but I hate the idea of their sunset policy (forced upgrades) and using proprietary format for the data files. Note that I wouldn't mind using proprietary and/or commercial software if it used a format that allowed me to easily migrate to another application. And no, QIF/OFX/CSV doesn't count. What I've found works well for me is to use Mint.com for pulling transactions from my accounts and categorizing them. I then export the transaction history as a CSV file and convert it to QIF/OFX using csv2ofx, and then import the resulting file into GNUCash. The hardest part is using categories (Mint.com) and accounts (GnuCash) properly. Not perfect by any means, but certainly better than manually exporting transactions from each account. Lots of business do work and buy products for their customers then invoice them later think of landscapers or IT professionals. They keep track of the work and products on post-its they stick on their desks. Need further help, contact QuickBooks Support team by visit our site - https://www.wizxpert.com/quickbooks-support-help-phone-number/ My possible new job requires me to do dfast and ccar among others.  A few questions   1) My background is public accounting and tax. I noted that these jobs requires experience from public firms. My past experience has nothing to do with banking. Any reasons? I have been reading up dfast in the past week and it seems they trust me to pick up fast. Another job ad from another bank indicates the same thing.   2) What type of job this is under? I tried risk analyst but quite a lot of times the results are quite different from what my job is.  3) What is the job outlook? My eventual plan is to a more data analyst role and/or job opportunities in EU. Currently in EA/SEA market.   4) Any programming language should I learn to speed up data extraction? I will be learning either python/r. And will surface 3 do? My current laptop is not working and the repair shop indicates the costs of repairing doesnt worth it.