If you are considering buying accounting software, probably the most common question would be which package is the best. Thinking of you as an accountant at CPA who has used accounting software for many years, I’d like to suggest a few questions you should consider first.
The first question to ask yourself is how many people will be using the software at the same time and in how many locations will they be. If you have multiple people who need to access financial records from multiple different locations, you should consider getting an online accounting software subscription. The new terminology for this type of solution is called cloud computing.
If there is only one person who will be doing the data entry with the accounting software, then it might be a good idea to consider accounting software that is installed on only one computer. There are some very mature solutions that are feature rich, some that cannot be found with online cloud solutions.
The next question to ask yourself is what do you expect the software to do for you. It might be a good idea to get out a piece of paper and make a list of the tasks that the accounting package will help you accomplish. I highly recommend that you use the software to organize the tasks that have to do with your bank accounts. This would mean that the software should be able to pay bills and print checks, bill customers and collect receipts, and then be able to tell you what your available balance is. You’d be surprised how many business owners have to call the bank or check online to find out what cash they have available in their checking accounts. Sometimes they may not even be aware of the checks that have been written and that will actually limit the availability of funds they can use. It is also very important that after checks are written and funds are received, the account can be reconciled with your bank statement.
To find out then which is the best accounting software, your answer may not be the same as someone else’s. If you need the collaboration of multiple people, your best accounting software is not the same as someone else’s that has one person entering all of your accounting information.
Although I would like to answer the question we started with in a direct way. In my experience, I have found that the best accounting software for many small businesses is the solutions provided by QuickBooks. There are many reasons why I can make such a suggestion. The first reason is that QuickBooks is probably the most popular accounting package on the market. What this means is that you have probably used it before or are employing people who have. This makes learning the software much easier than other programs you may not be familiar with. I have seen their company prosper since their first product called Quicken and they have helped many people and entrepreneurs with their products.