# Accounting software?



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Since moving to this Windows 7 computer 8 months ago my old and trusty 1998 version of Quickbooks doesn't work. Which means I'm almost a year behind in posting and keeping records.  But I can't put things off any longer. 

I'm not willing to pay the inflated prices for the newer Quickbooks edition, plus they have gotten so involved and difficult to operate for a small business. Anyone know of a simple but decent accounting/ bookkeeping program that is easy to run for a non-financial type person and doesn't cost an arm and a leg? I don't mind buying one but don't want to spend over $50.00. I found a couple of freebies but when I tried to download they were adding on a bunch of other things (like Yahoo toolbar and a zip program) I stopped the download. 

I'm tempted to just buy an older XP laptop so I can keep my copy of Quickbooks, but that would be only as a last resort.


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## SilverVista (Jan 12, 2005)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software

This page compares quite a few accounting packages, the first list all being open source and therefore free for download. I don't know how involved you need your program to be -- were you using QB for receivables and payables, inventory management and other business management, or were you just managing income and expenses on a cash basis? There are several to choose from depending on how much you need the program to do. 

If all I were doing is managing my checkbook so that I could assign accounts, sort and create reports at the end of the year, I'd probably look most closely at GnuCash or TurboCash. Would probably have to do a lot more research and trialing on the higher-functioning packages before making a decision.


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Thanks. I have a stand-alone inventory / invoice program I like so I wasn't using that feature in QuickBooks. I used it to track income/ expenses including donations. I also had the chart of accounts set up as I liked. Some of the freebies don't allow changing the chart of accounts and don't handle non-profits well. I'll look at Gnu Cash as I hadn't heard of that one.


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## SilverVista (Jan 12, 2005)

Just for interest, is there any chance you're using inFlow as your inventory and invoicing program? I used it for several years at my last job since we had far more complicated inventory than QB would handle. I overlapped the two programs at the invoice -- after producing the detailed customer invoice in inFlow, I entered the same invoice number and a condensed version using my income account headings in QB. For example an inFlow invoice might list 50 different kinds of plants, but the QB replica would only list the sales grouped by tracking type -- "Conifer rooted cuttings", "Deciduous grafted liners" and "Freight."


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## equinecpa (Mar 21, 2011)

As a CPA, I'd first recommend Quickbooks-try to get an older copy somewhere like EBAY. You can make using it as simple as you like or as involved as you like. Many of my clients just use the check writing/make deposit features, reconcile their bank account and are done.

There are also a couple of free online accounting programs out there such as Wave which seem pretty good.


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## StayPuff (Nov 12, 2012)

GNUcash... It's all I use and love it. Light, powerful, and no junk cluttering up the screen. Tutorials are built in: gnucash.org I'll never go back to anything else!


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