Lessons Learned #4 - Business Accounting Software

For over a year now we have been struggling and testing out different business accounting methods. When we first started out, we attempted to keep everything tracked via simply using Microsoft Excel but soon found ourselves in a mess of spreadsheets and different tables. The lesson learned there is that unless one is a seasoned accounting professional who is knowledgable in all aspects of accounting design, it can be quite time consuming to maintain, and particularly to make changes to, your accounting architecture when you are only using MS Excel.

Our next step was to upgrade to using tailored business accounting software and we had to make a choice between the industry standard, Intuit Quickbooks and Microsoft Small Business Accounting.

Our Pros and Cons after testing out both softwares for a limited period.

Intuit Quickbooks:
- Simple user interface which can be confusing before one gains familiarity
- Many years as the industry standard which means a lot of online support via forums etc.
- Similarly, as the industry standard, it has had many years to develop and refine its product

MS Small Business Accounting:
- Interface feels more simple than Quickbooks
- Incorporates and uploads very simply from MS Office, particularly excel
- Incorporates and uploads simply from other interfaces, such as payments via Google Checkout
- Not as much support and discussion on the web about this software

After testing out both softwares (for QB we used QB Pro 2008), we decided to migrate to the Quickbooks format as we felt most comfortable with the package and feel as though we could benefit from all of the help groups and discussion forums on the web. We have fully migrated to QB and have been very happy with the software package and find it quite simple to use and keep track of our operations (definitely better than just using spreadsheets!!).

Lesson Learned #3 - Google Checkout Tips

Four tips from Google Checkout - a couple of which I learned the hard way prior to finding these out:

- Add shipping and return policies
- Turn off auto-charging unless you ship orders the same day
- Add tracking information when orders are shipped
- Reply to buyer inquiries within one business day