OT--Mac small business software?

[BumbleBeeDave]

Well, after eleven months of frustrating job search, I'm saying to heck with it and starting my own freelance graphics business.

To do that I'm going to need some small business software. My girlfriend has three employees and suggests Quickbooks with payroll, but she runs PC's and it looks like there is no version of quickbooks that will do what I want.

Is that true? What do other Mac-based small business people do around here? Why do you use what you're using?

All comments appreciated! Even from that famous businessman, Mr. Squirrell! :D

BBD

[Jawn P]

I had good luck with Filemaker Pro (http://www.filemaker.com/solutions/smallbusiness/index.html?nav=solutions-small-business) at my previous job.

[avalonracing]

What do other Mac-based small business people do around here?

What do I have? A wife and an accountant. (Not the same person but sometimes I'm not sure).

[dumbod]

It's not as strong as QuickBooks for Windows but it's not bad. The biggest problem with the program is that it's very structured. That's great if you don't know anything about accounting but sort of a PITA if you know why at you're doing because you have to "fool" QB into doing what you want it to do.

I don't understand why you would need payroll. You certainly don't need it if you're not going to have any employees and, IMHO, it's much easier to Paychex, ADP or any one of the numerous other services.

The biggest thing to remember is that, Intuit marketing notwithstanding, QuickBooks is not the only tool that you need. What it does well, it does pretty well but there is stuff it doesn't do as well. Don't throw away Excel, whatever you use for contact management or, if you work that way, your database tools. Don't try to funnel everything through QuickBooks. Use the tool that makes sense.

[Ray]

As someone who started a one-man business of my own a few years ago, I wouldn't be too worried about accounting software yet. Unless you have payroll or are forming a corporation to keep all of the finances separate from your personal finances (probably not necessary if you're not in a field with big liability concerns), just opening a separate bank account with separate checks and using whatever software you use for your personal finances is probably enough. I just used Quicken and a few categories to organize things and had no trouble. Of course, I only tend to have a handful of active projects at a time, so doing invoicing manually takes me all of an hour at the end of each month and preparing tax documents for payments to sub-consultants takes about the same once a year. If you get to the point that you have a LOT of different active clients, some kind of invoicing software might be helpful, but you probably won't be there right away, if at all.

Needing small business accounting software is a good problem to have and you may get there, but its likely not a key first priority. It took me a while to nail down the various pieces of software I needed to do the job right, but the accounting hasn't been a problem yet. And I've had some pretty good years.

-Ray

[Pete Serotta]

go with Quickbooks

[d_douglas]

You can tell I am not an accountant, but with a simple initial setup, couldn't proficient use of Excel work as an accounting system.

I use it on my Mac for simple bookkeeping stuff. It comes with the Office for Mac suite, as usual.

[BumbleBeeDave]

You can tell I am not an accountant, but with a simple initial setup, couldn't proficient use of Excel work as an accounting system.

I use it on my Mac for simple bookkeeping stuff. It comes with the Office for Mac suite, as usual.

. . . that can generate invoices, keep track of payments and accounts receivable, and keep track of taxes.

BBD

[1happygirl]

I think MYOB does this.


http://www.myob-us.com/

[rwsaunders]

Dave...when we initially got things rolling, we used QuickBooks for the Mac. We shared the information with the accountant for quarterly and year end reports and it seemed to be ok. As the business has become become more complex, we switched to an industry specific project management/estimating/accounting software and hired a CFO.

http://search.quickbooks.com/searchresults/B/?sc=BNR-000-COR-quickbooks_for_mac&priorityCode=4902000000&cid=ppc_google_brand&SiteID=6345529&pn_override=search_landing_mac&adgroup=mac_brand

[Mr. Squirrel]

All comments appreciated! Even from that famous businessman, Mr. Squirrell! :D

BBD


since you asked me mr. bee, in my line of work we deal with thousands of units every season. Our sku’s are actually small in number, there’s only so many types of nuts out there. the number of cousins that are employed number into the millions though we only pay them peanuts. the fact that our business flies under the radar of the irs exempts us for paying any taxes. but, we like to keep track you know, we have to know what’s happening when we’re heading into winter. squirrels like macs. they are very easy to use and are very intuitive. where do like to ride mr. bee? iLife has word processing and spreadsheet programs that are very good and can easily be converted to word or excel for sharing files with your pc brethren. unless you will be claiming many exemptions and hiring employees, a simple spreadsheet program may be all you will need. then use turbo tax or the like when it comes time to pay taxes. if things are going to be more complicated and the people that you hire won’t work for peanuts, then maybe MacBooks by quicken, Netsuite, or MYOB FirstEdge. you can find lots of info on the apple dot com website to start with.

well I hope that helps you mr. bee. i’m going to get a hazelnut latté right now before I get to work collecting and chasing wheels. btw, i look pretty sharp there don't i.


mr. squirrel

[MattTuck]

I'm surprised there isn't a solution in the cloud. The "cloud" for those of you not in the know, is the internet... things like Google Docs, and Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, things that you can access from any computer in the world.

it would be independent of OS.


BBD, are you a graphic designer? I have an idea that could use some graphic design experience, not sure if you are a good artist or not, but I'd be interested in learning more about your skills.

[Ray]

....ot sure if you are a good artist or not, but I'd be interested in learning more about your skills.
Keep in mind his taste in bicycling attire. :cool:

-Ray

[dgauthier]

Parallels will run Windows on your Mac, so you can pick whatever accounting software you like. Setting up Parallels is painless, and it "just works." (Just stay away from Vista.) Good luck with your new business.

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

[dnades]

+2 on the parallels software. My bookkeeper runs Quickbooks on a bunch of macs here at the shop using xp/parallels. She loves it for payroll as I guess the mac version of Quickbooks is somewhat lacking in that department. I had a much earlier version of MYOB(v.8) running on my Pismo Powerbook which she absolutely hated to use. She insists that Quickbooks is far superior to MYOB and perhaps it is, at least in the way her brain works.

When I first started out I kept a journal ledger and entered everything by hand (no bookkeeper) and it was fine for the first couple of years but after that it got to be too much time. A computer program did not really cut down on the time but it does really allow you to see the information in better ways. Be prepared to spend some time learning the software.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . Quickbooks with payroll because she was suggesting I essentially pay myself a salary. I respect her opinion, but not having run my own business before and not having any employees except myself, it also seems to me that if the Mac version of Quickbooks does have a module for running my own business then that would probably work fine.

I'm also looking for both a cost-effective and learning-efficient package. I'd rather not fool with running another operating system on my Mac and having to buy yet another piece of software to do it. If I can get what I want done with the $100 Quickbooks for Mac then that might be the best course.

Does anyone who's commented use the Mac Quickbooks package for keeping track of accounts payable and paid, generating the tax figures, and generating invoices? Those seem to be my top priorities.

BBD

[jscottyk]

BBD,
We run a small business on a Mac in a similar industry using Quickbooks and a payroll service (that's owned by Intuit) that integrates very nicely. Both from the perspectives of data and process. Check it out. Paycycle (https://www.paycycle.com)

AP, and AR are not a problem with Quickbooks. Invoices are a snap and produce a very professional document. Tracks which customers pay sales tax and which do not. Generates the proper entries in the GL, etc. Taxes are managed with a combination of Quickbooks (sales tax) and Paycycle (payroll). Federal filings are a snap as our CPA can take a data dump from our Mac version and pull it straight into their PC version.

Oh, one more thing. You could probably build a lot of this in Excel or FileMaker (been there, done that) but why? The folks at Intuit have forgotten more about the topic of accounting software than I'll ever know. Sure, Quickbooks has it's issues but every single accounting package does. Just a matter of finding one that works for your situtation. For us, Quickbooks does.

[Pete Serotta]

and the reason they dominate the market,,, This is the only one I recommend from a business and IT point of view.


BBD,
We run a small business on a Mac in a similar industry using Quickbooks and a payroll service (that's owned by Intuit) that integrates very nicely. Both from the perspectives of data and process. Check it out. Paycycle (https://www.paycycle.com)

AP, and AR are not a problem with Quickbooks. Taxes are managed with a combination of Quickbooks (sales tax) and Paycycle (payroll). Federal filings are a snap as our CPA can take a data dump from our Mac version and pull it straight into their PC version.

Oh, one more thing. You could probably build a lot of this in Excel or FileMaker (been there, done that) but why? The folks at Intuit have forgotten more about the topic of accounting software than I'll ever know. Sure, Quickbooks has it's issues but every single accounting package does. Just a matter of finding one that works for your situtation. For us, Quickbooks does.