Quickbooks Alternative for Small (micro) Business

[false_Aest]

Hi Folks,

I know Quickbooks is the standard and there's good reason for that. But I'm doing my due diligence and looking for alternatives.

Things I'd like to be able to do:
Track income/expenses/sales/tax
Sent estimates.
Invoice + receive payments.
Create/Manage budgets.
Inventory

This puts me in the QB Plus category.

3,2,1, GO!

[11.4]

I've worked with startups that tried all kinds of alternate products. And there are many. Most get the basic journal entry right -- that's not hard. And they can produce financial statements, deduct journal entry amounts from budget lines, and so on. Most of them start screwing up when you get into taxes, both corporate/personal and employee taxes. That makes me reluctant to suggest any of the alternatives. For a number of functionalities, I'd rate QB higher than alternatives.

If you're on a Mac, QB used to be really bad and got a bad rep. Intuit kept working on it (far too slowly in my opinion) but finally got it right.

There's an online version of QB you can use, but I've had mixed results with it. It's good to share access, good for small and relatively simple organizations, and it's getting better. It started out like QB Ultralite -- it didn't have much of the functionality and though the idea was that it could be picked up instantly by those familiar with QB, it didn't quite work that way. It's better but still not where it needs to be.

One thing also is that QB sells you enhanced versions which mostly do trivial extra stuff like providing charts of accounts for various types of business or formats for certain kinds of businesses. There's nothing there that you can't do yourself in a few hours (and do better for your own needs) and nothing that your bookkeeper or accountant doesn't probably already have a version of that she/he likes to use.

One key thing about QB is that you can hire any bookkeeper, business student, tax advisor, whatever, and they will all know QB. With the other products, they have to figure it out and that costs you money in the end, and potentially more.

The place I suggest people migrate from QB is when they need to move onto a larger system due to international taxes, more employees, more report generation needs, and so on.

[sonicCows]

Never used Quickbooks, but I did use Xero for my mini business. It's all online which I liked because I wasn't tied to software. Everything could be exported to other formats as well.

[bewheels]

11.4 covered it well.

What I would add is, there are products that do various pieces better than QuickBooks. The challenge you end up with is multiple products that require you to go in to multiple places to do pieces of your overall workflow.
For some people it is worth it because the individual products are better at their piece of the puzzle.
For some people they want a single product that does everything fairly well (QB).

Another important consideration is how you take payments, what type of payments you take, volume of payments.
Going to accept credit cards as a payment type? Card not present only, do you need to 'swipe' cards, online credit card payments, etc...
International payments?
Lots of payments or a few payments per month...

[Llewellyn]

If you need to do payroll then avoid Xero like a dose of the clap - it's just awful. It does the other stuff OK but no better than other programmes. As a bookkeeper I'd recommend MYOB but I don't know if that's available in the US - very intuitive and easy to learn and will do almost everything a business will need.

[charliedid]

"There's an online version of QB you can use, but I've had mixed results with it. It's good to share access, good for small and relatively simple organizations, and it's getting better. It started out like QB Ultralite -- it didn't have much of the functionality and though the idea was that it could be picked up instantly by those familiar with QB, it didn't quite work that way. It's better but still not where it needs to be. "

Good timing, I just started to look again. Opening a coffee Biz and see myself and 2 employees to get going. I want payroll and will use Chase Bank. iPad based POS (not sure which) and gravitating to Cloud Based QB for a host of reasons but mainly because my office will be virtual. Three "packages" offered from Intuit, just not sure...

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Originally Posted by 11.4

I've worked with startups that tried all kinds of alternate products. And there are many. Most get the basic journal entry right -- that's not hard. And they can produce financial statements, deduct journal entry amounts from budget lines, and so on. Most of them start screwing up when you get into taxes, both corporate/personal and employee taxes. That makes me reluctant to suggest any of the alternatives. For a number of functionalities, I'd rate QB higher than alternatives.

If you're on a Mac, QB used to be really bad and got a bad rep. Intuit kept working on it (far too slowly in my opinion) but finally got it right.

There's an online version of QB you can use, but I've had mixed results with it. It's good to share access, good for small and relatively simple organizations, and it's getting better. It started out like QB Ultralite -- it didn't have much of the functionality and though the idea was that it could be picked up instantly by those familiar with QB, it didn't quite work that way. It's better but still not where it needs to be.

One thing also is that QB sells you enhanced versions which mostly do trivial extra stuff like providing charts of accounts for various types of business or formats for certain kinds of businesses. There's nothing there that you can't do yourself in a few hours (and do better for your own needs) and nothing that your bookkeeper or accountant doesn't probably already have a version of that she/he likes to use.

One key thing about QB is that you can hire any bookkeeper, business student, tax advisor, whatever, and they will all know QB. With the other products, they have to figure it out and that costs you money in the end, and potentially more.

The place I suggest people migrate from QB is when they need to move onto a larger system due to international taxes, more employees, more report generation needs, and so on.

[GonaSovereign]

I work for QuickBooks, so am biased.

There are other options available, but QuickBooks is far and away the most widely used, supported by bookkeepers and accountants, and taught in schools. (I’ve got friends who work for some fine competitors, but I’d use QB – and did when I had a small biz.)

Related: we’ve sponsored cycling events and amateur teams, so there is that.

QuickBooks Online is generally the way to go. Use it on any computer, access your info on your phone or tablet, and there are hundreds of apps that connect in if you have a unique business need (e.g.: I’ve seen a fishmonger add-on, of all things).

Paying your people: it’s pretty straightforward. You can do it yourself or pay more to have us do it for you.
https://quickbooks.intuit.com/payroll/

iPad POS: the integration with Revel is really good. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quic...057527915?mt=8


NB: there are generally discount codes available, or sales to be had through us. I’ll gladly pop a link here if that’s OK with mods.

Happy to answer questions by DM, too.

Geoff

[allezdude]

QuickBooks (QB) is pretty much the "kleenex" of accounting programs- if that makes any sense- from the point of view of how its so widely in use. all accountants know it and use it. there isnt really a compelling reason to use anything else

i've used QB online for a pizza biz and QB pro (desktop version) for property management.

the online version is starting to get expensive- was just raised to $50/month- intuit just keeps jacking up the price.

unless you absolutely need the remote access feature and can't imagine using QB in a desktop environment, I'd stick with the desktop version as it will be significantly cheaper over the long run