Which accounting software do you use??

[Sarah Winchester]

When I acquired this business it already had QuickBooks Pro 2000 installed on the computer. That version has sunseted and is no longer supported by Quicken. I have used it regularly but am still not comfortable with it. What are you using? I do mostly cash sales; that is checks and credit cards, no charge accounts. The only inventory I maintain is glass, matboard, foamboard, misc. supplies, and some lengths(less than 500', at any one time). I am incorporated and am my only employee. Even though I have the Pro version I have never used it to track labor, and I'm not currently using it to track inventory(apparently the previous owner didn't either). Any suggestions?
Thanks.

[HannaFate]

I still use the old analog system, ledger book and a pencil. No data lost to system crashes!

[Mike Labbe @ GTP]

We're using LifeSaver to run all aspects of the frame shop(misc sales, frame scheduling and pricing, corporate billing, sales tax, inventory, ordering, customer database, mailings, customer source tracking, etc), and Quicken Home & Office 2002 to manage the bank accounts. (daily deposit batches, categorizing expenses, checks, loans, etc)

Our Quicken has also been dropped from official support, and should be upgraded, but it works so well I don't see it as a priority. I know we should upgrade to something bigger and newer, but I don't have the courage to switch over to something new midyear.

[B. Newman]

I use QuickBooks. It has also been dropped from support, but since I only have 1 employee, I can do the employment taxes manually just as quick. An update would be a couple hundred dollars. Not worth it at this time.

[OzDave]

In Australia the two biggest is quickbooks and MYOB. If you have MYOB over there think about having a look at it.

[johnny]

Quickbooks Pro 2001, I guess I've been dropped from support too, lol, but I've never used it to begin with. I don't do my inventory in Quickbooks either. What a nightmare that would be. I've always dreamed of a program that could take product A from moulding, product B from mats, product C from glazing, product D from misc hardware, product E from Artwork and make the long sought after and glorious Product F to hang on my wall or use as the product being purchased. Back when we were in wholesale we used Real World modular accounting software and it was really nice, but wholesale inventory is loads easier to keep track of.

[OzDave]

Johnny, Not that I use that feature but I remeber in the MYOB training that you could do what you want, but I was always worried about calculating wastage.

[FramerRandy]

I use Quick Books Pro 2001. I also enter all inventory purchases into QB as I pay for the inventory. At the end of the year, I do a physical inventory, using a report, available from QB. This lets me adjust to actual inventory at the end of the year.

This could be done quarterly, or monthly, if you wanted to. But with a small shop like mine, I find the one year actual adjustment ok.

My POS carries the day-to-day inventories of the moulding & mats, but I find it a problem for other inventory, such as glass, paper, etc. graemlins/shrug.gif graemlins/kaffeetrinker_2.gif

[Leslie S.]

Currently Quickbooks Pro 2003,with the do-it-yourself payroll feature, but we just ordered the upgrade. We have other companies and employees and I use this to keep track of everything. It took me awhile to learn how to put it through its paces, but it was worth it. We also use Frameready for the front counter, inventory, etc.

[Rick Bergeron - CPF]

QB2005 basic only because our accountant finally got grumpy about having to convert the QB1998 files. I really want my QB98 back.

Just ordered a Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting Demo, a competitive version to QB which is to be released next year.

[Sarah Winchester]

OzDave:
I looked at MYOB, but it seems like 'double entry' book-keeping, like the stuff I learned in high school (in another century) and I never did fully understand it.
I'm also looking at w-ease, that looks okay on their website, but the download doesn't work, so who knows?
I also just found a very low price ($91) on an 'acedemic' version of QB Pro 2005, so maybe I'll bite the bullet and learn to like QB..??

[lise]

MYOB was bought out by an australian company and is no longer supported in North America. We used it for years. We now use Simply Accounting. It is no friendlier to use but all I have to do is enter sales and my bookkeeper does the rest. We manually work out framing costs and we do not have a computerized inventory system.