CyberCPAs

Entrepreneur, Oct, 2000 by Cassandra Cavanah

Integrating with the Web, your favorite accounting programs have become virtual accountants extraordinaire.

Running a successful business requires a lot more than just a good idea and the drive to work all hours of the day and night. You also need to be able to read a balance sheet, know the difference between profit and loss, and produce payroll checks and invoices--in other words, you have to know how to manage your business. Most entrepreneurs have struggled through paper accounting methods and different spreadsheet-based solutions. But, as your business grows, so does your need to stay on top of all its critical leverage points.

QuickBooks (www.quickbooks.com) and Peachtree (www.peachtree.com)have proved to be the answer for hundreds of thousands of savvy entrepreneurs. These may be cheap software programs, but, more important, they're easy to use. They automate and eliminate much of the pain and costs often suffered with those daily accounting tasks that-l11t's face it--we all want to get through as quickly as possible. But there's even a bonus: These programs are "e-volving," giving you access to Internet-based tools and services that promise to further reduce the time and money you and your employees spend on accounting tasks.

THINK QUICK

Intuit's QuickBooks holds the honor of being the leading accounting program for entrepreneurs by a wide margin. It's the big brother to Intuit's Quicken Personal Finance Manager and the obvious next choice for upgrading when your homebased business grows past the simple invoicing and accounts payable functions of Quicken Home and Business. QuickBooks 2000 can be purchased in two flavors. Its scaled-down, $120 (street) single-user version lacks some of the more intricate accounting features and integration with popular programs like Microsoft Excel that the advanced $220 (street) multiuser-capable version, QuickBooks Pro 2000, offers.

In addition to all the standard accounting functions found in the budget version, QuickBooks Pro is more sophisticated as far as reporting and job costing, as well as employee time billing, customizable job bids and partial-progress invoicing. Its sophisticated system of access rights comfortably accommodates five users simultaneously, although as many as 50 employees could tap some functions with corresponding performance degradation.

Increasingly, Intumit is exploiting the virtual network--the Internet--to round out its desktop program. For example, QuickBooks Payroll Services is an automated, online payroll service that calculates earnings and deductions, federal and state taxes and more. Likewise, QuickBooks Merchant Account Service accepts and records approved credit card payments from your customers directly in QuickBooks--or even through your own Web site. Even if you aren't a QuickBooks user, a visit to www.quickbooks . com puts you in touch with services for purchasing business insurance, online file backup and storage, access to potential jobs or projects, and even help with your printing needs.

You'll have to own QuickBooks to gain access to one of the coolest--and most cost-effective--offerings. QuickBooks Site Builder lets technophobic self-starters design and deploy their own Web sites by choosing from 250 templates that service 50 different industries. With free domain name registration and six months of free hosting, Intuit is essentially giving Web sites away. After the initial six months, Intuit will charge a $9.95 per month hosting fee. If you don't currently have a Web site and are running QuickBooks, taking advantage of this offer is a no-brainer. A wizard takes you through the site-creation process. If you want to check out what other businesses have done with QuickBooks Site Builder, visit www.beansandgreens.com and www.wefitzipperbags.com.

JUST PEACHY

Like Intuit, Peachtree has made a big investment in the Internet, gathering a cadre of e-solutions to help smooth your work flow, such as quick and easy access to online postage via Stamps.com, equipment leasing and financing, business credit reports, and lots more.

Peachtree Complete Accounting 8.0 ($270 [street, single user]; $600 [street, multiuser]), designed for companies with one to 25 users, is the latest version of Peachtree's most robust accounting program in a multiproduct family. It has received a complete face lift to appear more browser-like, so on boot-up, you're faced with "Peachtree Today," a welcome page that offers quick hyperlinks to common actions and tutorials from within the program as well as your choice of news and information drawn off the Web. A glance at the "My Business" page gives users a quick overview of receivables, payables, budget issues, account balances and more--all without having to run time-consuming reports.

Peachtree also offers its free Website-Creator to users. Peachtree hasn't put a lot of bells and whistles into the offering--your Web site will be just five pages deep--but the process is entirely free, giving this entry-level tool its appeal.