Playing the numbers - review of three accounting packages for the Macintosh and five for Windows - includes summary sheet and product features table - includes related article on comments from four CPAs and one small business owner on accounting packages they use - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Jan, 1997 by Carol S. Holzberg

We Chose the Best Windows and Mac Accounting Programs to Balance Your Boo

YOU'RE THE BRAINS AND BRAWN OF YOUR BUSINESS, BUT YOUR MONEY IS THE BLOOD AND OXYGEN. YOU'RE IN charge of its day-to-day operations, marketing, technical support, and balancing the books. Although you may have snoozed through high school and college math courses, you need to keep track of incoming and outgoing monies if you want to survive. You have two choices: Hire a bookkeeper or manage your business finances yourself. Some small-business owners have turned to their personal finance managers, such as Intuit Quicken or Microsoft Money, for their accounting needs. Although these applications are fine for check writing, expense tracking, and budgeting,they're soon stretched to the limit when used for traditional bookkeeping or debit/credit accounting. Such programs don't handle payroll or inventory and suffer from limited accounts receivable and payable capabilities. And they don't know an audit trail from a bowl of trail mix.

It's time to look without fear--at a full-fledged accounting package. The market is filled with powerful accounting programs that perform basic bean-counting functions with added business features, and some even sport interfaces that ape user-friendly personal finance programs. In fact, most accounting packages let you import personal finance data.This month we examine five accounting packages for Windows and three for the Macintosh. All perform general ledger, accounts receivable and payable, and payroll. Some handle inventory, job costing, and project tracking. No matter what your business is, the buck stops at the bottom line. An accounting package must maintain up-to-date accounts, automatically crediting and debiting the right journals, without requiring you to know much about double-entry accounting.

How We Selected In choosing the candidates for this review, we relied on sales figures of the best-selling Windows and Macintosh accounting programs from PC Data, a computer industry analysis firm based in Richmond, Virginia. Because PC Data only tracks sales from software stores, Computer Associates Simply Accounting 4.0 and Great Plains Profit 2.1, because they're sold directly, didn't appear on the sales list. At press time, QuickBooks Pro for Windows and One-Write Plus had new versions in beta, or prerelease, stages. Both programs will add more features and should be on software shelves by the time you read this, according to company representatives.

How We Tested For this review, we approached these products from the standpoint of a small-business owner who has outgrown Quicken or Microsoft Money and has graduated to a full-fledged accounting program. We turned a critical eye to a program's interface, its ease of use, and the tutorial and technical manual. We also created a virtual small business and used the software to keep track of invoices, bill payment, inventory, and so forth. Although all the programs performed most accounting tasks with aplomb, we liked the packages geared toward the neophyte small-business accountant.

DacEasy Accounting

& Payroll 95

Rating: ** 1/2

WIN 95

The only program in this review designed specifically for Windows 95, DacEasy Accounting & Payroll 95 (DAP) features a host of small-business bookkeeping tools with a crowded interface. A brief Quick Start Guide covers installation, account setup, accounting basics, and key program features. If you need more help, be prepared to gaze at your computer screen; DAP ships with an electronic user's manual with online instructions. You have to pay $25 for a printed copy of this guide and $75 for a printed, self-paced workbook that will include practice small-business accounting exercises.

DAP's six integrated help systems include task wizards that guide you through a company's accounting setup. Like other accounting packages, you create your company's chart of accounts by selecting from a list of business types. DAP's list is one of the most extensive in this roundup. As you work, pop-up Flash Cards explain a variety of screen displays and dialog boxes. Pop-up Field Facts identify what to enter in form fields. Unfortunately, these Flash Cards and Field Facts interfere with data entry.

DAP handles several accounting tasks, including conventional general ledger and charts of accounts, An Invoice module manages customer billing and a Payroll module records employee earnings, deductions, liabilities, vacation periods, and sick time. The Products module tracks inventory and records credits, receipts, invoices, and discounts. You work in a Banking module to manage checks, deposits, transfers, and payments. You can write up purchase orders, record fixed assets, set up depreciation rates and methods, and examine the Audit Trail. A Customer module tracks customer transactions and credit limits, placing accounts on hold, or dialing and timing phone calls. Like the Peachtree programs for Windows and Mac, DAP is networkable, but you must request the free network upgrade.