Coder’s Eye

I spent almost the entire afternoon yesterday researching accounting packages for the Mac. There really weren’t that many serious competitors.

The Contenders

QuickBooks Pro 6: I really loathe Intuit, so I start very prejudiced against this package. They did such a terrible job on TurboTax 2005 for Mac, and they actually drove me away from my decade-long use of Quicken with their awful product for the Mac. That said, I am actually thinking of trying this product, mostly because many small-business accountants are comfortable accepting Quickbooks files, and there are a lot of books explaining how to use it. That’s a pretty strong pair of reasons, but I think their Mac products stink so badly that I might have to set it up on a Windows computer, and that’s a whole can of worms right there.

MYOB Accountedge: Much more Mac-friendly, from what I read. Yet sort of quirky, and not highly rated at all by the users at Amazon. It seems like a love/hate rating war at Amazon, actually. I’m thinking that if I do go with a Mac product, I will definitely try this one first, or perhaps its little brother MYOB Firstedge, which is only $99 and can later be upgraded to the full Accountedge product. The problem is that apparently there is no “best practices” book for me to work from when using this software.

Checkmark Multiledger: This is very complete, and from what I read elsewhere, it is favored by many accountants. I think that is because it so bare and to-the-bone. Unfortunately, that makes it not all that useable for me. I don’t want to be an accountant, I just want to run my ecommerce store, and send the books to an accountant who’ll perform his black arts upon them. This is too raw for me. I downloaded the demo and was, to put it mildly, very confused.

Linux Options

I could use sql-ledger, I suppose, but I wasn’t excited by what I saw. It looks like a web version of Multiledger. If I was completely comfortable with accounting, I might like it, but for me at this point in my business career, no.

Gaah, maybe Windows

I really don’t enjoy operating system wars. I usually stay out of them, after making my preferences clear. Suffice to say that I do not like Windows at all, so much so that I’ve managed to avoid programming for Windows for almost five years. Yet the number and quality of choices for Windows accounting software is so much greater.

I’m very interested in Peachtree Complete Accounting 2006, which I read great things about. Or, if I could win a free copy of “Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 from Startup Nation, I’d happily use it. I just don’t want to pay them money for their software.

This is a big decision, and it will have a big impact on my company, whatever I choose. I’ve got more research to do, I think. At the least I need to talk with other small business owners or accountants to get their recommendations.

Technorati Tags: Reviews, Quickbooks, MYOB, Accountedge, Firstedge, Peachtree, accounting