Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006

With Office Small Business Accounting, Microsoft is making another attempt to enter a market that has not responded well to its previous entries. Strong points are integration with a SQL Server database, the Office tool set, one banking group (Wachovia), and one payroll service (ADP). Weak points are limited support for inventory, assets, structured accounts, and employee benefits and records.

Ease of use, these days a Microsoft hallmark, is better than QuickBooks (Intuit) and Peachtree (Sage). However, importing from QuickBooks or Peachtree is likely to fail because of design quirks and rigidity in the Microsoft product. If you try to import using accounts that Microsoft is somehow unable to recognize, they will be silently dropped. Our subaccount structures were not imported.

Inventory methods are limited to FIFO, which happens to be what we use. There are 12 built-in accounts; most characteristics cannot be changed. In many businesses they would be useful only as subaccounts, but they cannot be made into subaccounts. Only one level of subaccounts is provided, and subaccounts are not supported at all for cash or bank deposits. Built-in accounts treat credit-card purchases as cash payments at time of purchase. You will not be able to use direct deposit for payroll unless you sign up with ADP for an expensive "full service" option.

The product runs only on Windows XP, not on any of the older systems. Integrated support features that generate forms, export data or use contacts require Microsoft Office to be installed on the same computer. Contacts are fully supported only for Office 2003. Only the appearance of forms can be changed; the content is fixed at whatever Microsoft thought it should be. Microsoft didn't think service invoices should include dates of service, and so they won't. Try that on your clients. Unlike QuickBooks, Microsoft didn't think you should delete transactions you entered by mistake, so you won't be able to. However, you can zero them out and move them to a dead-letter account, which you will need to invent.

To install and activate the product requires a Microsoft Passport account. To set up a Passport account requires disclosing an e-mail address and using it for verification. Although Microsoft is promoting a year of free assistance as an inducement, its Web site for product support is asking $35 per e-mail contact after the first two. The Help menu offers a service to "Find an Accountant" that launches a Web page trying to sell Microsoft products to accountants. On the forum pages you find arrogance toward customers such as the likes of, "Well if QuickBooks will do that, why don't you just stay with them?"

The offer of a year of free support is available to U.S. customers who register before the end of September, 2006, by calling 866-827-1619 (toll-free). Before registering for support you must install and register the product and upgrade to its latest version. Use Help / Check for Ugrades. As of spring, 2006, one upgrade kit has been released. Support is by telephone at the same number, from Microsoft staff in the U.S. This is bound to be expensive for Microsoft to provide; it signals a strong commitment to the product.

By Microsoft standards the documentation is above average, but for the rest of the world it is pretty hopeless unless you are very skilled at both accounting and software. As of spring, 2006, one book on the product was available, an introductory-level book from Microsoft Press just slightly longer than the User's Guide that comes with the product. The User's Guide and the product have several time-wasting inconsistencies, for example, the spelling and capitalization of account types. Mix them up, and you cannot import a chart of accounts. There is no usable information in the User's Guide or the on-line documentation on how to set up accounts for most payrolls. Apparently you do it by experiment, or you pay ADP for the "full service" option as mentioned above.

A warning to potential users who need more than one computer to access accounting records. While Microsoft Small Business Accounting can support multiple users, because it relies on a SQL Server database, product documentation does not explain system requirements clearly. In your My Computer / Folder Options / View properties, on all the computers with access to an accounts records database, you must turn off the option "Use simple file sharing" at the bottom of the properties list, which is turned on by default.

We believe that several so-called "reviews" here are from Microsoft and its vendor network, because the reports are far different from our experience. We do continue to hope Microsoft will give QuickBooks and Peachtree long overdue kicks in the touchas. We managed to work our way around pitfalls of the product and will use it for a year to see if Microsoft will solve its problems while maintaining its strong points. If not, then we will go back to QuickBooks.

My consulting business is based on time billing, and now I can bill time, invoice by email, and track conversations ALL from Outlook. If I schedule an appointment, or track my time in Outlook, I can mark the time as billable, create an entry, and the info flows directly into my accounting software.
My ability to invoice by email had expired with QuickBooks, so I had switched to using PDFRedirect to print pdf files instead and emailed them. I was not eager to spend hundreds of dollars on an upgrade, when what I had was working fine until one of their updates turned off a feature I needed. Now it's not a problem, and the new solution actually works better because I can run the whole time billing side of my consulting business from Outlook.
I had recently tried SugarCRM, but the open source version doesn't handle billing. Small Business Accounting 2006 has the best features of CRM, with Opportunity tracking, what's in the pipeline, etc. PLUS the best features of QuickBooks for considerably less.
Unknowns: What happens at tax time?
Untried: Payroll with ADP
Wishes: a tick mark of some kind in Outlook to show that a calendar entry HAS been sent to the accounting software for billing.
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER: 1)My clients need dates to show for each item in my service invoice for their accounting - there is no way. 2)After restoring from a backup after a computer crash, all sorts of wierdness happened - previously invoiced items show not invoiced, etc. 3)I'm starting to feel tired of fighting the software. Template changes don't stick. 4)I wish QuickBooks worked with Outlook. I'm ready to go back.

I've just started working with SBA and am impressed with some of the features. As a long time QuickBooks user, I have always wanted to have a contact management software program to integrate with QuickBooks. I just didn't want to spend the 60 to 100 dollars and have an add-in that will not work when QuickBooks introduces a new version.

Along comes SBA, and it fully integrates with Outlook with Business Contact Manager. Since I already use Outlook, no problem. In addition, this program has different price level capability, which is nice. It also allows a discount to be applied without having to create a Discount account in the chart of accounts. Sharing is easier than QuickBooks. You won't receive the message that SBA must be in single user mode to run some task (making it necessary for all other users to exit QuickBooks).

An SDK (Software Development Kit) is available for downloading at no charge, making it easy to program using VB.net. Invoices can be created in Word, almost all reports can be exported to Excel, and most built-in reports are fine for daily use.

You can import QuickBooks data, but you'll need version QuickBooks 2004 or 2005 to import transactions. ADP payroll can be integrated into SBA for $169 per year. Direct deposit or write you employee paychecks. Credit cards can be used with no telephone line necessary for approval (you can use a card swipe machine, if desired, or just enter the info with the keyboard).

All in all, a very refreshing accounting program for small business (about 5 user maximum).

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