The best small business accounting software: QuickBooks
Many programs compete to be the best small business accounting software.
More than 100 programs compete with QuickBooks. This includes programs from giants like Sage (AccPac, Business Vision, Business Works, DacEasy, MIP Fund Accounting, Peachtree and Timberline) and Microsoft (Dynamics, Office Accounting and Small Business Manager). They also include programs from bit players like CougarMountain, CYMA, MYOB, NetSuite, and Simply Accounting.
Reviews of the best small business accounting software include free programs and programs that cost up to $25,000. With so many competitors, it would be very unusual if one company had more than 50% of sales in any area. However, QB has long had 78% – 94.2%% of small business accounting software sales at retail. – 94.2% of small business accounting software buyers, 50,000 registered professional advisors and 75,000 developers of QuickBooks add-ons now buy and support it. This clearly says that it has all these votes as the best small business accounting software. Users of other programs often cannot get upgrades or support.
Microsoft spent about $2 billion buying and carrying a big-company accounting software producer. This lets it get what it called a “QuickBooks killer,” after it dropped two prior QB competitors. Now Microsoft claims a 12% share because it gives away many copies of a program that users will not buy. It is not even #2 in paid sales. It recently ended retail sales of Microsoft Money, after Quicken got an 84% market share. Do you know any area, with hundreds of competitors, where one supplier has 84% and 94.2% of sales for two products?
What should you do if you outgrow QB? What if “QuickBooks” does not do all you want? You can spend $1,500 to $100,000 on accounting software. However, once you do you often spend twice as much on business disruption, data conversion expensive consultants, more highly paid employees and training. That is why, for most users, it is the best QuickBooks upgrade. You do not have this when you upgrade to one of 12 paid versions, for $80 – $7,500, from one to 20 users.
You also can use QuickBooks add-ons, the fastest, easiest and least expensive way to extend and integrate jobs it does not do.
They let companies with many more employees continue to use it. QuickBooks add-ons let you never enter data twice, while you avoid Excel, Word, other programs and pencil mistakes. There are about 600 of these tested and rated add-ons at marketplace.intuit.com. My http://quickbooks-add-ons.com/, though dated, has links to thousands. Competing for small business accounting programs has nothing like QB add-ons, in the number of power. They clearly make QuickBooks the best small business accounting software.
http://www.quickbooks-blog.com/
http://michaelblockcpa.com/en/contact-us.html
Tags: Best Small Business Accounting Software, Intuit 2 QuickBooks, QuickBooks Add-ons
A key term in your commentary is “small business.” Few would dispute the efficacy of QuickBooks® in a small business environment. But what happens when a small business grows to mid-size status? What do you do when the number of needed concurrent users hits 50,100 or more? What accounting system software is capable of handling rapidly-growing transaction numbers and an employee population that’s scaling up to many hundreds and thousands? There are limitations to QuickBooks. Your readers and clients would be well-served to know what the warning signs are, and what options exist to upgrade—even beyond QuickBooks when demands reach a certain point. Paul Farrell, CEO, Wizard Productivity Systems LP; pfarrell@wizardus.com