Accounting software again

tom11011 said:
I've felt the same as you so I have been writing my own program. My biggest complaints are that most everything is cloud based, can't own it yourself. My second biggest complaint is with the exception of quickbooks online, they are all invoicing programs and not accounting programs.

Have a look at my demo and let me know if you think you might be interested. I'm looking for real people to use it and see what changes need made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyA9V1IDmFU
Click to expand...

Thank you,

I will be checking it out. I did watch the video a bit and it looks pretty clean and workable right now. How about the setup? Runs on a webserver / linux based? :)

Im gonna keep my eye on it :)

coffee
 
Thanks again everyone for commenting. Some very good points and suggestions are well taken.

I purchased a copy of quickbooks 2014 and set it up in my VM. Yes, It does run good. The point about those bashing it is also well taken. Seems to work fine right now. Only problem Iam having right now is registering it. It says it timed out in the registration process. But, I will fix that. Just have to spend some time with it.

I will be checking out the other mentioned options from everyone too. But as alot of you have stated, Quickbooks will probably be it. On first setup and looking around in it everything seems pretty straight forward and understandable. :)

I bought quickbooks from amazon and the download process went quite well. Initial setup was not that hard and I still have alot of customization to do. Especially the invoices. On quickbooks 2010 invoice customizing would stall on step 3 and not make it past that. Issues like the click buttons not responding and such. But on the latest release they seemed to redesign it and it actually works fine now.

My thanks to everyone here at Technibbles for all the great help and advice you have all provided.

coffee :)
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
PCEINC makes a lot of solid points.


So many other programs that you might use in your business will integrate with it. Hard to find other accounting apps that are so widely supported by some 3rd party product that needs to plug into an accounting app.
Click to expand...

another reason I picked it is that I use turbo tax. very simple to import everything. my wife used to have a small pet sitting business and did everything by hand! what a nightmare come tax time!
 
Last edited:
Another reason to use QB . . .

We have found that another reason to use QuickBooks is that many of our SMB customers do - we get to take the experience gained working on our own QB and use it for customer support. Being able to say "We use QuickBooks in our shop also" helps to convince them that we can help them with their QB problem.
 
As a UK tech, I used to use Sage (Peachtree in the U.S.). Following a debacle that is almost over, I set up a new company that is using QuickBooks Pro. The reason that I chose QuickBooks, was because of the integration with all of the systems that I am using, and plan to use:

  • I implemented CommitCRM as the PSA solution, which integrates with QuickBooks, so no double data entry there. Also, if you are using other PSA solutions, then the great majority of them will integrate. It saves time.
  • My invoices are sent via email. Although I am using Office 365, of which Outlook 2013 does not integrate with QuickBooks 2013. No problem, as I have set it up as a hosted integration. For some reason, the emails are not saved in the sent items though.
  • The invoice personalisation is easy to set up.
All in all, I am happy with the product. It isn't perfect, but it does save me a lot of time with all the integrations, which is something that you don't get with other solutions.

If you are still unsure, I would get in touch with a QuickBooks advisor. 5 minutes with one, and you'll realise that it is actually a good product.

I can't comment on your taxes and returns, as U.S. taxes are totally different from ours in the UK. We have VAT. You have local, state, federal and god knows what else they can think of.

Andy
 
Just wanted to update this thread and provide my solution and thoughts.

I installed quickbooks in a vm of windows7 on my fedora box.

The install went without a hitch and I spent alot of time looking around in it and seeing how things operate. I like the look and feel of it. Everything has a flow to it. Its pretty easy to follow. I now have an idea of where I stand and importing my checking account was a breeze along with my credit accounts at parts suppliers on the web.

Quickbooks 2014 is pretty fast and I have not ran into any bugs yet. Things seem to be ok. After I got far enough into the setup and things were working I did a full backup of my accounts. Therefore if I screw up I can reload from a backup. I actually had to do this once because I couldnt correct a problem with a payment on a credit card.

The only things so far I have seen that I dont care for is the customizing of templates. Sure its pretty easy to do but if you hit 'print preview' you should be able to print it. However, Quickbooks errors and tells me I cannot print an empty invoice. Also, It would be nice if your customized template would show up (with logo and all) when filling in an invoice. I just dont have any idea how the invoices look when emailing them to a client.

So, Im happy. Tonite I will be cloning my main drive in the box to another as a backup against drive failures. I also have backups of quickbooks on my raid server. So, I think I will be covered ok.

Of course thank you to everyone that voiced an opinion on what I should do. Its great to see such a different amount of possibilites and it was kinda hard to decide which way to go. This years taxes may be pretty dicey but next year look out! ;)

Thanks everyone,

coffee
 
coffee said:
The only things so far I have seen that I dont care for is the customizing of templates. Sure its pretty easy to do but if you hit 'print preview' you should be able to print it. However, Quickbooks errors and tells me I cannot print an empty invoice. Also, It would be nice if your customized template would show up (with logo and all) when filling in an invoice. I just dont have any idea how the invoices look when emailing them to a client.
Click to expand...
I'm using QB 2009 and it lets me Print Preview an empty invoice. Well, not completely empty--it has the next sequential invoice number in it. I can also Print Preview while customizing the invoice without drama. Maybe they changed that.
 
Larry Sabo said:
I'm using QB 2009 and it lets me Print Preview an empty invoice. Well, not completely empty--it has the next sequential invoice number in it. I can also Print Preview while customizing the invoice without drama. Maybe they changed that.
Click to expand...
Larry,
Does it handle the HST in Ontario compared to the taxes in Quebec properly?
 
Allan, yes it does. I have no problem with HST calculation and reporting as a single item on invoices. The accountant does the HST reporting/filing for me from the Accountant's Copy of the data file.
 
coffee said:
Just wanted to update this thread and provide my solution and thoughts.

I installed quickbooks in a vm of windows7 on my fedora box.

The install went without a hitch and I spent alot of time looking around in it and seeing how things operate. I like the look and feel of it. Everything has a flow to it. Its pretty easy to follow. I now have an idea of where I stand and importing my checking account was a breeze along with my credit accounts at parts suppliers on the web.

Quickbooks 2014 is pretty fast and I have not ran into any bugs yet. Things seem to be ok. After I got far enough into the setup and things were working I did a full backup of my accounts. Therefore if I screw up I can reload from a backup. I actually had to do this once because I couldnt correct a problem with a payment on a credit card.

The only things so far I have seen that I dont care for is the customizing of templates. Sure its pretty easy to do but if you hit 'print preview' you should be able to print it. However, Quickbooks errors and tells me I cannot print an empty invoice. Also, It would be nice if your customized template would show up (with logo and all) when filling in an invoice. I just dont have any idea how the invoices look when emailing them to a client.

So, Im happy. Tonite I will be cloning my main drive in the box to another as a backup against drive failures. I also have backups of quickbooks on my raid server. So, I think I will be covered ok.

Of course thank you to everyone that voiced an opinion on what I should do. Its great to see such a different amount of possibilites and it was kinda hard to decide which way to go. This years taxes may be pretty dicey but next year look out! ;)

Thanks everyone,

coffee
Click to expand...

Here is what you can do. Install the free and open source PDFCreator. Then, you can print the invoice to PDF and have a look at it before it goes out to your customer.

Tom
 
allanc said:
Aren't there 'HST Receivable' and 'HST Input Tax Credit' G/L accounts?
Click to expand...
Apologies to Coffee for polluting this thread, but there are Recoverable PST, PST Payable and GST Payable accounts in the GL. HST is tracked in the GST Payable account. The others are unused since the province consolidated PST with GST to form the HST. Invoices have a single line at the bottom showing "HST on Sales 13%."

The GST/HST Return Report has lines for...

Line 101 Sales and other revenue
Line 103 GST/HST collected or collectible
Line 104 Adjustments
Line 105 Total GST/HST and adjustments for...
Line 106 Input tax credits (ITCs)
Line 107 Adjustments
Line 108 Total ITCs and adjustments
Line 109 Net Tax
Line 110 Instalment and other annual filer pa-
Line 111 Rebates
Line 112 Total other credits
Line 113A Balance
Line 205 GST/HST due on acquisition of taxable ...
Line 405 Other GST/HST to be self-assessed
Line 113B Total other debits
Line 113C Balance
Uncategorized Tax Amounts

I have elected to use the Quick Method rather than ITCs, which I used to use, because my accountant said it was more beneficial in my case. I find the whole tax issue too confusing for my feeble brain, so let the accountant handle that part. QB makes it all so easy, as far as capturing, managing and reporting all the data, taxes included.
 
Larry Sabo said:
Apologies to Coffee for polluting this thread
Click to expand...
It may not be polluting this thread because your valuable answers are helping me determine whether QuickBooks is a suitable solution for my accounting requirements.
But, I understand what you mean by 'polluting'.
Thank you Larry - I appreciate the Canadian slant on Quickbooks.
 
"Polluting" was a poor choice of words, for sure. "Diluting" would be closer to what I meant. Although some of our posts were perhaps irrelevant to Coffee's needs, I'm glad they were helpful to you (and possibly others).
 
tom11011 said:
Here is what you can do. Install the free and open source PDFCreator. Then, you can print the invoice to PDF and have a look at it before it goes out to your customer.

Tom
Click to expand...

Another option that I've been doing lately is installing Foxit pdf reader. It includes a pdf printer too.
 
Digital Regenesis said:
Another option that I've been doing lately is installing Foxit pdf reader. It includes a pdf printer too.
Click to expand...

When I upgraded to Windows 8, my scanner stopped working with with my old scan program. PDFCreator comes with an Image to PDF software free. Now, I can use the built in windows twain drivers, scan documents to tiff, then import the tiff to the Image2PDF. Not to shabby even with the extra step.
 
Quickbooks Pro 2013 lets me print preview my estimates and invoices just fine with a PDF editor/created installed. If you don't have one of them installed, Quickbooks ensures it installs and uses internal engines (Ayumi or I believe it will be satisfied with the Microsoft XPS driver).
 
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