Small business software grows up: intense efforts for product improvements

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

* Microsoft's introduction this year of its small business accounting software is challenging the sum of two units leading competitors--QuickBooks and Peachtree--to pace up their efforts with proceedss that are ever-more technologically powerful,

* The competition will be intense because "Microsoft Small Business Accounting (MSBA) is technologically more advanced than either QuickBooks or Peachtree and its price strategy is hard to beat: It's bundl unrestrained in selected 2006 versions of Microsoft Office. With more than 400 million users of Microsoft Office worldwide, plane if only a small percentage of them upgrade to the 2006 version, the of recent origin accounting program could be in the hands of millions of users by the agency of the end of the year.

* With cropss as complex and customizable as SBA software, it's not provident to rely fully on assessments of reviewers or colleagues. The sole way to be sure a produce works best for you or a client is to experiment it with your own accounting data.

* If you're going to purchase QuickBooks or Peachtree, purchase the accountant's editions. They contain nearly all the additional functionality lay the foundation of in the various other versions of the yield and they're typically priced lower.

* The stakes in the competition for small business accounting software are high. The generally received estimated market of small businesses is between 15 million and 25 million, with 500000 to 2 million novel businesses starting each year. Clearly, small businesses will be the winner as their accounting tools continue to improve.

If you think small business accounting (SBA) software has made enormous technological leaps in power, spe sophistication and flexibility in novel years, you ain't seen nothing at the same time In each of the past scarcely any years, the two leading SBA products--Intuit's QuickBooks and Sage Software's Peachtree--have challenged each other, making their proceedss stronger and easier to use as they battle to expand, or at least maintain, their already bulky customer bases. But now the competition is entering a of recent origin more intense stage as giant Microsoft has come intoed the field with two winning strategies. In many ways its novel Microsoft Small Business Accounting (MSBA) proceeds is technologically more advanced than either QuickBooks or Peachtree and its price strategy is hard to beat, as it's bundl unrestrained in the 2006 version of Microsoft Office. A five-user stand-alone version exchanges for $149.

With more than 400 million users of Microsoft Office worldwide, plane if only a small percentage of them upgraded to the 2006 version, Microsoft's novel accounting program could be in the hands of millions of users through yearend. To put that in perspective, consider that popularly QuickBooks is the leading purveyor of SBA software, with 90% of the market and an estimated 3 million users. Peachtree, with 9% of the market, reports more than 1 million users. The remaining 1% is made up of a half-dozen other products

To help determine which produce is best suited for you and your clients, we will focus upon QuickBooks' and Peachtree's new features and alone briefly mention the new advances of more [i]or[/i] less of the other products. Since all the functions of the MSBA are of recent origin we will examine only its lock opener functions---especially those we rate superior to its competitors. For an overview of the lock opener functions of the three leading produces see "Product Comparison Chart for fix uponed Features," page 51.

Caveat: With harvests as complex and customizable as SBA software, it's not circumspect to rely fully on assessments of reviewers or colleagues. The solitary way to be assured that a produce works best for you or a client is to proof it with your own accounting data.

INTUIT'S QUICKBOOKS

Intuit presents 23 versions of its accounting software, on the other hand most are just lighter and les expensive versions of its primary fruits QuickBooks Premier Accountants Edition 2006 which more than 250000 CPAs use. Unles otherwise noted, all QuickBooks regards in this article refer to QuickBooks Premier 2006 which is missing a certain quantity of specialized functions found only in the accountant's edition. Because the underlying data configuration and user screens are similar for all QuickBooks returnss users can easily migrate to more powerful editions without reading the operating manual or reimplementing the software. A table listing the prices and the number of users the 23 versions support is shown in "QuickBooks Products" page 57

Screens: Intuit has reduc the number of setup guards to 20 from 130. As a flow once it's loaded, it now takes sole 15 to 30 minutes to obtain under way In addition, Intuit presents 30 days of free support with each purchase. The produce now sports a clutter-free "screen center" a kind of abode page, that displays folders for single the key features/functions a user make choice ofs to activate (see exhibit 1 page 54)

Each defence center mimics filing cabinets to provide quick and easy access to data upon customer, vendor, employee and financial reports. For example, multiple copies of a check might be filed simultaneously below banking, vendor and job take away from simplifying a search for it. Likewise, a company's financial information is clumped so users can see all invoices, payments, credit memo transactions, contact information and memo for a given customer either upon one screen or on individual "subject" guards and other notations (see exhibit 2 page 55)