Hi, it's been a while since I've been here. It's nice to see so many familiar names. I thought I remembered we might have had an accountant among us. Or at least some people who knew more about that stuff than me. I'm trying to figure out what accounting software is best for a small entertainment related business. Basically, the most important quality for me is that i don't have to have much knowledge to operate it. I'd like something where i just plug in expenses and income and it does it all. Something with not much of a learning curve... Any ideas?

(I put this under corporate reality because it has to do with money)

Hi, LauraLee! I'm not an accountant; I work with words, too. But I also do the books for Jay's violin shop; we use QuickBooks and I like it. If you need to do ALL the things it is capable of right away, the learning curve might be steeper, but I found it to be pretty intuitive for basic use, and I've added the other functions as I've gone along. However, if what you're doing is VERY basic, maybe someone else knows of a less expensive product that would do what you need. Good luck!

Welcome back & good luck with the Quickbooks! :peace;

Hi LauraLee! P.Pittsburgh Joe will know for sure!
I think he's busy with other stuff but will probably read this any day now.

Guilty as charged; I'm an accountant. During his comedy monologue about his brief accounting career, Bob Newhart sez, "Of course, if I say I was an accountant, then it's true. Who would lie about that?"

I don't work directly with accounting software, but I have some familiarity. A lotta packages have just too many bells & whistles for a small business. One client of mine purchased MAS 90 & regretted it immediately, telling me, "They shoulda called it MAS Confusion!"

For a small business that just wants to keep track of income & expense, QuikBooks does seem to be the best by far. The only caution is to exercise care when entering dates for your transactions. If, for example, you accidentally type in 2002 when you mean 2005, it will automatically go back & change your 2002 records, & each year going forward, & it'll take an act of Congress to fix it.

I hear good things about PeachTree, too, but only if you're able to recognize how the program "thinks."

Louise is right - I'm busy with a lotta other stuff, but I'll catch ya'll here when I can.

Joe's right about the dates, but QuickBooks does automatically fill in the current year when you're typing a date, and you have to consciously change the year if you want an earlier one. So it's not a huge problem.

Edited to say that we have an old copy of Peachtree on the shelf, where it belongs.

Also edited to say, someone told me that they use or have used QuickBooks at the GC.

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 2 times, lastly by Ceashel on Jun 05, 2005 ---</FONT></center>

Howdy Laura Lee!