My business has vastly outgrown my simplistic legal pad and ink pen accounting system. Trying to keep track of customers, orders, invoices, bills to be paid , TAXES ect.... is getting more than I can handle. It sometimes seems that I am spending more time on keeping track of finances than on building rods or selling components.

Any of you care to share reviews of the business accounting software your using? I was considering Quickbooks Home & Business but have some concerns after reading some on-line reviews. Of course non of them were written by rod buidlers that would have the same needs as me.

Thanks

matt

I do not know how detailed or how much business you are doing. If it is truly small scale, you could probably use Excel and set everything up[ yourself. But that still qould require a lot of maintenance on your aprt.

Billy that's just it. I have some things on an excel spreadsheet, do my invoices with Lotus, some other documents in Word, and yet others handwritten on legal pads. I would like an all-in-one program where everything is together and and cooperates.

thanks
matt

IF you are doing a heck of a lot of business and it REALLY is worthwhile to automate ... QuickBooks Premier Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition is the answer. Here is the link ... [quickbooks.intuit.com]

This is the only software even close to reasonably priced that can accommodate "fabrication" of a single finished product from multiple "raw products" (e.g. custom rod from blank, guides, grips, seat, etc.). It will do everything you need ... parts explosions for PO's, taxes, invoices, A/R and A/P plus much more. The issue is learning time and being an immaculate record keeper.

Doing things by hand is not such a bad thing. Truthfully, no other method is as easy and fewer ways take less time. While it may not be pretty, it is very effective and meets legal requirements. IMO, you really need to consider the amount of time/money you would save via automation and make your decision based on that alone.

After 20 years in the silicone extrusion business,and going from "spread sheet " to accounting by computer, I highly recommend a program based on "double entry" accounting.Also,choose a program which allows you to use either cash basis or accrual basis accounting.In this way you can grow your business and modify your accounting as you need to,without adding costs to your system.Also,finding errors becomes much easier,and making corrections much simpler.Good luck with your endeavor.
Jim

Matt, send me an email if you'd like, I've got lots of experience with taxes and accounting plus some experience with Quick Books.

Erik

Matt - Jim Gamble's spot-on. It's the most affordable solution for a lot of businesses.

There's some setup work required but if you're already doing this on spreadsheets it'll be pretty easy to see the logic involved. If you need any help please email me directly and I'll do what I can.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Another vote for quickbooks.... I think you can get away with the simple Quickbooks pro, rather than the Premier edition. It will allow you to send by e-mail, hard copy etc..... Your accountant will love it.....

It will take a little set-up time, but after that it is a piece of cake.....

Matt,
Quickbooks has an online version as well, if you want to take a look at it. I believe you can try it for 30 days. The good thing about this is you can access it anywhere if you have an internet connection and you don't have to worry about backups and upgrades. The bad is the on going monthly fee, and if your internet connection is slow then it would take extra time to do things.

The reason that I suggested QB Premier for Manufacturing is that it allows "parts explosion" and writes PO's for components needed to manufacturer single items, etc.

The online version has some limitations - it can NOT do any inventory functions or PO's.

Again, I would suggest keeping a paper system UNLESS you have enough income/work to fully justify the added expense and time of a computerized accounting system.