Why Accounting Doesn’t Have to Be a Pain to Grow Your Businesses
It doesn’t need to be said that every business requires accounting in some form or another, either access to an accounting firm or, in the modern era, accounting programs that enable businesses to take care of all their accounting needs in-house, and more often than not, without much – if anything at all – in the way of accounting experience or training.
Start-ups will find themselves spoiled for choice when sourcing an accounting program to keep their finances in order and, for instance, engage in cash flow forecasting. In the last couple of years, there have been a flood of programs released on the market that are giving QuickBooks – easily one of the best received and most popular accounting programs – a real run for its money.
Here are a few more accounting programs worthy of a start-up’s attention. And the accounting programs discussed here really are intended for start-ups – which is why we discuss Sage One rather than Sage 50 – not companies.
Sage One
With everything an entrepreneur or start-up founder requires to keep their books in order – collaboration, payment processing, project tracking and task management features – it’s difficult to pass Sage One by.
An online program – you need to be connected to the Internet to use it – Sage One is encrypted and secure, backed up, and always kept up to date.
According to reviews, the only downside to Sage One is that it isn’t an accounting program for companies that need to manage loads of inventory. As a start-up, it’s unlikely you’d need to anyway.
FreshBooks
Another favourably reviewed accounting program, FreshBooks – Yes, the name sounds familiar, doesn’t it? – boasts everything start-up businesses require to manage their finances: keep their books in order and accept online payments from any source.
Compatible with Android and iOS apps, the only con, according to top review websites, is that the introductory account doesn’t support the ability to manage unlimited clients.
Working Point
Like the other accounting programs reviewed here, the price is right – $19 to $32 – with Working Point, another well received accounting program that boasts enough features to make it appealing to entrepreneurs and start-ups.
However, unlike Sage One and FreshBooks, Working Point has a few drawbacks that are worth mentioning, most notably its inability to track tasks, its lack of multifaceted project tracking tools and its inability to modify the appearance of templates.
Not a bad accounting program, but seeing that there’s little, if any, difference in price, it’s probably worth overlooking in favour of the others.
Harvest
Yet another favourably reviewed accounting program that boasts nearly everything that entrepreneurs and start-ups require, Harvest has won the hearts of professionals who bill by time, with its superior features that include desktop time-entry widgets for both Mac and Windows operating systems, excellent timesheet management features, and even handy start/stop timers that make tracking time a breeze.
There are a few cons to this popular program, most notably its lack of an automatic logout feature – an important feature that accounting software should boast – and the fact that it doesn’t support free access for client and collaborators.
But, barring these two drawbacks, Harvest has proven to be a very popular accounting program indeed.
With accounting programs such as FreshBooks, Harvest, Sage One and Working Point on the market, entrepreneurs and start-up founders now have access to accounting programs that make accounting tasks a cinch for growing businesses, not to mention an alternative to QuickBooks if they wanted one.
It it worth mentioning here that QB (QuickBooks) is also available on the cloud platform. For example, you can easily access your QB software using a Azure WVD by Hosting QuickBooks Enterprise on Cloud. Again that would be an individual choice to opt for the suitable option.
Take note of these popular, well-received accounting programs when sourcing new software for your business accounting, bookkeeping, and project management needs.
(Flickr / Dennis Wong)
Guest author Emma Weigall is a freelance writer for Accountz, one of the leading providers of accounting software for helping customers achieve financial success. A company that has been recognised with a number of acknowledgements and awards in their sector.
