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Rating:  - Good product but for businesses not individuals
This seems to be an excellent product, but it is clearly designed for the business user and not individuals, thus, I am not able to really evaluate it fully.
Rating:  - Not for everyone, but just right for me
I've read the other reviews of this product here, and there are clearly a lot of negatives. Some people find this program too big, some find it too small.
I found it just right.
When I contemplated self-employment, I had several concerns, including whether or not I could actually keep the wolf from the door that way, but my largest was the thought that I would have to keep records of some kind. I don't have a talent for that. When my sixth client sent me a contract, I searched diligently for a book called, say, "The Smallest Amount of Accounting Knowledge You Need to Avoid Getting Thrown in Jail," but didn't find such a thing. All the books I could find seemed to imagine that I was -- well, an accountant.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 doesn't assume this. It is bossy software.
You know what I mean about bossy software. It reminds you to apply payments to invoices and nags you about putting in people's names correctly and won't let you charge people for "June."
In general, I don't like bossy software. Bossy word processing programs often just don't understand complex syntax and don't have as large a vocabulary as I do, and I really don't need my computer to warn me that I haven't been properly introduced to websites.
But the bossiness of this software means that someone like me can put her data in correctly enough to send it off to the accountant -- and there is a system for doing that, too.
I scoffed at the set-up poster, by the way, but it was nice to have some large paper showing all the steps in order. I had no trouble getting the software installed, everything was done by wizards, and overall I found the whole package reassuring.
Now, I have no employees, and I have no interest in eBay, so I sympathize with those who felt that there were more parts to this than they needed. However, I found that this package has just the amount of power I need for keeping track of hours, jobs, clients, income, and expenditure. If I have employees some day, I won't have to learn new software. I can foresee needing to use the banking features, so I'm glad they're there. The extra features don't hamper my use of what I currently need, and I've had the experience before of spending more on trading up than I would have if I'd bought something more powerful to begin with.
I would strongly recommend this package for small businesses.
Rating:  - Easy to use and intuitive
As an Excel devotee, I can say that Microsoft Accounting Professional 2008 is an easy convert for someone who's never used accounting software. It has a variety of templates that allow you to set up ways to monitor and track expenses. It has features like how to create purchase orders, track inventory, and run payroll, etc. As a small business owner (very small, employees = 1), I didn't really need all the extra features, but the ones that I did use were pretty intuitive. It does, however, allow me to bill clients an invoice using Microsoft Outlook, and with a nice, professional looking template to boot. It provides easy integration with Excel, allowing me to transfer business reports between the two seamlessly. As a whole, I wish I'd gone with the Express, which is the free version, because supposedly it's got less junk that I don't need to bog down my time, but for the features, I'd recommend Accounting 2008 to a small business owner.
Rating: - It tested my patience...
I was excited to try this accounting system since I occasionally sell various items on eBay and amazon. However, this system had way too many options for my needs, and the installation processes took FOREVER...
The graphics are nice, and it is quite user-friendly for a beginner like me. All in all though, it was too much for my needs.
Rating: - Good for my needs
This is an excellent small business accounting package that has been useful for my needs.
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