Business accounting software

[pinnies4me]

Thanks every one
Glad to see nobody  suggesting that I use the online prograns

Seems myob is the go,

I have yet to find anyone in business that I know who is confident with fully cloud based systems, and have way too many horror stories to be prepared to go that route with anything important.

The provider of our client control software developed the software into a cloud based system.....

I was invited to evaluate it just prior to first release - and lost a lot of time and work. I gave them my input and they have redesigned it incorporating my primary fix, so that it is less completely cloud based, but I am still very wary of it. To the extent that I am reviewing the competitors to source a local instal based system to replace it.

[MartyJ]

Thanks every one
Glad to see nobody  suggesting that I use the online prograns

Seems myob is the go,

Definitely worth spending time talking to them first, to make sure its the right option for you.  Generally their consultants have a good understanding of accounting practices.

As for the cloud solutions....I'm not sold on this for accounting / book keeping stuff.  If customer details got out / leaked you would be in the firing line first.
As long as you password protect your MYOB company file (or which ever program you end up with) is first level protection.
Obviously is someone was to steal your computer, the data would be on it but a complex password will slow them down and shows due care has been taken.

The good thing about MYOB is that it pretty much forces you to do a backup everytime you shut it down.  A friend I help setup has a two stage backup.  An external hard drive is connected to the computer and does a backup every morning.  He has a USB drive that backs up the MYOB file when he closes out each night and takes that home with him.  That way if the computer / backup hard drive are lost there is still a copy at home.

Local storage (ie hard drives) will be a thing of the past in the next few years.  Cloud storage is taking over and certainly has its advantages, but time will tell.

[Pop Bumper Pete]

There is a $10 trail version
Might try that

[pinball god]

Cloud worries me too just like when shopper petrol dockets came out, banks and the big boys not charging credit card fees, an so on. Once we lose another option in purchasing kinda rings bells for me. 

[Retropin]

I too use a basic Excell spread sheet.
List date... customer.. amount invoiced.. GST.. total with GST.
Add columns at end of every quarter and Bobs your uncle.
I haven't found an easy way to do a BAS yet apart from just handing over a ton of receipts to someone else to do, but it all gets logged in a different spread sheet and my accountant gets both at tax time.
Bottom line.. ANY paperwork is  painful if like me you were not born to do any type of office work.
I bloody hate it with a passion

[Slash]

Honestly once you are set up initially in MYOB, if you enter your transactions regularly (which isnt much more difficult than entering them into an excel spreadsheet), running your reports and filling out your BAS takes a matter of minutes.

I take a bit longer than a few minutes at BAS time (but not much) simply because I like to double check stuff and make sure it all looks intuitively correct.

As I said before you can make MYOB as simple or elaborate as you need. You can run most transactions through only a handful of accounts or make it as detailed as you want, using lots of accounts and card files etc etc if you feel that helps or your business really needs to break stuff up a lot more for say analysis and planning.

[The pinballist formally known as Dean Morgan]

I use Xero in my business and love it.  Anyone can log in from any PC, my accountant, business partners etc.  pay a low monthly fee ....simple

[soundasleep]

One the business owner forums I'm on has a lot of Xero users. Unfortunately it also has some Xero reps so it's hard to get a good judge of quality.

But I haven't heard anybody complain yet...