

Ask HN:  Do you use online accounting software? - kaiserama

I absolutely hate quickbooks, but it's mostly my own fault as I just don't put forth the effort of doing my books on a monthly basis.  I think it would be less painful for me if, I didn't have to fire up my PC and use the horrible UI either, and rather just imported my bank statements and do everything online.<p>So I'm curious what others use.  I have looked at IAC-EZ which seems like a good solution, however if I've learned anything its that there's usually something better that I just haven't heard before.<p>The only features that I would want beyond QB is to sync with bank account and have online access...and to suck less.<p>The business I'd use this for is a very simple consulting side business.<p>Thanks in advance!
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jacquesm
No, I would never put critical financial information online, I just about
trust my bank not to mess up with my account information but that's as far as
it goes.

But that really is my only reason 'against', on the other side of the ledger
(pun intended) there are plenty of 'pros', such as the ability to stay current
with the tax rules without upgrading your software.

If you use an online accounting service make sure they allow you to export
your data in some common format so that you can back it up yourself. Most of
these companies will of course do their very best to make sure that you don't
lose your data (one should assume) but if anything should happen then you, not
they, are responsible as far as the IRS is concerned.

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kaiserama
Great points, thanks for the reply. I will likely ask my accountant what his
opinion is, of course I'm pretty sure I'll know what he has to say, but it'll
be interesting to hear his reasoning.

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RobGR
You might look into various bank's online software. Some banks have a
"business account" that has a really simple accounting system built in, that
is a double-entry system with 4 accounts. I think Wells Fargo is one such
bank.

Another thing you might look into is installing and configuring SQL-Ledger or
LedgerSMB. Setting that up turned out to be too much of a time sink for me,
given what I expected to get out of it. That was several years ago however,
and since then I have picked up more common sense bookkeeping and the code has
progressed a lot.

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jcapote
I've been using freshbooks.com and I'm loving it

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kaiserama
I looked at this and think I'll use this for timetracking/invoicing, but from
everything I've read it doesn't handle accounting tasks. One of the reasons
I'd like a full accounting application is to have it estimate my quarterly
taxes (so I wouldn't have to pay my accountant).

