
Ask YC: accounting help - codilechasseur
For those of you with small home based businesses or a business on the side. How do you keep track of invoicing and payables/receivables? I'm using Quicken Home and Business 2008 and it's nice and all, but I just want to invoice and know what's outstanding etc.. I don't need to micro manage an investment portfolio or know what the interest on $10 is going to be in 5 years.<p>An online solution would be ok. Better if it combines my home and business together.
======
thinkcomp
QuickBooks isn't the only option. My startup makes this:

[http://www.thinkcomputer.com/software/exponent/enterprise.ht...](http://www.thinkcomputer.com/software/exponent/enterprise.html)

and we use it to run everything. And it runs on Macs.

------
jlogic77
Without sounding like a broken record... Quickbooks.

It's also easy to just give your accountant the qb file for taxes. I'd advise
to stay with the non-online version. When I was looking at it awhile ago it
didn't have everything I needed, also you always want access to your books.

------
fnazeeri
Quickbooks is the only way to go. The fact that you already use Quicken will
help you in getting up to speed.

Also, definitely go for the online service Quicken offers (as opposed to the
shrink wrapped s/w.

------
subwindow
Try to avoid Intuit (Quicken/Quickbooks). They have a monopoly, and it is
unfair.

I tried for a bit to compete with them, but the banks are complicit and it is
impossible to provide proper account import functionality with the way things
are now.

That said, try Less Accounting (<http://lessaccounting.com/>) or Harvest.

~~~
mattmaroon
Some people care much more about efficiency than your perception of fairness.
For them, Quickbooks is a pretty clear answer.

Ability to just hand it over to your accountant is a must.

------
madmotive
<http://freeagentcentral.com> is the best web based accounting system there
is. I've used Freshbooks and Blinksale before but these guys handle almost all
accounting needs end to end for a small business. Although primarily UK based
they have a universal version that works world wide.

They also have a beautiful API so we can fill in any gaps very easily
ourselves and they're adding new features every week... and they are probably
one of the top users of <http://getsatisfaction.com>.

------
brk
Quickbooks. It's almost a small-business industry standard.

The nice thing is every small accounting firm or contractor I've ever come
across knows Quickbooks. This means you can often email them your accounting
"database" to have them do a sanity check or cleanup remotely. Makes it easy
to collaborate without having to pay for on-site consulting time.

I have personally used Quickbooks on startups through the first few million in
revenue.

BTW, your "home" and "business" worlds are completely separate. Don't
commingle them.

~~~
hbien
I'm on a Mac, and I've heard a lot of complaints that Quickbooks can't
transfer data back and forth between Mac/Window machines. I imagine a lot of
accountants use Windows.

~~~
brk
I'm on a Mac also, and thankfully haven't had to worry about this for the last
few years :) And yeah, I've never met an accountant on Windows.

I'm OS agnostic, I prefer to use what I think is the best solution for the
problem. With that in mind, it might be worthwhile to look into a windows
machine to run QB. You can rdesktop to it (there is a great rdesktop app for
the Mac), and when you get to the point of having a part-time accounting
person come in, the PC will already be all set up for their use. This is what
I did in the past (dedicated low-end PC for "hosting" QB).

~~~
donw
I think there's a lot more mileage in running Windows under VMWare Fusion or
Parallels, than in having an entire machine dedicated to doing nothing but
running Quickbooks.

Might help the balance sheet out... :)

------
mightybyte
On the open source side there's Gnucash. It's a full double-entry accounting
package that I've used for years. It's been awhile since I've used any Intuit
products, but Gnucash is working fine for me.

------
tonystubblebine
I use blinksale and love it for invoicing. Not sure if that covers all your
needs.

------
jbrun
using harvest for invoicing, probably going to get quickbooks for the rest -
seems to be the standard.

------
bradleyjoyce
freshbooks?

