I promised to let you all know how I made out with “Quickbooks” accounting software from Intuit. Well, I tried it for all last year. I even bought the simple start edition. I am here to tell you that the whole thing is WAY too complicated for a pretty straightforward set of needs.For starters, the program requires that you learn about its infrastructure before you can do anything — general ledger entries, different types of accounts, impenetrable customer files, etc. Second, you have to do a lot of up front data entry work. Third, it simply isn’t set up for a business like mine in which my personal checking account is not just for business, so all the cash flow stuff is pretty messed up. There is no intuitive way to find all the bits and pieces that make up a complete record (expenses are stored in one place, invoices in another, payments in another…) so its hard to track back.
Anyway, with some regret since I did make the investment of time, I’m going back to a simple excel spreadsheet.
I do use Intuit’s Quicken offering for my checking account, and find that useful, but for business, too much complexity.