Accounting Software

[kk6mm]

Hi-Our chapter is looking for a program to computerize our finances. We have income from dinners, an annual aviation event, memberships, donations, etc. Our expenses include a lease, utilities, supplies, etc. We have checking and savings accounts. We'd like something that would enable us to categorize income and expenses, ie: donations for Young Eagles events, money spent and received from dinners, etc. Thanks for an help.

[Anymouse]

Your best bet is probably Quickbooks. You may be able to get away with a standard version of Quicken though.

[bookmaker]

I am a CPA and deal with a lot of software. Do yourself a favor and stay away from Quicken. Go with Quick Books at least. Quicken is OK if you just want to track your check book, but if you want to produce any kind of decent historical records, it is not the way to go.

Also, if you are not familiar with the bookkeeping process and computer accounting products, take a class on the software use at your local community college, or get someone who has good experience with that software to help get started and use to using it. Even the best accounting software can be extremely confusing to learn.

Trust me, I make a lot of money straightening out clients attempts to post their own books without some kind of training.

Dale

[Mike Switzer]

The accountant for one of our businesses chose Quickbooks - I absolutely HATE it. (Quicken would be even worse)

I use an old version of MS Money for my engineering business & farm, while not perfect, it works OK, but Microsoft discontinued the product & no longer supports it.

I believe the treasurer for our flying club is using something from Peachtree, which he also uses for his business, he says it is better than Quickbooks.

Another thing to consider, if you want to email invoices Quickbooks will force you to purchase an upgrade every couple years, if you don't they will no longer allow access to the email function.

[bookmaker]

I agree with Mike that there are better programs than Quickbooks. I don't particurlarly like Quickbooks either, but if cost is an issue, that is a place to start. Peachtree is better, but costs more and is not easy to learn either. If you are not experienced in accounting, the learning curve is steep on every system I have seen.

I am glad to see you are looking to keep good records. Regardless of what system you go with, get as much help and experience as you can. Otherwise, you will be a frequent customer at the liquor store.

Good luck.

Dale

[Snowflake]

With respect to the authors behind Quicken, Quickbooks, etc., there is a better bang-for-the-buck option.Gnucash is an open-source Quicken replacement that will do everything your flying club would ever reasonably need. I haven't yet run across something I can't do in Gnucash that I wanted to do in Quicken. It can read the quicken-formatted files you download from your bank, too.

http://www.gnucash.org

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with Gnucash, other than as a satisfied user.