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Features:
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 is a good accounting software program for small businesses. A basic version called Office Accounting Express is available free of charge.
Office Accounting 2008 boasts more features, tighter integration with other Microsoft Office applications, and data sharing capabilities with eBay and PayPal. Both the free version and the paid full version offer bilingual English and Spanish interfaces. This could be a real boost for Hispanic businesses and their accountants.
Office Accounting Express is available for free, so its worth trying out to see if you like it.
Overall:
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional is recommended for small business users who demand tight integration with Microsoft Office applications such as Excel or Outlooks Business Contact Manager. Small businesses that process payroll in-house will find Peachtree or Quickbooks a better fit for their needs.
Microsoft Office Accounting Express includes all the essential accounting features for service businesses. Office Accounting Professional adds features such as creating purchase orders, tracking inventory, assessing finance charges, support for foreign currencies, manual payroll, and managing fixed assets. Businesses with inventory, merchandise, international sales or payroll will need the extra features in the Professional version.
Importing data from another accounting program can get tricky. Office Accounting will import data from Quickbooks, from Excel, and from Microsoft Money. However, my data from Quickbooks didnt fully import into Office Accounting Professional. As a reminder, be sure to back up all your data before migrating to a new accounting platform.
Office Accounting allows users to manage their eBay listings and PayPal transactions from inside the software.
Who will benefit most from the software? Home-based businesses, vendors doing business via eBay and PayPal, and small Spanish-speaking businesses, and small businesses looking for accounting software for the first time.
Business users should also consider the free version of Quickbooks Simple Start, which may be easier to set up for first-time users
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