Simply Accounting versus QuickBooks

[tweetie]

My husband and I just incorporated our business and am trying to select the best software for us over the long term. We've got demo versions of both, and read internet reviews on both, but I would love some hands-on experience as to which one is better.

Our business is pretty simple - service based, 3 employees for payroll, if that helps. Thanks for any opinions!

[Just Confused]

Just some thoughts.

Ask your accountant which one she/he uses (or prefers). Then you can be compatible with her/him when you visit at year-end?

Are you comfortable or fluent with either one of them? The devil you know is often easier.

Are you sure you need full blown accounting software for your small business or would a simple spreadsheet be good enough to keep your books?

I'm a small business (my wife and 2 kids are technically employees too) and we can keep everything on a spreadsheet. I invoice 4-5 times a month and we have maybe 30-40 expense entries per month. It depends on how many transactions your service business will be generating?

We do dividends rather than salary so it may be simpler for us. Especially if your employees are arms-length, then your business is more complicated than mine.

[wheel]

Consider Quickbooks.

Quickbooks is more for business owners to manage their own stuff. Simply accounting is more of a package that an accountant or larger business might use. It's probably technically a better system, but quickbooks is likely to be more intuitive and easier to use. For example, quickbooks will probably let you delete a screwed up entry. It's possible that simply accounting won't let you do that, you'll have to enter a reversal entry. Accountants are odd that way, they don't want entries deleted.

Your accountant is also likely to have current copies of quickbooks to read your datafiles (not that I said this, but just give him a copy to read your data files if he doesn't have one). It'll should also produce pretty much every type of report your accountant will need.

and for a few hundred bucks, skip the spreadsheet option unless you're really just starting out. Quickbooks, once you get the hang of it should be quicker to operate. Plus it'll do stuff like give you tax reports (for when you're submitting PST/GST to the gov), sales, outstanding invoices, and so on.

I use MYOB for my stuff which is similiar to quickbooks. If my software ever blows up I'll move to quickbooks (MYOB isn't supported in Canada anymore).

[wheel]

P.S., funny avatar :).

[mrcantrell]

Quickbooks. Much easier to work with without knowing accounting. You might think about spending a few bucks to have your accountant set up all of the General Ledger accounts for you.

[Jim123]

Another vote for QuickBooks Pro.

[Derek]

Quickbooks at RFD as well. Like everyone else is saying, it's just much easier to use.

[van]

Yup, Quickbooks all the way.

[Canucklehead]

I use Simply Accounting Pro and am totally pi$$ed that I didn't use Quickbooks. The support for SA is horrible and there seem to be many more Quickbook savvy accountants, forums and other sources of assistance to help you use the software to its full potential.

Go for Quickbooks!

[sledbc]

quickbooks pro with the payroll feature is simply awesome. My acct uses simply but at year end i just print out a general ledger for her and all is well.

[tweetie]

Thanks so much for the input... our accounting firm uses both QuickBooks and Simply Accounting so he said it didn't matter which one we got.

We were previously using Excel spreadsheets when we were both self-employed and it was okay at that point, but our accountant said not to do that anymore now that we're incorporated.

I was just a bit surprised at the price difference, but looks like I'll go with Quickbooks! Thanks again :)

[Canucklehead]

Arghhh...look at the TCO - total cost of ownership, not just the acquisition cost of the product.

[wheel]

but looks like I'll go with Simply Accounting! Thanks again :)
Despite 100% of people here telling you otherwise? Alrighty then.

[Jim123]

And you asked for opinions why?

[tweetie]

Oops, brain fart - I meant to type QuickBooks! That's what happens if I post before my morning coffee! (Edited original reply)

[timv]

The company I work for is a Quickbooks and Simply partner. We always lean toward and suggest to our clients to use Quickbooks if they're just starting out. It is much easier to use than Simply.

[smartcdn]

in another post on RFD, someone mentioned that simplay accounting 2008 is getting to be more like quickbooks. is this true?

[Canucklehead]

I use Simply Accounting Pro and am totally pi$$ed that I didn't use Quickbooks. The support for SA is horrible and there seem to be many more Quickbook savvy accountants, forums and other sources of assistance to help you use the software to its full potential.

Go for Quickbooks!

I've made the switch to Quickbooks for FY08. No problems - much easier than Simply Accounting.

[vienna6]

One major drawback of Quickbooks (2008 and 2009) is that the multicurrency feature is gone. A lot of Canadian businesses deal with US suppliers and/or customers, so that is a glaring omission for those businesses.

[slavka012]

Yes, I do a lot of transactions in USD and CDN as well, and I needed two currency support. Two currencies, two users, version of QB cost like ten times the price of of SA which I picked up for about 150CDN.

SA does the job, but my god, for a s/w released in 2008 it is just CRAP CRAP CRAP. It is slow as hell and it has a number of annoying and totally artificial limitations, like it does not allow you to adjust anything in previous year, or you can't see two invoices at the same time, only one. Or you can't take an invoice and create a new PO from it(repeat order). The list goes on and on. And I only do pretty basic accounting (well my admin actually does it :) ) -- sales and purchase invoices, that's it. No balance sheet, no inventory, only basic payroll.

I could not believe how crappy it was when I got it. I mean, take any other piece of s/w -- office, email, graphics editor, web-browser. After more than a decade of evolution ALL of the options on the market in these categories tackle a basic job with ease. And the SA? It's just a disgrace.

That's my rant :) But I still would not pay 1500 for QB :)

[robtheaccountant]

I've used both softwares. Quickbooks is definitely better, especially if you decide to grow your business and eventually have your finances outsourced.

[ltrahan]

I get a lot of requests from people looking for Simply and Quickbooks training - Quickbooks is a lot easier to find and seems to have a lot more support available out there.