Most small businesses I know use Quickbooks but other than the trusty Excel spreadsheet is there something a bit more robust for tracking expenses,travel etc?
Harvest is great. We use them to track our time as well as to bill our clients. However, I think OP is asking more accounting rather than tracking/invoicing clients apps.
If you are a business, you have an accountant. If you have an accountant, use a tool that the accountant can handle. They all know Quickbooks. Use the PC version or the Online version. The Mac version is shit and my business is all-Mac so I would use it if I could. You will have payroll. QB Payroll is painless and relatively cheap. I'm a tax lawyer and I won't touch doing payroll tax stuff. Too nitpicky.
Kashflow in the UK is good. Xero is another to look at. But only if your accountant is using them.
Do. Not. Be. Your. Own. Accountant.
Also, if you have any outside Investors they will want clean financials. QB operated by an acccountant. If you hope to bring in Investors later and you have shit financial records -- or just amateur hour financial records -- the natural thought in Mr. Wallet's brain is "They can't handle their own money, why should I give them mine?"
All comments above learned the hard way, via pain. :-)
I have no particular love for Intuit. QB is the Windows of small accounting systems. The Mac version is the despised bastard offspring despised and ignored by it's mother. But until you're bigger or until a plausible alternative arrives, use it.
I think the break-point will be at a couple of million of revenue. Above that and growing? Migrate to an industrial-strength package with dedicates bookkeeping people in house.
To put it another way, these "accounting" packages are more about book-keeping and report generating - all useful, but no substitute for the advice from a human accountant who can advise about tax-efficient structures for your particular circumstances.
I like FreshBooks(http://www.freshbooks.com/), it can link up to my time tracking app quite easy. And with it, I can outsource tasks and manage the billing quite easily. Invoicing with pdf is also helpful too.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] thread(I'm not affiliated, just a happy user)
Kashflow in the UK is good. Xero is another to look at. But only if your accountant is using them.
Do. Not. Be. Your. Own. Accountant.
Also, if you have any outside Investors they will want clean financials. QB operated by an acccountant. If you hope to bring in Investors later and you have shit financial records -- or just amateur hour financial records -- the natural thought in Mr. Wallet's brain is "They can't handle their own money, why should I give them mine?"
All comments above learned the hard way, via pain. :-)
I have no particular love for Intuit. QB is the Windows of small accounting systems. The Mac version is the despised bastard offspring despised and ignored by it's mother. But until you're bigger or until a plausible alternative arrives, use it.
I think the break-point will be at a couple of million of revenue. Above that and growing? Migrate to an industrial-strength package with dedicates bookkeeping people in house.
To put it another way, these "accounting" packages are more about book-keeping and report generating - all useful, but no substitute for the advice from a human accountant who can advise about tax-efficient structures for your particular circumstances.