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Ask HN: How do you track business expenses?

6 points by flignats ↗ HN
Hey People,

I was curious to see what other startups are using to track their business expenses, accounting, ect. Is there a service out there like Mint.com that can read your paypal info and chop it up into categories for easy accounting?

11 comments

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allanchao
I use Quickbooks 2011 desktop. It's pretty 1995 when it comes to user interface, but it actually does everything I need and want, and I wouldn't move without very good reason. It has the online connecting stuff that you're talking about, but I've heard from a lot of CPAs that using that feature correctly is more difficult than it sounds.

Business accounting is one of the most non-modern fields I've ever seen.

flignats
I use Quickbooks currently and it is great. But, it's robust, unnecessary, and I'm thinking that there are others that are overwhelmed and could use an easy service - especially for startups. I'm not an accountant or in that field, so I hardly pay attention. I was hoping to flush out some hidden gem I wasn't aware of, otherwise, quickbooks gets the job done.
rabble
I tried a ton of things and settled on xero.com it works well. It also has a ton of documentation which explains both how and why. Reading the docs and using the app, teaches you accounting. Pretty neat trick.

If you're not based in the US, then no US based accounting tool will work for you. The americans don't get VAT or multicurrency accounting. Since it's not there from the start, it gets added eventually as a clunky after thought. US companies also very heavily on Yodlee, if your bank isn't in there, you're out of luck. With xero we wrote our own bridge to the bank because they provided an api.

I've got no association with xero, other than being a customer.

flignats
Xero definitely looks interesting - another one I need to take a look at in depth, thx!
nreece
(Shameless Plug) We are working on a service that might interest you: http://costjar.com
flignats
No worries on the plug, I'm asking for sites in this area :) I'll def check it out, thx.
flignats
Update:

I've checked out the suggested sites. I started with Xero, but midway through the beginning of the process of attaching my accounts, I felt like they weren't going to achieve exactly what I wanted. I switched over to indinero and I've just finished attaching my accounts.

Indinero is pretty cool. It's what I wanted, but it has a lot of growing up to do. I'll have to send some feedback over to the guys and suggest some small shortcuts to kill my impatience.

Edit: Double thumbs up though - awesome service you guys have over there!