Peachtree vs. Quickbooks accounting software

[bcrogers]

I am currently using Quickbooks for another business but not using it for my ecommerce retail music book business. I'm tracking everything manually at this point but am trying to make a decision on accounting software and the inventory aspect is my main area of concern. It seems that Quickbooks' lack of costing methodolgies (uses average cost only rather than LIFO/FIFO options) is a serious drawback since our product costs do fluctuate from time to time. In my research of Peachtree, I see that it is more flexible and allows other cost methodologies. Can anyone else share your experience in regard to this issue tell me about any other accounting software that you might recommend for a small retail business? Thanks.

[DMuse]

I haven't used PeachTree myself, but here is a review of it.
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.co...le.php/3367511

Depending how on tightly you want to tie in your e-commerce operation with your accounting package, you may want to take a look at NetSuite. It's a Web-based app, so you'd how to be comfortable with that type of hosted product.
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.co...le.php/3405611
--Dan

[goldndog]

We are an ice cream company that manufactures and sells via both wholesale and retail. Currently we are seeking an integrated solution with an accounting software and our new POS (point of sale) software.

Our POS has an excellent and extremely detailed database of all inventory that comes into the plant tracks it through to sales, plus both retail and corporate customer tracking. It generates POs for our wholesale accounts and tracks receipt of our ordered items. It links all of our retail stores. Also our accounts receivables from our wholesale accounts. We can pull detailed reports that we need not just for our internal use but also for FDA.

Ok great right but...

We were using Quickbooks but daily receipts, AR, tax and current value of our inventory daily had to be entered manually. We are considering Mybooks. Have not received an email response yet to our question about importing daily data. Our POS (6th Sense) operates on a MAC/unix network. It can export to any number of industry standard formats.

Help we are looking for something not just for today but that we can continue to grow the company. We also do not want to spend $10,000 to import daily data if we can help it.

Thanks,

[bpjsurf]

I have set up several online businesses to work directly with Quickbooks. It works well as far as order processing and inventory management however there are some limitations. If you have more then 5000 products or if you receive more then 100 orders a day I would suggest a more robust accounting system. Quickbooks pro & enterprise work real well if your under those thresholds.

I have a several cleints running an online store both wholesale and retail as well as point of sale all integrated into a single company in Quickbooks.

Brian

[DMuse]

Joe, what's your affiliation with SAP Business One?

[bpjsurf]

Joe
Like you I to sell solutions to SMB marketplace. I would be interested in taking a look at the solution to understand how competitiive this new solution is compared to others we sell. Can you tell us do you have any cleints who currently are using this SAP solutions with ecommerce module? If so Can you please share the URL so we can look at the shopping cart functionality? Also I would be interested to get competitive pricing on the solution. When I requested information from SAP it was like an interrogation process from siberia. Can you give us a standard license price for the software and ecommerce module?

In addition does SAP offer a reseller program. I would consider signing up as a partner if the discounts were good. What discounting teir do you operate on with SAP?

Brian

[bpjsurf]

Joe if its true that you have "several cleints" using their ecommerce module please provide a domain / URL so we can view the sites as samples. The more example sites the better

As well please give us some ideas on pricing for the software. Surely if your reselling the software and your out promoting yourself as a solution provider then you must have some details on Pricing. IF the solutions are priced in the right range for SMB then its worth a look. If the liciensing is too expense then its not worth the time. Please share the pricing with us all to see.

[muzikman3161@ya]

Very timely question for me personally. I am starting a new biz (hearing center) in one month and have not decided on what accoutning software to use.

I have a 2-person office and will be selling hearing aids, supplies, batteries, etc. In addition I will working with numerous insurance companies submitting claims and what have you.

I do not think I will need the full-blown version of Quickbooks or PeachTree but I need SOMETHING. This is one area I know nothing about. I've heard that QuickBooks is a more seamless program when it comes to integrating with existing software programs and is a bit easier to work with when backing-up my data. That's about the extent of my knowledge when it comes to this side of the business.

I would be interested on hearing from those who have worked with both systems (pros and cons of both)

Thanks for your time.

Peace,

Ben

[DMuse]

Ben,
I've worked only with QuickBooks Pro, but find it quite easy to use -- though we had our accountant set up our Chart of Accounts and basically get the system ready for us. Intuit does offer QuickBooks Simple Start, which may be what you need.

Peachtree also has a strong base of users and it offers First Accounting. And Microsoft is shipping its small business accounting application this fall, which is supposed to be tightly integrated with Microsoft Office. Since you're starting from stratch, you may want to give that a look, too.

If I were you, I'd check in with my accountant or bookkeeper and ask what he or she recommends. Many times, accountant prefer a particular program and life will be a lot easier if you are in sync.

[myredo]

hi guys,
I'm intern in Gects, a Microsoft value added resseller.
I'm doing a research work on Quicks books and Peachtree and would like to know any of you have outgrow Peachtree for quicksBooks.
If it so, what was the limitations you came accross using Peachtree?

[etouchware]

I am currently beta testing a new program which is very promising. It's called OfficePax and it offers shared contacts shared calendar email timesheets invoice management and much more. Check it out!
http://www.officepax.com

[InfoSourcing]

Hi,

If you are a small business owner requiring 2-3 user license then I would suggest Quickbooks as it is very easy to use, you get plenty of accountants who know how to use quickbooks and get you started.

If you are looking to have e-commerce websites then make sure to go for hosted solution to keep your cost at minimum and the decision should be based on whether that e-commerce software has capability to integrate with Quickbooks for orders export.

You can also consider to evaluate MS small business accounting (coming soon) but I wouldn't go live with it just to make sure that it is "bug free". Once you outgrow this solutions then you need to re-evaluate for integrated software like Net Suite ...

Your best bet would be using Quickbooks to get started, also check this website http://www.2020software.com for evaluating accounting softwares.

[bpjsurf]

I would agree with most elements of the last post except the part about going for a "hosted solution". How does a hosted solution offer any advantage over a solution that is not hosted?

To be honest there are a number of rants in communities about "hosted solutions" Basically you put all your eggs in the "hosters" basket and leave your entire business to potential disaster should the hoster "go out of business", "be purchased by a competitor", "discontinue support for the solution as they migrate to new technology" there are a number of reasons why a small business should not go with a hosted solution. Its not a feature its a potential disaster.

Hosted solutions do not cost less to operate then other non hosted solutions and consider that when it comes to cost a merchant is at the mercy of the hoster for many items. An example would be Merchant accounts which many hosted solutions insist that you get a merchant account through the hosted solution provider at a rate which is much higher then the normal. I personally have seen hosted solutions chargeing 2.5% higher then what a merchant could have received had they shopped for their merchant account. In many cases that is a tax on profit which can amount to many thousands of dollars in a year. Also Many hosted solutions charge by transactions, charge by number of products, charge by month and charge by volume of orders.

So be aware that there are many great solutions available to a merchant. Some work with accounting software, some with shipping providers and others with merchant account providers. IF your going to be a successful merchant you have to think through all aspests of a tranaction including the costs for a transaction and then choose a solution which matches your business needs.

Beware of hosted solutions that dump their license fee costs to cut a deal. They only cust their license fees because they know they can recover that cost and make more off a customer from other hidden fees.

I hope that helps.

Brian

[InfoSourcing]

Hi,

Well I agree with your points on hosted solution, let's assume a business owner buys a in-house hosting e-commerce solution and in order to do so he has to plan for the following.

a. Hardware
1. Server - $$$$
2. Internet connection - atleast DSL/Cable with dedicated IP address - $$$
3. Network Management - $$$

b. Softwares
1. OS - $$$
2. Firewall - $$$
3. Backup plans - $$
4. Maintenance against virus, spam, hackers etc - $$$
5. Credit Card softwares such as Payflow Pro/Authroize.net etc - $$$

Oops I forgot to add the most important thing "Time" the business owner got to find some valuable time to setup the hardware and software mentioned above (remember he is just 2 employee size company OR he has to spend $$$$ for hiring consultants to setup the above)

Now should the business owner figure out all of this OR should he focus on his core values, i,e business ?

So there is Pros and Cons in both ways, identify what you have and what you can afford and then move forward. I have worked on both kind of solutions, of course "one size doesn't fit all" and hosted solution may not fit all business owners neither hosting at your own location may not fit everyone ...

[Gromit]

Are you offering it for beta testing...ie, are you affiliated with the company in any way, or are you testing the software in beta form to see if it's right for your own small business?