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David E.
360 posts
and
14 followers
in over 10 years
in over 10 years
Who does thier own accounting, and what software do you use?
Ever since I started DML Woodworks, I’ve been simply tracking everything using Excel. Everything from bank reconciliation to financial statements. It hasn’t been overwhelming yet, but hopefully it will get to be in the future. I’m looking into accounting software to help keep me in check, and was curious to see what everyone else was using.
I’ve started setting up Wave accounting yesterday, and so far my reaction to it is mixed.
Pros:
Its free to use
Cloud based, so it can be accessed from anywhere
Does what I need it to do + more
Connects to your checking account making bank reconciliation easy
Reporting is a fairly easy with their canned reports
Cons:
“integration” with Etsy / Paypal doesn’t pull in fees, so those have to be entered manually
The revenue is already transferred to my business account, so it ends up being accounted for twice and needing to be edited / cleaned up, which is difficult when the amounts don’t match up because the fee’s haven’t been accounted for.
Crashes Internet Explorer when I try to access it from my day job
To view your GL account balances, a report has to be pulled. No big deal, just not what I’m used to.
The fact it crashes IE at my day job is the biggest con for me. I don’t get much time to be on the computer at home, so being able to check on things from work would be huge.
I’d love to know what everyone else uses, and how they like / dislike it.
Have a great day!
David
7 Replies
I’m assuming when you say “check on things from work” you are referring to DML Woodworks?
Nope…I’m referring to my day job. DML is just a part time business for me at this point.
David, since no one has answered I can only assume that one of three things is happening.
1. No one owns their own business,
2. No one uses accounting software,
3. No one visits this site to answer your question.
Personally, I used Quickbooks. It met my every need.
Perhaps we should add one more category on the above assumptions:
4-The accounting package they use is not the kind suited for the need at hand.
Abbas, Castro Valley, CA
My wife is a bookkeeper – she swears by Xero. It is cloud based, has an enormous range of add-ons that can be used with it and, apparently, has a good user interface.
Not free though. Also, I am in Oz so I do not know what penetration Xero has in the US market. Being cloud based though, that may not be a big deal unless you want to interface to a local accountant.
Thanks for the feedback. I know it’s not an exciting topic!
I looked at QB online, and it seemed excellent, and has a solid history backing it up. Only reason I went with Wave was because its free to use. I’ll be checking out Xero as well, as it looks to be very capable as well. Thanks for the suggestion Tootles!
I have had several small companies and have always used QuickBooks Pro. Easy to learn and reasonable prices. I also use them for my personal bookkeeping with a simple program that is like a glorified checkbook system. The downside to this type of program is they continually try to sell you upgrades… which means “different”, which means sometimes you can’t find their new way to do something you need to to do. I still have my program from 2002 on my computer, but it no longer works because of a font problem. I keep it because about once a month an old customer from one of my defunct companies will call and I can look them up and sometimes help them out with their problems. If you are proficient with Excel, you can build your own system. However, if generating professional looking invoices, purchase orders, quotes, packing lists, statements and tax support data is your goal… get Quicken QuickBook Pro or one of the other programs.
