Radenkovich’s P(a)lace

Microsoft campaign for Office Accounting Express 2007 say it is an essential tool for managing your business finances. Whether you’re a small or home-based business, you can use this accounting program to make pen and paper-based tasks a thing of the past. With the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office, Office Accounting Express 2007 helps you get organized, save time and sell online. Sound nice?

All you need to do is to enter data once so you can save time managing everyday financial tasks. All of your partners data and transactional information is stored in one place so that you can have a complete view of your business. Office Accounting Express 2007 also gives you the tools you need to reach out to millions of potential customers by taking your business online from simplifying sales using eBay to helping making sure that you get paid faster. Third party service required and fees apply for online sales component.

At this time, Office Accounting is designed for US small businesses only, and does not support local requirements of countries outside the US.

With Office Accounting Express 2007, Microsoft proves it’s capable of producing high-quality, free software for the masses. Beneath the clean layout, big icons, and point-and-click interface sits a foundation of solid business features that can benefit almost any company.

The freeware version covers most imaginable needs a business might have for supportive software. Charge customers’ credit cards or manage your bank accounts, payroll, and vendors. You can create and log invoices, quotes, cash sales, and even refunds. Beyond that, the program provides for the modern business, featuring built-in PayPal functionality–an absolute necessity for e-commerce–and a built-in connection to your Equifax profile for looking up credit profiles. There’s also a letter-writing function with modifiable templates, simplifying your communication with clients and vendor.

Full version comes with more features, such as:

• multiple user profiles
• international currency support
• regional transaction tracking
• fixed asset manager

Since Office Accounting Express is part of the Microsoft Office suite, it includes excellent integration with other member of this suite like contact-list integration with Outlook. Unfortunately, the installation is enormous and time-consuming, and it surreptitiously installs Microsoft SQL Server 2005 which take over 1GB disk space. Secret installations do not instill confidence. The “advanced options” screen during the install process allows users to choose different database managers, if they have alternatives, but the choice isn’t explicitly clear.

Overall, Office Accounting Express is an incredible piece of software for business managers. Comprehensive and obviously affordable, Office Accounting Express is hard to beat for business-software value.

PROS

• It’s free
  But knowing Microsoft, for how long?
• Complete
  The product has all the features you expect in an accounting product, like create quotes and invoices, record expenses, process credit card payments, online banking, and even payroll.
• User interface
  It is simple and very intuitive. Simple to get started and use. Can get speed of use by modifying the entry forms exactly like you want them. You can handle all yours main business scenarios with a few clicks and the product is stuffed with intelligence that helps you not make mistakes. If you use Outlook or Word or Excel, you’ll find this easy to use.
• Integration with Microsoft Office: Word, Excel and Outlook
  Office Accounting Express 2007 has been designed to work smoothly with other Microsoft Office system programs. Its integration with Word enables you to customize any documents like quotes and invoices by using existing or new templates.
  The integration with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager helps ensure that all financial and marketing information is available centrally, and changes made in any one program automatically show up in the other. Furthermore, Outlook users can view financial information from within Outlook, use Outlook to create invoices, submit timesheets from Outlook, and track time in the Outlook calendar.
  Reports for business insight can be created in Office Accounting Express 2007 and then exported to Excel, with its rich formatting, for deeper analysis and calculations. The analysis pack included with Office Accounting Express 2007 enables viewing financial data in Excel, PivotTable reports, and Microsoft Office Access reports.
• onLine services integration
  Among the integrated online services available with the products are eBay, PayPal, Equifax, ADP Payroll Solutions, Microsoft Office LIVE and various other online banking and credit card processing services.
  Can send an email using Outlook and provide a PayPal payment option.

CONS

• Ability to sell on Amazon and Yahoo should be added.
• It took a while to download but it was worth the wait.
• Long install (does not tell you that you will be installing SQL Server 2005)
• If you want full inventory support, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro version
• Does not support local requirements of countries outside the US

The Pro versions for mature and growing small businesses of up to 25 employees will be available for $149 at the end of January.

Both versions of the product support basic and advanced accounting features and trying the Express version.