I’ve just found out about Microsoft Office Accounting via the AccMan blog which referred me to an article on AccountingWeb which says:
I have had a good look at the new program over the last couple of weeks and I have to say it’s impressive. The name tells you why – this is Office Accounting 2008. It’s no coincidence that the US release had to wait for the Business Contact Manager (BCM) add-in for Outlook, which was first released in 2003. Accounts and BCM share the same database, and while you can run Office Accounting 2008 on any PC running XP or Vista, when you see it running alongside Office 2007 it’s pretty awesome.
Office Accounting 2008 is available in two flavours. Office Accounting Express is a free download, and includes all the usual accounting functions – sales, purchases, bank, 20 pre-defined reports and Office integration. On top of that with a view to the rapidly growing number of micro businesses, Microsoft has included an integrated PayPal option which enables you to add a PayPal link to electronic invoices and then import PayPal payment details back into Accounting. Online bank statements in OFX format can be imported.
There is support for VAT accounting which includes cash or invoice accounting.
The other flavour is the Office Accounting Professional version which is available for £149.99, which gives you the follow additional features:
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A further 40 report options
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Stock management - not bill of materials, but it does virtually everything else
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Job tracking
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Sales and purchase order processing
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Business overview dashboard
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Multi-user access with role-based security to control access rights
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Built-in cash flow forecaster
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Multi-currency support
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Microsoft point of sale integration
For the time being if you want the Professional version you will have to install the Express version and then upgrade it. Apparently there will be a retail version available on CD next year.
As I’ve given up on Microsoft Office after finding out that Office XP is not compatible with Windows Vista, I hope the Open Office has something similar soon, until then I’ll be sticking with Sage.
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Office Accounting does appear to be a very good product, but I’m curious why you think Office XP is not compatible with Vista. I’ve run it on Vista just fine and MS also states it is compatible.
I’m always looking for problems like this to solve, so more information would be nice.
thanks
David
To me, being compatible with a new OS means it has 100% of the functionality that it did on the previous OS. Office XP does not achieve this. Most notably (and the problem that drove me to move to Open Office, Firefox and Thunderbird) is the fact that Outlook looses the ability to save passwords. It’s a PITA to have to re-enter my password every time it checks my email, especially as I have around 20 pop3 accounts.
When I had this problem I searched the Web and found there are some workarounds involving scripting but that they don’t support multiple pop3 accounts and there was no official support from Microsoft. I’m sure I could have spent a bit of time tweaking the scripts to resolve my issue but why bother, switching to Open Office, Firefox and Thunderbird was quick and easy and it offers some really useful functionality that MS Office doesn’t.
John,
good point on the password bit - what do you get in your new combination that you didn’t get before?
thanks
David
The ability to create PDF’s directly from my documents.
A lower total cost of ownership (it’s free to start with, but also easier to install and keep up-to-date).
A good spam filter built into the email client.
Some of which later versions of MS Office might have but I’d paid for and was happy with Office XP, I didn’t expect to have to waste time trying to make it work only to find out I’d have to buy a new copy to do so. The time wasted was far more expensive than the damn software would have cost.
I’ve never wasted anywhere near as much time with open source software…