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Bookkeeping/Accounting Software


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I would like to ask you folks what software you like in keeping your books and for accounting purposes?

We have old software that we have been using for maybe up towards ten years now and we feel it is time to update with more user friendly and user specific software. I have had my eye on and played with Quick Books but our accountant has know it to have a tendency to crash with larger workloads. He suggests to look at sign shop specific types of software which is fair enough.

Any thoughts.

My apologies, I just saw were I had seen a similar conversation about this type of thing. Which was this very same forum.

TEastin

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  • !llumenati

Most people including me will say Quickbooks. All people who use Quickbooks HATE IT! Do a Google search for "I hate Quickbooks" it's amusing.

I got the notice that my $375 "manufacturing edition" requires upgrading to the 2008 version. Downloading features are now disabled. I have been quietly searching for alternatives, but alas there are none that are compellingly less expensive. And apparently they all require paid upgrades every year or so as well.

Since I rarely use the features in the Manufacturing edition, I am going to downgrade to regular old Quickbooks. I am almost certain that the file formats will not allow that.

But before I do, we also had to upgrade Quicken for our home finances, so I bought for a few dollars more the "small business" edition. I am going to try to see if I can handle just that. My accountant insists that payroll should be outsourced to PayChex or some similar company for liability alone, so I have no need for that feature either.

For those who also hate Quicken, there are some exciting online accounting programs that are coming out, like Mint and Buxfer. But they have a ways to go and are probably best described as betas at this point. Of course there will be paid versions that have all the features you want, but otherwise free with a few banner ads. Maybe there will be a business version someday....

So, after saying all this, one must try to put QB in perspective: It is good for three years (as of now) before an upgrade is required, so in the grand scheme of things it is not a huge business expense, just a bit insulting to have to be put through all those hoops. One must also consider the real cost of your time and effort to migrate to a new software package--how much is a whole day of lost productivity worth to you?

Sincerely,

Garett Churchill

Fluxeon, Inc.

USA

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  • 3 weeks later...

My issue is that I have an older version of quick books pro at home that shows to do everything and more compared to the program we currently use at the shop. Our main concern with the shop program is the lacking ability to store and access customer/job information. Playing around with the quick books at home I can easily do all the things noted to be wrong with the shop program (which is an old Sage product) and more. So we talk with our accountant and his concern is that he has been told that quick books doesnt handle high volumes of infomation well, the program apparently likes to crash. Ok, maybe the features and price of quick books is to good to be true. So we start looking at the sign shop specific programs and wow! what a cost. I have one quote for $3300 per license, if I understand the quote right, plus a $400 monthly fee. This just seem to be to much.

Garrett, does this volume thought concern you? Does anyone else know anything about this?

TEastin

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  • !llumenati

To be sure I am not a large volume shop. but that smells like BS to me to say that the program will crash. It has a terrible user interface but I have never had any problems with crashing.

Sometimes accountants have hidden agendas with their recommendations. For example, my accountant did not want me to upgrade to the Manufacturing edition, when I pressed her she finally confessed that she would have to spend an entire day in a seminar to be certified to get the accountant's edition of the Manufacturing edition....

Just one of many reasons why everyone hates QuickBooks! Unfortunately it is still probably the best solution out there for many small companies....

Sincerely,

Garett Churchill

Fluxeon, Inc.

USA

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  • 3 years later...
  • Board Patron

Since this is the question I wanted to ask - I'm just bumping this topic to the top. We use Peachtree and while I like it, I can't stand Sage :wallbash: (the company that puts out PeachTree). I get sales pitches from them all the time, but I just want the problems I have fixed. If they spent as much time fixing the problems I encounter rather than giving me a sales pitch, I'd be happy. I was thinking of changing to QuickBooks eventually - any other suggestions?

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I've been using QuickBooks for 13 years without problems. You do have to upgrade every 3-4 years, but then what software doesn't require this. I've never had any problems with crashing, and I think it's fairly easy to use. I don't know about high volume, don't really know what would be considered high volume. We write 3-4 thousand invoices per year and that hasn't been problematic. Just over two years ago we bought Cyrious software to do our invoicing and estimating, but still use QB for accounts payable and accounting functions. Cyrious is a very time intensive program to set up, I spent over 3 months working on it, and still found lots of things I missed or did wrong when we went online. It does make your estimating very professional looking, estimates are the same regardless who does them, and updating material or labor prices is very easy and quick. It is a very expensive program, and you really need a dedicated server to run it. I have 4 licenses and the cost was over $8000, plus I had to buy a server. Just my 2 cents worth.

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We use Quickbooks Manufacturing Edition and it works well for us. We also tried Cyrious, but after over a year of trying to set it up to work for our internally illuminated signs we finally decided to cut our losses ($10,000) and give up the fight. We just went back to Quickbooks. We liked the "idea" of Cyrious, but could never get it to set up correctly for our purposes. We had several on-line training sessions scheduled with Cyrious that they did not keep, and when we did finally get a training session we seemed to know more about the software then the trainer. It was frustrating. They were also unresponsive to our complaints. Quickbooks is not perfect, mind you, but it is actually an inexpensive reliable product compared to the latter.

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Have looked at Cyrious and dataSign. Any more comments on either of these from people actually using them? Any other products available that would encompass estimating, production, service, install, and accounting? :scratchhead:

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Since my business has turned to contract installs and maintenance I've gone from basic Quickbooks to the contractor edition. We do our own payroll in house using Quickbooks which updates any changes in the tax code automatically. I've not had any problems with it crashing.

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