QuickBooks Pro Plus 2011 free Download
As a small business owner, your to-do list is a mile long. It’s stressful enough handling customer demands or vendor requests, but then there’s day-to-day administrative tasks that must be completed as well. While accounting software programs can’t keep tabs on your new competitor down the street, they can at least make one part of your job a little easier.
Sage Peachtree and Intuit QuickBooks own the lion’s share of the small business accounting software market. They both provide excellent solutions to many, if not all of a small business’s bookkeeping conundrums. QuickBooks is usually considered the easiest accounting software to implement for someone without an accounting background. Since many of you probably wake with nightmares about double-entry bookkeeping or cringe at words like ledger, you might assume that this is the best product for you.
But with the recently released Sage Peachtree Pro Accounting 2012, Sage has taken major strides in usability. They now offer intuitive features like Setup Advisor and Sage Advisor, a tool that follows user activity while explaining how the software can handle different tasks (sort of like Microsoft Word’s Clippy, but without those irritating questions).
Head-to-Head: A Cost Comparison
At the Pro level both products come in at the same price: $229. The difference in cost comes another rung up the ladder. Peachtree Complete for a single user is $299, whereas QuickBooks Premier is $399. When multiple users are added to Peachtree Complete (up to 5) the price jumps to $699. On the other hand, QuickBooks Premier’s multiple-user pricing increases per person. Add a second user, and it is $749; add a third and it hits $999.
The problem with this price comparison is that these products aren’t offering the exact same tool set. For example, Intuit has wrapped a wide array of features around its QuickBooks Premier software product, including six industry-exclusive variants that Peachtree only offers in its Premium software line (and they offer just four at that). As you might imagine, Peachtree Premium comes at a premium price, running at $499 for a single user and $1, 199 for users 2 through 5. Saying that though, it packs in even more features than QuickBooks Premier.
An Overview of Essential Features
When it comes to tracking financials, there are simply no substitutes for accuracy, usability or quality reporting. While you can certainly find basic accounting and financial management solutions for little or no cost online, these bare-bones programs typically offer few if any real capabilities. And it’s in usability and depth that QuickBooks and Peachtree both really shine.
