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re: Quickbooks. It has now basically bifurcated into an online version and a desktop version, with somewhat different features. QB will in fact walk you throu

re: Quickbooks. It has now basically bifurcated into an online version and a desktop version, with somewhat different features. QB will in fact walk you through an optional setup interview to ask about what your general type of business is (service, retail, etc) and will create a default chart of accounts, which takes care of part of your need (how to categorize expenses). It becomes more complicated when the whole optional layer of "items" used to create invoices and bills gets added in. There is a fixed asset function, but QB is not really designed to calculate depreciation, rather it is normally handled with an annual journal entry based on output from the tax return. It does have some frequent traps for new users, who for example often don't understand "undeposited funds" and end up double-counting their revenue. Or, they don't realize that when they transfer money from say checking to savings, the entry made in one account register is automatically reflected in the other.

mindslight 5y ago
I was using the offline version obviously, in a VM with no network access. I do recall some wizards for setting up accounts, but they weren't applicable to my business. It also didn't feel like such wizards would have changed the UI into operating at a higher level.
- PopAlongKid 5y ago
  It may not be useful to you, but I will add that Quickbooks desktop has a "Home" window that includes a fairly detailed flow chart of most small business processes (e.g. send an invoice, pay a bill, make a deposit, run payroll, make a refund, and so on and so on), and the nodes of the flow chart are interactive links to various input and reporting windows in the program.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Yes it seemed like it would be valuable if you need to send lots of invoices, pay lots of bills with checks, make many refunds, etc. Quickbooks gives you a formal process for doing so, easy ability to generate documents, etc. Automating transaction mechanics can certainly facilitate doing accounting later, but it doesn't seem like what I expected from "accounting" as in the stuff you would normally have an "accountant" do. Rather it seemed that you had to set up most of your own accounting (eg defining the data model of all the accounts), and Quickbooks would help you by entering in data for the transactions types it knows about (and you use it for).
    - PopAlongKid 5y ago
      >it would be valuable if you need to send lots of invoices, pay lots of bills That is actually a very valuable function that QB provides, because it enables the ability to view financial reports on either an accrual or cash basis. For tax purposes, your business is required to choose one method of accounting or the other at the start and then generally stick with it forever. For management purposes, you can in QB view your reports at any time using either method, because it's all based on the same underlying transaction data.

mindslight 5y ago

I was using the offline version obviously, in a VM with no network access. I do recall some wizards for setting up accounts, but they weren't applicable to my business. It also didn't feel like such wizards would have changed the UI into operating at a higher level.

PopAlongKid 5y ago
It may not be useful to you, but I will add that Quickbooks desktop has a "Home" window that includes a fairly detailed flow chart of most small business processes (e.g. send an invoice, pay a bill, make a deposit, run payroll, make a refund, and so on and so on), and the nodes of the flow chart are interactive links to various input and reporting windows in the program.
- mindslight 5y ago
  Yes it seemed like it would be valuable if you need to send lots of invoices, pay lots of bills with checks, make many refunds, etc. Quickbooks gives you a formal process for doing so, easy ability to generate documents, etc. Automating transaction mechanics can certainly facilitate doing accounting later, but it doesn't seem like what I expected from "accounting" as in the stuff you would normally have an "accountant" do. Rather it seemed that you had to set up most of your own accounting (eg defining the data model of all the accounts), and Quickbooks would help you by entering in data for the transactions types it knows about (and you use it for).
  - PopAlongKid 5y ago
    >it would be valuable if you need to send lots of invoices, pay lots of bills That is actually a very valuable function that QB provides, because it enables the ability to view financial reports on either an accrual or cash basis. For tax purposes, your business is required to choose one method of accounting or the other at the start and then generally stick with it forever. For management purposes, you can in QB view your reports at any time using either method, because it's all based on the same underlying transaction data.