Overview
Microsoft® Office Accounting is an easy to use, comprehensive accounting package that works with other Office applications you already know. Office Accounting 2008 comes in two flavours.
Office Accounting Express
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 is an essential tool for managing your small business or home-based business. With the look and feel of familiar Microsoft Office products, Office Accounting Express 2008 is easy to use and helps you save time, get organized, and do business online. Office Accounting Express is a free download ( Download Ms Office Accounting Express ). This is a permanent policy, not a limited offer.
This version includes all the accounting functions – sales (including quotes), purchases, bank, 20 pre-defined reports and Office integration. 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.
VAT accounting includes cash or invoice accounting and is well controlled by the locking of transactions once a return is finalised. Backdated transactions are automatically picked up on the next return.
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional
Office Accounting Professional 2008 is a complete accounting solution that helps small businesses save time managing everyday financial tasks, get organized, and grow their business online. With its familiar Microsoft Office interface, this program is easy to learn, so you can be productive right away. Smooth integration with other Microsoft Office programs makes information sharing simple and helps boost productivity.
By organizing all of your business information in one place, Office Accounting Professional 2008 helps you find the right information at the right time, so you can make better-informed business decisions. Plus, new features will help you sell products online, get paid faster, work easily with your accountant, and more.
For £149.99 you can upgrade to Office Accounting Professional, which gives you: A further 40 report options, Stock management - not bill of materials, but it does virtually everything else, Job tracking, Sales and purchase order processing, Business overview dashboard, Multi-user access with role-based security to control access rights, Built-in cash flow forecaster, Multi-currency support, Microsoft point of sale integration.
Additional users can be added at £149.99 per user or a three user licence is available at £399.99 , which is the normal multi-user installation Microsoft envisages. However, the software should support up to eight concurrent users and given the choice of SQL Server as the underlying database system it should be quite robust in any multi-user environment.
Payroll is available in the Professional Plus edition at £249.99 , which includes a one year subscription to the payroll service from April 2008 – payroll is free for the remainder of 2007-08, including end of year returns and online filing. The software already has HMRC accreditation. The clever aspect of the payroll option is that while data is held on your PC all calculations are done anonymously online so tax tables don't need to be stored on the local PC, thereby removing the need to update them.