Customer Reviews

Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

In a nutshell, I've used QuickBooks, Money, and Peachtree Accounting off and on for the last twelve years to manage our business. In the end, I sometimes find these programs to cumbersome to outweigh the advantages of a simple file system and hand kept books. However, with the surge in technology and where it can take your business, I find that Microsoft has gone above and beyond in the development of this software. Here is what I really like about this software:

1. It integrates with Paypal and EBay for an additional $10 per month. You can list items for sale on eBay right from this program, and when the item sells, in real time it will update payment status, account for fees, and provides a very easy to use simple accounting system to keep track of everything without spending several hours per week doing this yourself. If you sell on eBay, simply put, YOU NEED THIS!

2. It's integrated with Paypal. When you need to send an invoice, you can include a link to be paid by credit card through Paypal. It keeps things professional and easy. If you don't have a credit card merchant account this is a very good solution, especially for very small businesses that would like to start accepting credit cards.

3. Your accountant can remotely access (with your permission) your books and update them, then synchronize the information back to you to keep your books up to date without in person visits.

4. You can manage your payroll through this system for only $14 per month. They automatically calculate your employment taxes and you can print checks right from this software. This is the cheapest payroll solution I've ever seen. Plus, since it's built in all your business financial information is in one spot and you will get a true picture of your business without cumbersome integration of data from other sources.

5. The templates are amazing. Whether you need to create an invoice or a packing slip, it's there and ready to use. This will save you time and money over hiring a print shop or using another application.

Since this integrates with other Microsoft products such as Outlook, email, and more, you will seamlessly be able to use information across these applications. I really love this product. It did take a few tries to install correctly. Once it was installed I began using it right away. The user interface is familiar so the learning curve is much smaller than if you were to embark on learning another accounting program.

The Microsoft web site has a free trial download of this program, and also has an express version with less features that they offer for free.

Microsoft has been trying to become a serious player in accounting software for quite some time. Office Accounting Professional is an obvious attempt to make a dent in the low end of the market and chip away at the lock QuickBooks Pro 2008 has on that segment. The basic look and function of the program is so similar to Quickbooks, in fact, that one could easily mistake it for the current king of the hill.

To test this product, I set up books for a small business that I recently started and entered a number of basic transactions. While some processes weren't as intuitive as I might have liked, it's relatively user friendly and it doesn't take long to get things done. Like Quickbooks, the internal controls are awful and you can freely edit past transactions with no real audit trail. This is convenient if you make a mistake, but a major no-no for those trying to run a genuine accounting department.

Office Accounting Professional is a competent program for those running a mom and pop business, but would not be sufficient for any more than that. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything here that is a real improvement over Quickbooks and because of that, I don't recommend the product. Because Quickbooks enjoys a near-monopoly in this market, there are several advantages to buying it. Many bookkeepers and tax preparers will be able to take a copy of your data file and do their work, but none of them are likely to have this product. The same is true of pre-formatted check stock and many other things. This is not bad software, it's just not compelling enough to give up the advantages of owning the dominant package.

Microsoft's Accounting Professional is easy to use, easy to learn and actually does what I want it to do: keep my books and track my items. After trying to keep my books in excel, this is like having an accountant around all the time for free. And I tried another one which was so complicated, I ended up ebaying it. Microsoft's Accounting program is highly recommended!

After having been a loyal Quickbooks user since 1999 I'm fed up with the downward spiral of Intuit products. Every new version of Quickbooks is slower, has more bugs, and more popup "ads" and other annoyances that simply make it harder, instead of easier, to get things done. In addition, Intuit's support, maintenance and upgrade policies are some of the worst in the business.

So the above is why I finally decided to check out Quickbook's competition. The street price of MS Accounting Pro 2008 is about the same as Quickbooks Pro. The install went pretty slow--especially converting 9 years of Quickbooks data and transactions. But it completed without any errors or problems.

My data seems to be intact, and for the most part, I've run several reports over various periods that agree with the same reports in Quickbooks. So far so good.

I like Microsoft's interface better than Quickbooks. It's more like other MS Office applications. The product loads much quicker than the newer versions of Quickbooks (which got painfully slow starting with the 2007 edition).

Microsoft has really leveraged integration with other MS Office applications. If you like to use Excel to analyze data, crunch numbers, etc, you'll enjoy how the Accounting Pro software will create custom spreadsheets for you. Likewise, instead of Intuit's clumsy forms editor in Quickbooks, Microsoft lets you use Word to design custom forms (like invoices) however you like.

So why only 3 stars? I have a few major gripes with Accounting Pro 2008:

The online banking is limited in comparison to Quickbooks (of course, online banking took a giant step backwards in Quickbooks 2009 with hundreds of users already complaining loudly). Some giant credit card companies, like American Express, are not even included in the Microsoft list of financial institutions. So if you want to import all those Amex transactions each month, you'll have to manually tell Amex to download a "Microsoft Money" file, and then manually import that file into MS Acct Pro. The software doesn't automate any of it for you.

Even for banks that are on Microsoft's list, the linkage seems very limited compared to what Quickbooks offers with the same banks. Microsoft's help files (and marketing materials) talk about 2-way direct links but I could find any banks that offered them.

The other big gripe are the reports. There is NO custom report facility where you can build a report from scratch. All you can do is modify the existing canned reports. And even that's fairly limited. I have a memorized Quickbooks report that sums the activity in half a dozen accounts. Microsoft can't do it. You're only allowed "up to 5" selected accounts as a filter. That's true for anything where you're selecting items. You only get 5. What's up with that? So I literally can't run my report. I also can't tell it to sum columns. I could export my data to Excel and do it there, but that's a lot of extra work compared to a single click in Quickbooks.

As others have mentioned, you may also not be compatibile with most of the accountants, auditors, etc. in the world. If you're running Quickbooks, you just export a copy of your data file to them. With MS Acct Pro, I'm not sure what you do unless they have the same software?

And then there are the add-ons. I don't currently use any add-ons with Quickbooks, but there are lots of them out there should you need something specific to your business, e-commerce, shopping carts, etc. MS only has PayPal and E-Bay (that I know of). More are sure to follow, however, especially if Intuit keeps going downhill and Microsoft keeps gaining market share.

I'm hoping Microsoft continues to improve the product adding better reporting, better online banking/credit card access, etc. Intuit clearly has lost focus with what their users want. Each new version of Quickbooks seems to have more unhappy customers than the last. At least Microsoft is offering a viable option for many Quickbooks users. That's a big step in the right direction.

I've read the other reviews of this product here, and there are clearly a lot of negatives. Some people find this program too big, some find it too small.
I found it just right.
When I contemplated self-employment, I had several concerns, including whether or not I could actually keep the wolf from the door that way, but my largest was the thought that I would have to keep records of some kind. I don't have a talent for that. When my sixth client sent me a contract, I searched diligently for a book called, say, "The Smallest Amount of Accounting Knowledge You Need to Avoid Getting Thrown in Jail," but didn't find such a thing. All the books I could find seemed to imagine that I was -- well, an accountant.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 doesn't assume this. It is bossy software.
You know what I mean about bossy software. It reminds you to apply payments to invoices and nags you about putting in people's names correctly and won't let you charge people for "June."
In general, I don't like bossy software. Bossy word processing programs often just don't understand complex syntax and don't have as large a vocabulary as I do, and I really don't need my computer to warn me that I haven't been properly introduced to websites.
But the bossiness of this software means that someone like me can put her data in correctly enough to send it off to the accountant -- and there is a system for doing that, too.
I scoffed at the set-up poster, by the way, but it was nice to have some large paper showing all the steps in order. I had no trouble getting the software installed, everything was done by wizards, and overall I found the whole package reassuring.
Now, I have no employees, and I have no interest in eBay, so I sympathize with those who felt that there were more parts to this than they needed. However, I found that this package has just the amount of power I need for keeping track of hours, jobs, clients, income, and expenditure. If I have employees some day, I won't have to learn new software. I can foresee needing to use the banking features, so I'm glad they're there. The extra features don't hamper my use of what I currently need, and I've had the experience before of spending more on trading up than I would have if I'd bought something more powerful to begin with.
I would strongly recommend this package for small businesses.

In using Office Accounting Pro 2008, I have found that my itty-bitty home business is too small to justify using such a program. While the program appears to be a wonderful asset for those with a small business - my business is just too small. I don't really have a need for many of the features.

I do sell my daughters' outgrown clothes on eBay now and then, and there is quite a bit of helpful information for eBay and PayPal users. However, again, I don't do enough to make it worthwhile for me.

Office Accounting Express is available from Microsoft as a free download. It has a lot of similar features and appears to be more what I would need.

I would recommend this for those who are avid eBay sellers, or have a home based business that is more than just you! There are a lot of great features to this that would be better utilized in a business with 3 to 25 employees. From the use I have gotten out of it - it is very easy to use!

- 1smileycat :-)

As a longtime Quickbooks user, I was interested in trying out Microsoft Office's accounting software and seeing how it compared. With a fairly small business of around 25 people, the features of the product sounded like they would suit our company well, and I was looking forward to abandoning Quickbooks as it is a huge memory hog. Installation went well, but it tried to install several programs I didn't need. I strongly suggest first time users run the customized installation and remove anything they don't want, the double check their startup folder and remove the programs it puts there if it is running slowly for you. I have 2 GB of memory and the software seemed fairly sluggish, even compared to Quickbooks. The first thing I did was setup payroll for 5 employees, which was insanely easy to do and took maybe 30 minutes. The interface is easy to use if you're familiar with Vista, since it integrates fairly well with it (and Office). Handling invoices was pretty decent as well, although I prefer the more detailed features of Quickbooks. Office Accounting does integrate with Paypal and Outlook, and Ebay however, which made creating invoices for these transaction very simple, and I could definitely see how it would save time.

For mid to small businesses (10-30 people), Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 is well worth the price, especially when compared to Quickbooks, although I would take Quickbooks over it with larger businesses any day. I got the distinct feeling that Office Accounting is designed more toward the self-employed entrepreneur who has an eBay business rather than mid-sized companies. Smaller businesses should check out Office Accounting Express (which is available from Microsoft as a free download) before paying the money for the full version. It has a lot of the same features and it could be that's all you need.

I'm comfortable with software and usually figure them out quickly. Not so with accounting software. It took time and patience before I finally got the hang of QuickBooks. I thought I'd try Microsoft's accounting software since I'm comfortable with most of the company's software. QuickBooks has some clunky issues with its interface -- an area where Microsoft excels.

I've also used Microsoft Money, but its purposes differ from QuickBooks. Microsoft Money works more for balancing checkbooks and credit cards while QuickBooks and Microsoft Accounting have more features that businesses need.

But after trying Microsoft Accounting for a couple of days, I'm going to uninstall it. First, it's very slow. I thought QuickBooks was slow... until I tried Microsoft Accounting. I think it took too much time and effort to convert a QuickBooks file. It worked, but not all the invoices transferred. I had some invoices in progress and can't find them.

I just don't have the time or patience to learn its multitude of features -- maybe too many especially for small businesses, which adds to the bloat. In playing with the application, it doesn't take as much time to figure out where to go for invoicing, customers, lists, and such. But the functionality behind the interface is too problematic (slow and incomplete).

One of the popular features is the integration with PayPal and eBay for a monthly fee. I occasionally sell on eBay, but it's not enough to justify the cost. While Microsoft Accounting can include a link to PayPal for invoices, I don't think it works with the basic accounts (that accept direct deposits only and no credit cards -- because PayPal eats up too much money.)

It also has a built-in payroll feature that can manage payroll including printing checks for a small monthly fee. Businesses with at least two employees will probably appreciate this while individual businesses don't need it.

Microsoft's templates work better than QuickBook's (one of its weaker areas). QuickBooks templates don't improve much with each version, but I've managed to personalize one for my business and rather use a faster than prettier applications.

What if you've never used an accounting application before, but you've used Microsoft Office products? I don't think it makes a difference in terms of learning the application. Accounting is different from most business applications.

Overall, QuickBooks is faster than Microsoft Accounting, but not as pretty in terms of the interface. If you've never used either application, try Microsoft's 60-day trial version. Or if you don't need a souped up version of Microsoft Accounting, you might find Office Accounting Express 2008 meets your needs and you don't pay a dime.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell -- Intuit does not have a trial version of QuickBooks. If you already use QuickBooks -- you don't need to change unless the cost savings of using the payroll and eBay features make the difference.

Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 is Microsoft's answer to Quickbooks and Peachtree, two companies that have led in the accounting software sector for a number of years. Having used Quickbooks in the past (and still do), I looked forward to the opportunity to test Microsoft's software.

As my intent was to only test this software, I installed the software onto a spare computer so that I did not have to worry that this software would somehow screw up my Quickbooks files. As this software was able to import my data from Quickbooks, I copied it over and imported it into OAP08 -- relatively painless. For the next couple weeks, I entered data into both Quickbooks and OAP08 (tedious, but had to be done!)

If you've familiar with MS Outlook, and other Office applications, the interface will seem familiar, which I'd consider a plus. Integration with other Office applications is also a nice feature. OAP08 seems geared towards the avid eBay seller with its convenient Paypal integration (costs $$ for monthly subscription -- figures!). However, these nifty features does not make up for the fact that OAP08 is SLOW. Admittedly, this spare computer is a bit older...

While MOAP08 does the basics well, like many of Microsoft's other products, its not quite there yet. It may need a few service packs and updates before it performs as well as it should. That said, Microsoft has a solid performer that I may very well look into again when my Quickbook updates expire.

It's clear that with this product Microsoft is trying to make a more serious dent into the accounting market, but I really think they are kind of missing the mark. First, as many Microsoft products these days, it's bloated and slow. Really slow. Even on my pretty new computer. The install is quite daunting and you have to wonder what the heck takes it so much time. Now, I can deal with that if the product itself is worth it, but I'm rather underwhelmed with this one. It's got way too much for the average sole proprietor or small home business like me (Accounting Express is probably a better choice) but it doesn't have what a larger business needs like Quickbooks and Peachtree offer. Some of the features that this shines on, like the PayPal integration, require additional monthly fees, so again, you have to be at a certain level of sales to benefit from them. As others have mentioned, it does seem rather buggy as well, to some degree you might expect that versus very well-used and long-established products but it's annoying nonetheless. One thing to also keep in mind is that a product like Quickbooks is so ubiquitous now that there are HUGE numbers of 3rd party products and APIs that tap into it. It's very easy these days for instance to purchase ecommerce software that will automatically download your web orders and dump them into Quickbooks. Here you are tied to a much more limited amount of options, so something to be aware of.

Having said all that, this *does* do the basics well enough and as usual with Microsoft software, it integrates well with the rest of their products. For me however, it's overkill for my needs and still needs some work to be ready for heavy use.