New Kids on the Block

QuickBooks has long been the leader in small business accounting.  Intuit estimates their market share at around 85% and that 4 out of 5 accountants recommend QuickBooks.  This sounds great if you are a QuickBooks stockholder but can they hold on when there's more and more competition.

Here's a review of a three new competitors for the standard accounting program.  I've done the research, now see what you think.

FreshBooks looks good...lots of talk about managing, tracking, sending invoices but when I  got down deeper it seems like all they do is Time Tracking and Invoicing.  Hmm, seems like a lot of money at up to $39.95 a month for Accounts Receivable.   What about Accounts Payable and Expenses, Assets and Liabilities?
On the FreshBooks site you can find out how to integrate their program into QuickBooks, which leads me to a big, huh?

shoeboxed sounds cool but the more I flipped through their site the more  I went, Why?  The company is all about organizing YOU.  There's  an IPhone App so you can take a pix of your receipts, send it to shoeboxed where they'll categorize it and enter the contact info too. Again this program integrates with QuickBooks, and it saves you time and money, right?  Not at this price....Free, which pretty much what most business owners do now.  It steps up pretty fast from $9.95 to $49.95 a MONTH.  Kinda pricey when you're doing the picture taking and sending.  Oh, you can also snail mail your receipts...now that's so last year!

And finally, inDinero, intrigued me.  It's simple to set-up, monitors trends, and there's a cool dashboard.   You can say "Good bye Accounting"  and "Hello, inDinero".  Wow, these guys might really be on to something.  Most of my clients over the past 20 years haven't fully understood the accounting process or terms...this might be just the best thing in years.

But I'm still not convinced and the price is pretty steep.  The Free version allows only 50 transactions a month which isn't much when you're dealing with Invoices, Bills, Checks, and Credit Card charges.  The next level is $29.95 a month and then a whopping leap to $99.95 a month.

I did some simple math.  Let's just call it $100 per month X 12 months and you're at $1200 just for the inDinero.  The transactions have to get into the program whether you're downloading your bank accounts, hiring a bookkeeper, or have staff to do it. 

Back to the QuickBooks website to see what's new for 2011.  Not to be out done Intuit has been busy integrating new features to make "Everyday Tasks More Efficient".     Easily download bank transactions; email Invoices and Statements; Company Snapshots show trends from year to year. 

My recommendation - stick with a full on program.  Everything's in one place and best of all it makes filing your Year End TAXES a piece of cake.