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Software Editorial / Windows Reviews / Office & Business / Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 Professional
Software Editorial / Windows Reviews / Office & Business / Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 Professional
Microsoft have provided a complete accounting solution to the small business owner, and as most business owners are familiar with Microsoft Office then they will really appreciate how this application looks and works like Word and Excel. One of the outstanding points that stuck in my mind is the simple and intuitive way that Microsoft software developers have presented the features and tools within this brand new application.
Before we get into more detail about this product, Microsoft have released 2 different versions to help the very small business right up to businesses with 20 or more employees.
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 - Free
The Express version is free and offers a great deal for self employed and very small businesses, the only difference are higher end features such as “Stock Control, BAC Payments and Multi user, and Multi-Currency support.
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 - £149.95 - £349.95
* Adapted to the UK market, so their is complete support for British VAT
The first thing you notice after a reasonably paced installation process is the three step startup wizard, which assists the entry level user to set up the company details as well a set of accounts based on the type of business the user is associated with. Once this is set up you are not left alone to your own devices, you are still guided even further with a “Quick Start” window which gives you links to the most popular tasks that a book keeper would use. Microsoft truly holds your hand throughout the learning curve. What impressed me was the logical and clear way the graphic user interface is set out, various windows are strategically placed so you are never far way from the information you truly need to reference or use. The more you use it, the more you realise that this is very similar to Microsoft Outlook 2007, the initial page displays a dashboard that gives you an overview of various aspects of account keeping for example balances, reminders, and very importantly a cash flow chart that is customisable as well as the feature of adding and removing content. Also everything is linked to various areas of your company / customer and clients, it is interesting to note that you can track your data either through a flowchart view or as a text only option.
A major feature has to be its ability to integrate with Microsoft Office applications at the highest level, this is best illustrated through its relationship with Outlook's Business Contact Manager (BCM), the customer relationship plug-in. Accounting and BCM share the same database, so there's no need to synchronise data between them. Outlook contacts appear as customer records in Accounting, and Outlook users can view Accounting's financial data and reports even if they don't have Accounting installed. Conversely, appointments or projects can be marked as billable in Outlook, ready for invoicing in Accounting.
What’s so great about this package!
Here are some outstanding features and benefits :
Get up and running quickly.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 is easy to set up and use, just like other Microsoft Office programs. The Startup Wizard helps you get started quickly so that you can create your first invoice and are able to receive payments. The wizard imports your existing data from other programs such as Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Money, and Intuit QuickBooks so that you don’t have to start from scratch. The Resource Center offers a single location to access helpful information such as an accountant finder, product demonstrations, community tools, and other product resources
Save time on everyday tasks.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 simplifies everyday tasks: you enter data once and then reuse it across commonly used Microsoft Office programs, avoiding tedious reentry and errors. You can create quotes and later convert them into invoices with just one click. Now you can convert sales orders to purchase orders and automatically generate purchase orders based on inventory levels. Office Accounting Professional 2008 helps you conveniently manage payroll and track transactions as you enter information, significantly reducing the time spent on these tasks. You can also use online banking to receive payments, pay bills, and automatically reconcile bank accounts.
Business Templates
Because Office Accounting Professional 2008 works smoothly with Office Word, you can easily export quotes, sales orders, packing slips, invoices, and other information to Word with a click. You can also customize templates that come with Office Accounting Professional 2008 to create professional-looking materials and documents. Choose from dozens of industry templates and Office Accounting automatically configures itself to how you run your business.
Adapting Office Accounting Professional 2008 to meet your needs.
Using Office Accounting Professional 2008, you can easily create quotes, sales orders, invoices, purchase orders, reports, and more. You can customize forms to include relevant information fields and export these forms to Microsoft Office Word templates to sharpen the professional appearance of marketing materials and financial documents. You have the flexibility to create custom security roles and add or remove permissions to control employee access to sensitive information.
Track employee time and job costs.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 helps you achieve more accurate and timely employee billing. Working with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, employees can mark appointments in their Outlook calendars as billable time and, with a single click, transfer that information to Office Accounting Professional 2008 to create invoices. Office Accounting Professional 2008 also enables you track revenues and expenses to monitor total job profitability, create multiple budgets, compare actual revenue to projected revenue, and compare invoices versus quotes for better business planning.
Use PayPal to do business with confidence.
Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you can generate an invoice that includes an integrated PayPal option to help you get paid faster. Customers simply click the PayPal link in the invoice to pay.
In Conclusion
All in all a very impressive application that unites well with other Microsoft Office applications, the Express version will adequately fill the needs of the smaller business. However if you run a bigger business that involves 20 or more employees, then you would need to purchase a professional license, that will provide you some higher end tools as well as subscription based payroll service.
I was most impressed with its ease of use. Its money well spent for those that have not yet settled with an accounts package that they are totally comfortable with. Microsoft have carefully produced a tool that I am sure will progress even more effectively as time goes on, but for right now it is a most impressive start to 21st century business.
Before we get into more detail about this product, Microsoft have released 2 different versions to help the very small business right up to businesses with 20 or more employees.
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 - Free
The Express version is free and offers a great deal for self employed and very small businesses, the only difference are higher end features such as “Stock Control, BAC Payments and Multi user, and Multi-Currency support.
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 - £149.95 - £349.95
* Adapted to the UK market, so their is complete support for British VAT
The first thing you notice after a reasonably paced installation process is the three step startup wizard, which assists the entry level user to set up the company details as well a set of accounts based on the type of business the user is associated with. Once this is set up you are not left alone to your own devices, you are still guided even further with a “Quick Start” window which gives you links to the most popular tasks that a book keeper would use. Microsoft truly holds your hand throughout the learning curve. What impressed me was the logical and clear way the graphic user interface is set out, various windows are strategically placed so you are never far way from the information you truly need to reference or use. The more you use it, the more you realise that this is very similar to Microsoft Outlook 2007, the initial page displays a dashboard that gives you an overview of various aspects of account keeping for example balances, reminders, and very importantly a cash flow chart that is customisable as well as the feature of adding and removing content. Also everything is linked to various areas of your company / customer and clients, it is interesting to note that you can track your data either through a flowchart view or as a text only option.
A major feature has to be its ability to integrate with Microsoft Office applications at the highest level, this is best illustrated through its relationship with Outlook's Business Contact Manager (BCM), the customer relationship plug-in. Accounting and BCM share the same database, so there's no need to synchronise data between them. Outlook contacts appear as customer records in Accounting, and Outlook users can view Accounting's financial data and reports even if they don't have Accounting installed. Conversely, appointments or projects can be marked as billable in Outlook, ready for invoicing in Accounting.
What’s so great about this package!
Here are some outstanding features and benefits :
Get up and running quickly.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 is easy to set up and use, just like other Microsoft Office programs. The Startup Wizard helps you get started quickly so that you can create your first invoice and are able to receive payments. The wizard imports your existing data from other programs such as Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Money, and Intuit QuickBooks so that you don’t have to start from scratch. The Resource Center offers a single location to access helpful information such as an accountant finder, product demonstrations, community tools, and other product resources
Save time on everyday tasks.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 simplifies everyday tasks: you enter data once and then reuse it across commonly used Microsoft Office programs, avoiding tedious reentry and errors. You can create quotes and later convert them into invoices with just one click. Now you can convert sales orders to purchase orders and automatically generate purchase orders based on inventory levels. Office Accounting Professional 2008 helps you conveniently manage payroll and track transactions as you enter information, significantly reducing the time spent on these tasks. You can also use online banking to receive payments, pay bills, and automatically reconcile bank accounts.
Business Templates
Because Office Accounting Professional 2008 works smoothly with Office Word, you can easily export quotes, sales orders, packing slips, invoices, and other information to Word with a click. You can also customize templates that come with Office Accounting Professional 2008 to create professional-looking materials and documents. Choose from dozens of industry templates and Office Accounting automatically configures itself to how you run your business.
Adapting Office Accounting Professional 2008 to meet your needs.
Using Office Accounting Professional 2008, you can easily create quotes, sales orders, invoices, purchase orders, reports, and more. You can customize forms to include relevant information fields and export these forms to Microsoft Office Word templates to sharpen the professional appearance of marketing materials and financial documents. You have the flexibility to create custom security roles and add or remove permissions to control employee access to sensitive information.
Track employee time and job costs.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 helps you achieve more accurate and timely employee billing. Working with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, employees can mark appointments in their Outlook calendars as billable time and, with a single click, transfer that information to Office Accounting Professional 2008 to create invoices. Office Accounting Professional 2008 also enables you track revenues and expenses to monitor total job profitability, create multiple budgets, compare actual revenue to projected revenue, and compare invoices versus quotes for better business planning.
Use PayPal to do business with confidence.
Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you can generate an invoice that includes an integrated PayPal option to help you get paid faster. Customers simply click the PayPal link in the invoice to pay.
In Conclusion
All in all a very impressive application that unites well with other Microsoft Office applications, the Express version will adequately fill the needs of the smaller business. However if you run a bigger business that involves 20 or more employees, then you would need to purchase a professional license, that will provide you some higher end tools as well as subscription based payroll service.
I was most impressed with its ease of use. Its money well spent for those that have not yet settled with an accounts package that they are totally comfortable with. Microsoft have carefully produced a tool that I am sure will progress even more effectively as time goes on, but for right now it is a most impressive start to 21st century business.
The buttons used are icons created by www.everaldo.com and www.yellowicon.com please note these icons have been modified. My personal thanks to Rodrigo for granting me authorisation for use on this site, please take a look at their websites as I believe they do outstanding work.
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