New Spin Design

What’s a Mac user to do when the best desktop based solution for small business accounting is Quickbooks?

I’ve been using an outdated version of Quickbooks for almost 2 years now. It’s plagued with ugly invoices, an inability to enter debit card transactions (you have to use “DEBIT” as your check number), and the general feeling that it was not designed for a Mac user or a web designer. Needless to say I haven’t grown any fonder of it in these 2 years.

In a quest to find a more suitable replacement, and right at the start of a new tax year, I spent some time surfing for a new solution. I had expected given the recent popularity of everything Macintosh we would have some nice contenders to give Intuit a run for their money. The results were not so. You results may vary.

The Contenders

• Quickbooks 2009 for Mac. Having not used it I cannot comment on the actual program. I do however get the feeling it may not be very good. When I view the purchase page for this product, on the Intuit site, it’s all whacky in Safari. I get the impression Intuit does not use Macs extensively.
• Quickbooks Online. Doesn’t work without Windows and IE6. Nice.
• Peachtree. Nope - turns out it’s only Windows, and even the web-best “ePeachtree” says it requires IE. LAME! Again, web site scary in Safari.

• LessAccounting. OK - now we’re getting somewhere. This is a slick web-based accounting software to replace Quickbooks (they even created “weallhatequickbooks.com” to go after bitter QB customers).
  

  Pros

  • Keeps all data online and you don’t have to worry about losing data.
  • Fairly good value at $24 a month
  • Seems to have all the features I use in Quickbooks currently
  • Designed for regular people who don’t do accounting for a living

  Cons

  • Seems rough around the edges - does not fully support Safari
    Invoice designs are limited - you cannot fully customize your own invoice. You are stuck with a few template designs. This works well for most but not when your business is DESIGN!
  • May have difficulty integrating come tax time with a CPA. I am unsure if I can output the typical Balance Sheet. I see P&L in the reporting area but not Balance Sheet.
• Billings. Turns out this is not a replacement for Quickbooks. Its capabilities end at creating and receiving invoices and time tracking. It does not handle anything related to the business bank account or transactions.

Decision

So what did I go with? Can’t decide. Time for some more procrastination.

This is an atypical post, but I just had to voice concern about a site many web designers utilize called Browser Cam. This is a service that takes screenshots of web sites in different platforms and browsers for testing purposes. Seems they just relaunched the site with a bunch of “improvements”. I’m finding the improvements are outweighed heavily by the presence of bugs!

What was a perfectly fine, if a little stark, interface is now slower, and less easy to use.  Worst of all I’m seeing all kinds of ASP error messages when I’m just trying to pull up some Firefox screenshots. I’ve never seen a relaunched web app with so many issues. =(

Though not a service we advertise, HTML emails are something New Spin Design has provided for a number of clients. For a recent project I stumbled upon a great resource with the dos and don’ts of developing HTML email blasts and newsletters.

http://www.anandgraves.com/html-email-guide