I have taken a couple of accounting courses, but doing this by hand is going to absolutely kill me
and I sure can't afford an accountant at this stage. What's a good software to get?

Quickbooks

Are there a couple of versions of Quick Books? Which version should I get?

First of all the obvious, you want to get quickbooks for windows if you have a windows computer, quickbooks for mac if you have a mac.

Now assuming you have a PC, take a look at this page
http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accou..._software.jhtml

Get the one that best matches your need and budget. Read all of the info comparing the packages, the $3000 is definitely not the one, but either the Quickbooks or the Quickbooks Pro should be fine.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much. Does help. Am going to try the Premium Version. The $3,000 version is probably what I REALLY need, but sure can't afford that. Hope the Premium Version helps.

Thanks again

We tried Quick Books Pro Retail Edition, gotta say, it wasn't worth it, it just isn't designed for an online business. We cancelled it and reverted to our Excel spreadsheet.

You mean QB Pro for Mac or QB for windows?

I can't think of any accounting program that is designed for online business. We use Accountedge, it definitely is not designed for online business, but when it comes to accounting its Great.

QB Pro for Windows. It would be fab for a Bricks & Mortar business, just not, in my opinion, for an online business.

I'd not above plugging my site : We have some really good pricing on Quickbooks. Check it out - QuickBooks Items at Shopunitednetworks.com

Thanks,
-SC

Take a look at M.O.M
http://www.dydacomp.com

We used it many many years ago and it was GREAT back then.

We out grew it, but when we where small and our mailorder was just two people it worked very well.

Okay, so I got the Quickbooks Premium. Paid a premium price and have found it useless. As mentioned above, it seems there is not a easy solution for an on-line business. Especially one that is involved with both manufacturing and selling. My hair is already mostly gray. Guess it is going to fall out next.

Thanks for trying to help, appreciate it.

Gemini,

Sorry to here it, I am sure Intuit has a Money Back Quarantee.

Tell me are you looking for an Accounting Program? or are you looking for a program to help you with Order Management?

Most accounting programs (such as QuickBooks) are not good at helping you with your day-to-day operations. For that you should consider an order management program. You can use the order management system to import your Web orders, manage your purchasing, help with shipping and customer support, etc. Then use your accounting program for tax accounting, payroll and managing your checking account.

One important thing to keep in mind about QuickBooks: most versions are limited to 14,500 customers, invoices and products. Even the Enterprise version is limited to 30,000 of each. Those numbers are not adequate for a growing ecommerce business.

Someone else mentioned Mail Order Manager (MOM), an older program that was designed primarily for traditional catalog sales. Our program, the Stone Edge Order Manager (www.StoneEdge.com/OrderManager.htm), was designed from the ground up to help small Web merchants streamline their operations. It is used by nearly 2,000 merchants, including over 100 MonsterCommerce users. It exports daily summaries of sales, sales tax, shipping charge, cost-of-goods sold, credit card deposits, etc. to QuickBooks as journal entries and bank deposits, so you don't have to worry about the limits I mentioned above.

For more information, give us a call at 215-641-1837.

Hey Barney,

I emailed you guys a couple of months ago re the possibility of a Mac version, unfortunately no one ever replied. Wasn't impressed.

Sorry about that, Shane. Probably either your email to use our our response to you got caught in a spam filter. In any case, the only way to run the Stone Edge Order Manager on a Macintosh computer is to use one of the program that lets you run Windows software on a Mac. Unfortunately Microsoft has never released Access for the Mac, and re-writing a huge program like the Order Manager in some other system simply would not be economical. Of course the other thing you can do is get a $400 PC and just use it to run the Order Manager; you would not be the first merchant to do that!

I highly recommend Microsoft Money!! I have been using it ever since 2002 and I have $11,000 worth of net savings from then till now just because it was hard for me to manage day to day finance and I ended up getting this software with my Dell Computer purchase. You don't need a Phd to operate this software. You can start off with Microsoft Money Premium and then move on to Microsoft Money Small business.

or you can download the free trial:
http://www.microsoft.com/money/freetrial_info.mspx

Thanks!

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Thanks for the information...but I am doing bookeeping the old fashioned way. It works best. And fits in best with my inventory control. Takes more time, more hair pulling and more headaches. But all of the software available doesn't fit in with what I want and need.