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Guest post by: Mike Towle Become an Author

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Why is it that something we all initially think is so easy, is SO hard? The fact is while the basic accounting principles of all businesses are the same, the details vary considerably. For example, you can have two businesses, both supplying the same green widgets, operating in the same city, and yet their accounting requirements will be different. This is partly due to the management of each business having different priorities, different experience and training, and a different approach (or philosophy) towards accounting and administration. This is a problem for developers of accounting software. They will cram as much functionality into their software as they can, without the software becoming unwieldy. It's a fine balance between having software that simply doesn't do enough, and software that's too complicated. Worse, that balance changes from user to user, depending on their experience and skill level. Software that one user will consider to be over simple, another user may consider to be over complicated.

Unless your requirements are very modest, in the end you will have to compromise. Meet the software half way. No single accounting system will do everything you want it to do, the way you want it to do it.

The other aspect is ease of use. Although the Windows operating system forces all application software to behave in a similar way. There are minor differences. Some accounting systems are very visual, some are more text orientated. Being visual orientated doesn't necessarily make it better. It depends on whether the software authors idea of what particular icons for the various functions should look like coincides with the users. If they don't, the software can look pretty, but be very difficult to use! Some software will be jargon heavy, while some will avoid the use of jargon. Some will be intuitive, with all the options and functions appearing where you would expect to find them, while some have options and functions scattered about in a way that just doesn't seem to make sense. Also, some software will contain little help, and provide little assistance to users, while some will provide extensive help. Of great importance to users new to computerized accounting systems.

Really, the only way to know if an accounts package will do what you want it to do, and will be easy to operate, is to try it out. If you can't try it out. Don't buy it.

Finally, can you justify the cost? Prices for accounting software vary massively from zero (yes, nothing) right up to tens, even hundreds of thousands of Dollars. Most small businesses will spend between $1,000 and $2,000 on their accounts system. But why spend any money at all? You can download accounts software for free. Just do a search for ‘free accounts software'. There's plenty. But be careful, because not all of it that claims to be free really is free.

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