It is important for a business, no matter how small, to use accounting software. Not only does it give you more detailed information such as charts and financial statements about your business’ finances, it also gives your business integrity with banks and the IRS.

PCWorld’s Mailbag column recently released an overview of four different accounting applications (Intuit’s Quickbooks, Sage’s Peachtree, MS Office Accounting, and Sage BusinessVision).

Here are some other resources:

What do I use?

I use Quickbooks for my Business and Quicken for my personal finances.  There is a version of Quicken that allows you to track business expenses, but I prefer Quickbooks because it has additional features.

Accounting software allows you to:

  • At a glance know whether you are making a profit or a loss.
  • See what you are spending your money on so you can budget better.
  • Make budgets.
  • Create and send invoices that are already tied to your account receivables.
  • Track your inventory.
  • Depending on the software, create a business plan.