This is a guest post written by Jimmy Wentz. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.
Express accounts: All action account app [Mac]
Image courtesy of all-freeware.com
Express Accounts highly professional accounting application is a great freeware product that can help you run a number of small businesses together. It tracks and reports on incoming and outgoing cash flow including payments, sales, receipts and purchases. It also allows you to create multiple journal entries for all your monetary transactions. Its default reports are fairly comprehensive and can easily cover the basic requirements of any small business. The main standard reports, including profit & loss and overall balance, are fairly intuitive and easy to generate accurately.
Rhino Accounting: Why-no other accounting app will do
Image courtesy of rhinoaccounting.com
I borrowed the appalling tag-line from a mate who doubled-up as my accountant, who being an extremely thrifty fellow, claimed that he always liked to think about Rhino Accounting’s uniquely free double-entry bookkeeping to console himself any time he took a girl out on an expensive date. Yes, he is a little strange, but he has saved me a lot of money and blushes over the course of my business career, all for the price of unlimited booze. How he managed to keep track of all those numbers when he could barely stand, I have no idea, but then again he did always claim accountants need to be creative.
Having had a stab at it myself, there is no question that it gets the job done, but it is a no-frills piece of software and unless you are serious about your accounting, then you might want to opt for something with better support in the long term. But as my friend still maintains, “if it’s free, don’t fix it”.
Billing Boss: Invoice for free
Image courtesy of billingboss.com
Invoices don’t need to be so complicated. If your business is at an early stage it is likely that you don’t really need something too fancy like QuickBooks Premier Edition or FreshBooks, so save yourself a few bob and pick up Billing Boss free instead. There is no limit on usage and it is even easy enough for me to use – even after a night in with my accountant friend. Of course, he turns his nose up at it, but secretly he’s happy that it is so straightforward that he can leave me alone with it for an hour or two without having to check up on me or have me nag him for heIp. Yes, he also likes it because “if there is nothing to mend and you don’t have to spend, then it’s the perfect blend.”
Invoicera: Take the taxing out of taxes
Image courtesy of nextbigwhat.com
For those business owners that don’t have a big budget or an accountant that can be easily bribed with a plenitude of alcohol, then Invoicera will usher in a new age of easy accounting for your business. It has a lot of features for a free billing app and a very accessible interface. It offers a highly comprehensive service, and it works particularly well if you are web-based business dealing with clients all over the world as it supports a vast number of gateway payments. It is a little limited as a free app, but as a premium app it works well as a general business management tool thanks to features such as Time Tracking (very useful for lawyers keeping track of billable hours), and Expense Tracking, which can help keep tabs on your employees’ and other business expenses.
Image courtesy of accountingweb.co.uk
An all-rounder accountancy app, Kashflow is great for the beginner entrepreneur and for start-ups. A handy 14-day trial is worth experimenting with. The, fairly rarely offered, 24-hour email support is a pretty good bonus as well.
Jimmy Wentz is a budding freelance tech writer, gadget and gaming enthusiast, and social media junkie. He writes regularly about O2 and the latest news in the tech, gaming, and the social media world.
Connect with Jimmy on Google+
In these enlightened days of online consumerism, people are savvy. They know what they are looking for when they come to you, and they have the right methods of weighing things up to determine whether or not you will be a suitable service provider. Above all, they know to seek out the recommendations of other people before taking a punt on you themselves.
