What Is Best Accounting Software For One Man Shop

[Joe Flacco]

https://www.waveapps.com/

It's free.

 

[Pat Butler]

It really depends on whether or not you need a payroll function to the program. QuickBooks is excellent when having employees, but more expensive that what it should be.

 

[bnmappraisal]

I think I'll try my office suite spreadsheets for now, as far as running my very small business.

I simply use an Excel Spreadsheet. I'm not a savant with Excel by any means, but I'm sure you could get someone to set it all up for you for less than $50 (tops!)

Mine keeps track of my order #, client, address, fee, city, order date, date sent, paid
From all of that I track my total Gross paid, then deduct "taxes" (I use 30% for net; somewhat high, I know)

 

[hastalavista]

Your business structure and flow should give you insight to what degree your accounting requirements are.
When I first went into business, I could run it out of a cigar box.
As things progressed, I needed more than the cigar box.

Find a system that (a) keeps you informed as to what the status of your business is, and (b) doesn't require you to be more of an accountant than an appraiser.

 

[Digger88]

what am i missing??? the op says they use total who has an awesome built in accounting aspect to it. its super fast to log out checks, about 15 seconds per check stub and tracks orders perfectly. in the appraisal desktop you have the "mark as paid" tab up top and the bottom left under "accounting" (its expandable) shows how much youve made and are still due in 30 day increments. dont even need to open a single file, just search in search bar for your "file number" and it comes up, just highlight it and hit mark as paid when you have a check in hand and move on to the next one.

 

[Pat Butler]

Total only handles appraisal income and billing. It doesn't handle expenses, payroll, checkbook reconciliation, depreciation and all the other accounting functions required to run a business.

 

[Mike Garrett RAA]

I've used Quick Books Pro since 1993 and would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants a complete accounting system that can track all aspects of your business including taxes. Sure it costs a bit more but it's well worth it.

There are probably some simple programs that will work and, as someone already said, total will track invoices. It will also interface with Quick Books.

I'm changing computers and will be buying a new Quick Books program before the end of the year. Since I no longer have employees probably won't buy the Pro version. My old program won't work in Windows 10.

 

[Digger88]

Total only handles appraisal income and billing. It doesn't handle expenses, payroll, checkbook reconciliation, depreciation and all the other accounting functions required to run a business.

oh. i just put all my receipts in a drawer and take a sunday when its slow to add them up. print out my bank statements for annual income to pdf and run mileage estimator from total. tried quickbooks but it took me too long to get comfortable with it. there is just not a lot to write off as a one man shop.

and what the hell is checkbook reconciliation, lol.

 

[TXTea]

Use OpenOfficeCalc and setup two worksheets. Use the first worksheet to track revenue. Create the operating statement on the second worksheet. You'll want to link the two worksheets so you don't have to manually enter revenue onto the operating statement. Be diligent about tracking your operating expenses since these are tax deductible. You'll be surprised at how many operating expenses you have. Setup an S-Corp for yourself or you'll be hit with the hostile self-employment tax (hire a CPA to get this done).

 

[bnmappraisal]

Be diligent about tracking your operating expenses since these are tax deductible. You'll be surprised at how many operating expenses you have. Setup an S-Corp for yourself or you'll be hit with the hostile self-employment tax (hire a CPA to get this done).

(my bold) Good point!