What software can I use?

is capable of this.

Of course, a lot depends on what you mean by "small". QuickBooks does have some business size limitations, though I am not familiar with the extent of those limitations.

Some people like Quicken and others like MYOB more than the other. There is no real difference between the two other that what an individual is familiar with. If you use MYOB then it's easier to use but the same applies if you use Quicken.

One company who I work for uses both for their records and they insist that they is no major difference between the two when it comers to Record Keeping or Issuing Invoices.

Personally I wouldn't know as I try to avoid Accounting Programs at every opportunity. But some prefer MYOB over Quicken because of the Way that MYOB has the Registration Codes attached to the Files that it creates so it is truly portable between different computers. Makes it easy to submit to the Accountants at Tax Time. Then others see this as a Major Security Issue that needs to be stomped on.

Both are right and both are wrong but it depends on which the person who does these for a business is happiest with.

Col

While you guys carry on arguing about the pro's and con's of Quicken and the like ...

Any decent DIARY software will more than adequately perform all the required functions.

What's more: it's ability to jump forward 1 or more years is simplicity itself and any required 'customer' search functions are fully flexible.

I've had this question opened for about 15 hours meaning to reply to you.

The first time I ever looked at Quicken was in 1996/7 and it was a load of shit.

Second term 1997 I had to learn MYOB. Load of shit as well, just ignored it and did enough to get a pass.

Most of my accounting experience was related to a transport company (minor division 45+ PA) in the early 90's where I was "Financial Accountant (in Training)" this meant I had to do the job and not get the pay. Essentially I had to produce a manual P&L every week, the only figure that would normally be consistent with computerised figures was revenue (though I had programs to alert me of values outside predetermined error ranges) normally the within an accepted 1% error range.

My problem was that the weekly manual P&L had to be within 1% of the computerised monthly P&L, this meant I had to see every biil that was paid.

18 Branches, how much is accrued for this month to this account? OK not an expense account so I'll have to speak to the GM, make a note spread it over 4 weeks!!!

But after working for an ISP who had a distribution contract with MYOB I quickly learnt MYOB and its deployment and integration with MYOB RetailManager as I had to attend Australian Tax Office Roadshows!

Quicken still didn't have the ATO tick, even after the business closed in 2001, I attempted to try and use Quicken trials for invoicing the whole HTML look of it disturbed me.

As I said before it's a matter of opinion.