Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Choosing Software to Make Your Tasks Easy

Accounting software allows you to enter your daily financial activities, press a few keys at the end of the month, and — voila! — print your balance sheet and P&Ls. It's just a matter of picking the right software.

QuickBooks, the accounting software from Intuit (www.intuit.com), is a favorite among a majority of small-business owners because it simplifies the recordkeeping process for your business and is extremely easy to learn and use. Many people are already familiar with it, simply because they use it for personal accounting, too. But when you enter your local office-supply store to purchase a copy of the software, you may be in for a shock: Not only does QuickBooks have several versions for business applications, but lots of other types of accounting software selections are also available.

We don't want to sell you on a particular brand of software, such as QuickBooks. Instead, we want to help you understand which benefits and features to look for so that you can choose the best accounting software for your online business.

Going online?

The first consideration for choosing software is whether you want to use a Web-based service provider. As with the vendors who handle payroll taxes for you, those and many others also provide online accounting services.

One big advantage of a Web-based product is that the data is stored off-site and is easily accessible from any computer. Why does this matter? Well, if something happens to your office ...