Small Business Software - CRM and Accounts

[steveatpipex]

I am a sole trader providing advanced communication training and specialist consultancy services, mainly to the public sector but not averse to private sector too of course. I have just been given a grant :bannana: to purchase some Customer Relations Management and Accounts software. I don;t have any staff to worry about.

I have looked at 2 accounts packages - Sage Instant and Inuit Quickbooks Regular. I have never worked with accounts software before but consider myself computer literate.

Anybody use either of the above or any other recommendations for me to look at?

As for CRM software I have looked at Goldmine or Act! 2007. I am not intersted in web hosted CRM.

Again I woulod appreciate any comments or any other recommendations I can look at before beating a path to my local business software supplier to spend the grant

Cheers in antiipation

 

[BlackC55]

I use sage and its bloody good and easy to use

 

[Flyer]

I use TAS Books, owned by Sage; it's OK, does what I need. I looked at changing a couple of months ago, and QuickBooks, despite some annoying features, looked ideal. If you have some accountancy background, Sage is the daddy, but for someone less numerically gifted, I'd go ahead with QuickBooks.

For CRM (that acronym always decodes as Cockpit Resource Management ) have a look at Microsoft Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager . I've got it running in my office and it's great for managing business information.

BTW What grant could you get?

 

[steveatpipex]

PM you

 

[Benzowner]

When we started up, we used Sage Instant Accounts97 I think, we are now up to Sage Line 50 2007. It is an excellent and easy to use program and Sage's back up is excellent from helping you to layout your invoices to trying to sort any software issues. Sage would certainly get my vote.

 

[ceejay]

Before deciding on accounting software, can I suggest having a word with you accountant? By keeping to a product that they are familiar with, you can save time and money.

As far as CRM goes, Act! is probably the best in terms of price/performance for a single user, and also integrates well with PDAs.

 

[recycled]

We use sage line too since 1998 up to 50 . very user friendly and very easy to use.
Their customer services is ok as well if you have a problem with the software.

 

[SL300-24]

Quickbooks works great for me......

 

[timskemp]

I have looked at 2 accounts packages - Sage Instant and Inuit Quickbooks Regular. I have never worked with accounts software before but consider myself computer literate.

As for CRM software I have looked at Goldmine or Act! 2007. I am not intersted in web hosted CRM.

I have clients who use sage and some who use quickbooks, would probably recommend that as it scales better to multi user for less money than sage.

Sage products are very much lock-in with support and things, I could not recommend Act! (which I support) or Goldmine (which I also support) to anyone unless they had a feature you required - start off with outlook + BCM, use exchange if you need to go multi user, migrate to something else later (or MS CRM but I've not had time to play yet) if you outgrow it.

 

[WLeg]

Sign up for the MS Action Pack (it's been mentioned here a few times) - £199.00 and you will get MS CRM 3.0, Vista, Office 2007 and MS Accounts (can't remember it's name) software. Cheapest way for anyone who works in IT to get there hands on software legally.

 

[R2e]

Been using Quickbooks for 10 years + (since Version 1) and it is an excellent product, particularly now it is has a great software development kit (FOC) so it's easy to write interfaces (we do this for Electronic Data Interchange, suppliers to Tesco for example need to receive orders and submit invoices by EDI). We became Professional Advisors recently, every little helps!