- This topic has 10 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 2 months ago by
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May I suggest you do some quick research about this. If you are a business and wish to get an instant P&L statement [Profit and Loss Report], then GDBK may not do for you. GDBK is just a journal system. Just like a green paper accounting pad you buy at an office supply store. If you wish to have a way to set up a Chart of Accounts [COA] and be able to categorize all income and out go an shown and stored in those categories and then pull your monthly, quarterly and year end reports and see all expenses by amount AND percentage of income, those reports come from a more, as Jay calles it a Robust System.
But you don’t have to have QuickBooks, Quicken for Home Business will do. Quicken was bought last year from Intuit and now is owned by a new corporation that has made a lot of improvements.
But here is what you should do. Search Google for the top 10 or 20 home business accounting and you will see in every list that GDBK is either the last or next to last one listed and not even on the top 10 or 20 lists. There are 20 more programs out there that out shine and out perform GDBK.
Even though J&R use it and it is mentioned tons of time in this forum, does not make it the best or even the cheapest out there. What separates to more expensive apps from the cheaper ones is the ability to “Invoice” your customers. If you provide a service or are in the trades you have a need to create invoices that list what services you provided and a price for those services you absolutely need a more robust system and it costs more. But make sure you review the comparison list of what the app provides
If all you want is a glorified check book register then GDBK will do, as a business we look for more than GDBK can provide. nd even if all you do want is a fancy check book register program again GDBK is way, way down almost all list we found when we Googled, “best app for the small business”, what is the best online bookkeeping software”, “what is the top 10 accounting programs”, you want even find GDBK listed on most. You will see “Fresh Books” on top on most of them, but be careful, some apps are ONLY for INVOICING PURPOSES and “Wave” is even free.
May I suggest, like Jay has said many times, first get an accountant, doesn’t have to be a CPA but a CPA does help. Then ask them what program they would suggest. remember the person who prepares your taxes may have a preference for how they want to see your business numbers oprganized and presented to them. Also most CPA’s have the Accountant’s version of Quicken and QuickBooks so they can access your files remoetly and just pull all the data they want directly off your file or you can send them a .Pdf file of the data and files.
But as a last word, any organized program whereby you can categorize your income and expenses and deductible numbers is a big plus for your business.
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Godaddy will pull in more than a year’s worth of ebay data. Data that ebay WON’T give you (90 day limit)
If you are wanting to start off fresh then signing up for GDBK and getting your ebay history neatly imported and sorted that is worth its weight in gold. After you’re caught up, then feel free to use whatever software you want. -
As for us, we still use Quicken for Home Business. I’ve been on Quicken since the mid 90’s, so hard to change. If I were to go up, the next level would be QuickBooks, but I really don’t need anything that robust at this point.
SixBit, Quicken, and Excel are working good for now…
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I’m with you buddy! 🙂 WonderLister, Quicken HB and Excel all we use also. And we have had as many as 5 companies running on it with separate P&L. Now only running 4 on it but all is fine. Our year end finacials I am doing now. Will be about 2 or 3 days and I am ready to send to the CPA. Being a Sub-S Corporation our company’s taxes have to be finished by March 15th but we are way ahead of the game. More time moving papers around and into files to save than anything else.
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Accounting semi-illiterate here – I’m a small part time ebay seller. I’ve always maintained my sales & expenses in excel but it’s not an accurate method. I use formulas in my spreadsheets and I know that some of my selling fees as a percentage of sold price are more/less than others when they qualify for top rated seller discounts, etc. I also forget to adjust when I receive returns. MDC Galleries answer above is great but also confirms that he is 100X more accounting savvy than I and thus it is easier for him to understand most any kind of accounting software than I ever could. What works for him, probably isn’t going to work for me. So my question – I want the easiest small business system available to replace my spreadsheets. I see no need for me ever having to generate a P&L, chart of accounts, or create invoices (Ebay/Pay already invoice customers for me). Go Daddy pulls from ebay automatically. I don’t see that Quicken does that, so does that mean with quicken there is more manual input required on my end? Is it truly beneficial to have GoDaddy pull from ebay versus Quicken which I think will only pull from paypal? I have used reputable local CPAs in past years ago but honestly they didn’t do anything that justified their cost. I had to answer about 20 pages(!) of questions which seemed to just largely be transferred directly into a TurboTax-type software anyways. I could do that.
Thanks, Julie
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Julie: I’m coming to you from an ex-CPA background, so I understand your issues.
Even being a trained accountant, that does taxes myself…I still use TurboTax. Unless you have something really complicated, you could do your taxes yourself using TurboTax. If you hit on some special snag or question that you can’t figure out, let me know. I didn’t do taxes for a living, but I can usually either answer your question, direct you to the answer…or if it is above me I would tell you to talk to a tax person.
On your Quicken question, that is what I use for the business, as well as our personal side. With the Home & Business version, I can keep the two sides separate, running reports for each, but it stays in the same program.
Yes, there is more data entry with Quicken (if you choose to). I’m sure I make it worse, because I’m more OCD. I don’t use the interface with PayPal, as it will download transactions that cancel (so not needed…these are banking settlement transactions). It also will only download the net balance that impacts your account on sales, where I like to see the Product Sales (and I break out eBay vs Bonanza vs TrueGether vs Etsy) separate from the PayPal Fee separate from the Shipping Revenue.
For my money, I would either stay with the Excel (let me know if you would like help with your file, I’m pretty good with Excel), GoDaddy, or Quicken. You won’t need a QuickBooks type solution at this stage (we are full time and I can’t justify it).
Anytime I can help, let me know. You can also reach me directly at tsatterf@yahoo.com
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My husband has been doing our taxes with Turbo Tax for many years, and we have somewhat complicated incomes with several different sources. When we first married he used to still come up with all the numbers and records and then take them to his accountant. I told him he was doing all the work, then his accountant was just putting his numbers into a computer program for him. He never got tax refunds. And he was paying big money for the service. Turbo Tax already is programmed to know all the tax laws that an accountant knows. So he started using it and not only saved what he would have paid the accountant, but actually started getting tax refunds that he never got before. Turbo Tax prompts you to find any potential refunds. We also use it for our state taxes. Works great.
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