![]() I would suggest just getting a cheapo Dell system and dedicate that to accounting. You might find it works fine with a faster G5 system. You may be used to doing your own taxes, but hiring a tax professional is a good idea with a small business.Īs an aside, I tried running Quickbooks Pro in Virtual PC on a PB G4 867MHz and it was too slow to be usable. The primary reason is that the version on Windows is always a step ahead of the Mac version and it will be more compatible with an outside accountant or tax preparer. We use a FileMaker plugin, FileBooks, which lets FileMaker edit data in QuickBooks and obtain data back out of it.Īs a former owner of a small business, I would recommend that you use Quickbooks Pro for Windows for accounting and Filemaker for any other data management / organization tasks that you need. QB is used for the main budget and check-generation and ledger, while FileMaker manages all aspects of the work (orders, customers, products on each order, status, who is assigned, tasks of each product, images, ads, retouching work ordered and its progress, scans, proofs, etc) Also, the invoice to the client is actually generated by FileMaker - only the bottom-line $ amount is tossed into QuickBooks, which generates an invoice number. We actually use both at the company I work at. You mention a known brand name of accounting software, you don't have to put up with that. Some accountant comes in to see your books and you say "We developed our own accounting s/w in FileMaker", you get the suspicious eyeball treatment. The flip side of the equation is: is your company public in any way? Will you books ever be audited? Accounting is a very very conservative field. so far I still use Photoshop and not FileMaker to retouch pix from my digital camera but give me time. I use FileMaker instead of iTunes to organize my MP3 playlists, I use it instead of the Address Book to manage my own personal contacts, I use it instead of Family Tree Maker to manage genealogy. And it's very Windows-centric, with Mac support fading in and out over the years but never on par with Windows. ![]() QuickBooks isn't particularly flexible, whereas FileMaker is the epitome of flexibility. I would do it all in FileMaker (and I would integrate your two apps, add modules for personnel & salary, company budget, clientele & contact people, and invoicing). ![]() So, if anyone is using FileMaker and/or QuickBooks for their business . So, as we kick the business into high gear, I was going to buy QuickBooks Pro, but now I'm concerned based on what I've read. But the old FileMaker does a nice job of keeping orders and inventory (2 different databases though. On our G3, we have a way old version of FileMaker (like, v3 or something) and no version of QuickBooks. We have an eMac and an old PowerMac G3 desktop (which I'm thinking we will replace with a new iMac or something). The person we are getting the business from is using QuickBooks 5 on a Mac. Now we're talking about 100 items and 5 to 10 vendors. We do this with our simple tools now, but we've only got a handful of products. So our basic needs are for: Inventory tracking, Sales/Order tracking, Billing, Vendor ordering/paying, customer info/tracking, and shipping (plus 'fancier' stuff like Cost-of-goods sold, ROI, inventory turnover, taxes would be nice). We will keep an inventory of some 100 items and take orders over the phone/fax or via internet either for the items or the item plus customization/personalization work (item + service). I've not seen too many bad comments about FileMaker Pro, and I see you can download a free "Small Business" set of templates and databases.īackground: We are acquiring an existing business, which expands/extends our current business. I've been reading really, really bad things about QuickBooks on the Mac and Inuit's less-than-proper attention to the Mac. The question is, for a small business, would I be better off with QuickBooks Pro or FileMaker Pro? ![]() Well, I'll start with the question and then fill in the details.
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