Business Accounting Software for Mac?

[Bush Girl]

I hope I've put this in the correct place - if not, many apologies.



I've just started a new job in a Mac only small charity and they've charged me with finding an Accounting package for Mac that isn't cloud based.

I've searched on the web without joy as all the big names only seem to offer Windows based boxed product.

Does anyone have any good suggestions of a product that might work for a small, financially constrained company? We'd probably only need a single user licence.

Many thanks.

 

[maflynn]

I think QuickBooks is one of the better ones, though I don't know how it is for the Mac compared to the PC.

 

[Bush Girl]

Quickbooks is what our accountant recommended, but sadly it's not available for Mac as boxed product.

 

[Weaselboy]

Quickbooks is what our accountant recommended, but sadly it's not available for Mac as boxed product.

You can download it straight from Amazon here. Is there a reason that would not work for you?

 

[campyguy]

I like Quickbooks - for Windows. The Mac version blows. Chunks, brown hairy chunks.

The best accounting apps for a Mac are, in this order:

• Quickbooks for Windows (which we use in a Parallels Virtual Machine with Windows 7); this version of QB has an "accountant version" - the Mac version does not.
• Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold. Not cheap, but a solid product that several of my friends use.
• The Acclivity Group’s AccountEdge Pro. Also, a quality product only accountants can love. We also use this product.

I will not recommend the Mac version of QB right now - for about the same price as the Windows version, the Mac version offers about one-half of the features. I'd pick the online version of QB over the Mac version any day of the year - read the Intuit forums, and you'll find thousands of posts that share my perspective. That, and Intuit just doesn't give the Mac platform much attention when compared to the Windows platform.

Two of my friends own small companies that run Macs - they bought a Windows laptop just for Quickbooks, and put the laptop in the safe when they're done with data entry and payroll. If I wasn't invested in AccountEdge Pro, that's what I'd do.

FWIW, there are options for not-for-profits, which some of my clients are. If you email each company they may gift you a copy of what suits your needs. And, periodically, AccountEdge Pro MoneyWorks Gold are part of a "bundle" and can be had at a great discount. Cheers!

 

[VI™]

And Intuit's recently updated for 2014 Quick Books has made some fantastic changes! They've update the date on the front of the box to say 2014 and...well, not much else.

It's peripheral software for their company. It doesn't get a lot of lovin' and there are way better options. I tried using it for my photography business and it's pretty garbage. Excell spreadsheets or a custom designed Access DB works better for me than Quick Books did.

 

[Bush Girl]

Thank you all for your input.

It's interesting what you say about Quickbooks Mac vs Quickbooks online - I think we're going to have to look to use an online service as the Mac download is definitely not available over here.

And thank you, campyguy, for suggesting we could try asking for a charity price.

 

[BrianBaughn]

If you're opening the possibility of an online service then it might be a good idea to call other charities that might have similar accounting needs and see what they're using.

 

[feeds101]

I have been using a product called Moneyworks Gold for about 3 years now. After searching, comparing and reviewing all Mac accounting packages I have to say I am completely satisfied with Moneyworks. I live in Canada and Quickbooks is not available here ... well online, but I need more than what Quickbooks online can offer .... and Moneyworks does it all. Best of all I do not have to worry about subscription fees .... I own it and the data is mine. We did try Accountedge (not bad), however we had several issues thus the switch.

As I do business US customers, I can account for USD and CAD currency and able to report on many aspects. As well we have 4 users that connect to the data file and 3 are on Macs and one on Windows (yes believe it or not they refuse to change), which is no problem as the software can run on Windows and Macs simultaneously (that was actually one of our main criteria among other things). Our accountant got a free copy to work with our files so there's no issue there.

Anyways just a thought for anyone looking for a good, robust and powerful accounting software. Moneyworks delivered for our needs and then some. Hope this helps.

 

[snberk103]

Acclivity AccountEdge here. Works well and is solid and stable. Your accountant can get a copy for free if you have a copy. You can then just transfer your files to them at year end.

Ask for a charity price… I'll bet they have one.