Microsoft Office Accounting Express – the free finance system for SMEs
The fundamental design of SME accounting packages has not changed for around two decades. Many are built around a traditional modular design per application which creates inefficiencies and are difficult to learn. Similarly, a number of the popular shrink wrapped packages are time consuming to set up, inflexible to change and costly to buy and maintain. For all of these reasons, start up and fledgling businesses are often discouraged from investing in business software, storing up problems for later when growth forces them to take action. It is this early stage business that Microsoft is targeting with Microsoft Office Accounting – a completely free accounting package (for the entry level version) and the subject of this review by Gary Simon , FSN's managing editor.
The decision to offer the "Express" version of the package at no cost is a particularly shrewd move by Redmond . The software is simply downloaded free from the internet and a start up business can be fully configured and ready to go in a matter of hours.
The sceptics among you might challenge the notion of completely free software. Where is the catch? Surely it cannot offer much for free? It's a marketing gimmick. You'll end up paying in the end! But the reality is that the software offers very significant and compelling functionality and even if you do upgrade to the fully fledged Microsoft Office "Professional" Version it would still only cost around £149 – a price point that compares very favourably with many shrink wrapped packages and hosted solutions available for rent over the web.
Microsoft Office Accounting Express edition is a complete financial package embracing all of the core requirements that a small business needs for record keeping, accounting, bookkeeping and competent financial management. For example it satisfies VAT requirements, provides comprehensive audit trails and a plethora of reports that allow a small businesses to run more productively. Integrated add on features such as support for, PayPal, BACS payments and Payroll calculations not only extend the level of automation and process efficiency but help businesses establish more productive relationships with customers, suppliers and employees.
What is very important to grasp is that unlike the Microsoft Dynamics line of products, Navision (Nav), Great Plains (GP) and Axapta (AX), Microsoft Office Accounting has been developed from the ground up as a Microsoft product. As such it has all of the latest thinking inbuilt from day one and a level of integration with the Microsoft Office suite that is unsurpassed.
The user interface is instantly recognisable to Microsoft Outlook users.
The package is instantly recognisable to anyone who regularly uses Microsoft Outlook. This means that navigation of the system is intuitive and many of the features of the package such as the editing of standard documents, completion of data entry forms and generation of reports are instantly familiar. But most compellingly, the way that information moves seamlessly from Outlook and Business Contact Manager to Office Accounting and visa versa means that everyone in a business can share information, take advantage of instant productivity and communicate with customers, employees and suppliers using a single joined up system.
Users of traditional systems are often left to 'walk the corridors', pick up the telephone or communicate by email in order to carry out the simplest of tasks beyond their narrow view of the process. However, Microsoft Office Accounting presents the functionality as process flows, for example, "sales quote to cash" or "purchase order to payment" – it does not respect inefficient functional boundaries! As a result a single member of staff can move from one area of functionality to another leveraging the familiarity of the Outlook interface, traditional drop down menus or graphical interface (depending on their personal preference) to access the information they need. Information is stored in one place and seamlessly shared between one phase of a business flow and another. The result is that information never needs to be re-keyed and the scope for error is reduced.
The standard interface allows the user to navigate the system using a process flow diagram as well as the familiar Outlook navigation bar and traditional drop down menus.
Other software vendors have tried over the years to emulate an Outlook style of interface but ultimately there is no substitute for the real thing. Ease of use, translates into low training effort, transferable knowledge and the ability to move staff around to meet peaks and troughs in processing workload. In other words the system lends itself to maximising staff productivity.
But there are other advantages to a process driven rather than a bookkeeping driven approach to business software. The ability to give one person complete oversight of a process and deploy all relevant information at their fingertips allows them to be more responsive to customer and supplier needs. This not only leads to more productivity but to enhanced competitive edge as well.
For small businesses, with limited in-house skills, even basic bookkeeping can be daunting, but Microsoft Office Accounting's design shields users from the complexity of double entry. Every aspect of transaction processing (called "documents" in Microsoft parlance) buffers the user from double entry. Plain English account names are substituted for long coding structures and terminology throughout the system can be very easily edited to fit a particular industry or style of business.
Integration with Excel is unsurpassed. Every report in the system is just one click away from being presented in Excel. Here users can take advantage of conditional reporting capabilities in Excel to drive more interesting analysis if desired.
Integration with Word is equally valuable. One click integration allows for the creation of debt chasing letters with 'filters' to narrow down the selection of letters generated to a particular range of debtors, say, amounts 'over £5,000' or 'older than a particular date'. The package comes with pre-canned letters for common tasks (such as debt chasing) and all documents within the system are very easily modified and saved using Word templates. As such, there is no need for specialised pre-printed stationery.
Integration with Word allows document templates to be easily modified
In most instances, system generated documents such as, sales quotes, orders and sales invoices can be embedded in an email or attached to it. Once again the task of embedding a document in an email is literally one click away and means that copy documents or originals can be dispatched to customers, suppliers and employees at the drop of a hat.
One of the more advanced aspects of the system is the integration between CRM (Business Contact Manager) and Microsoft Office Accounts. If the link is switched on, Microsoft Office Accounting and Business Contact Manager, a free component of Microsoft Office, can share the same customer and prospects database. This means that a prospect can be turned into a customer and users of Business Contact Manager can raise sales quotes, sales orders and make enquiries on the accounts system as though they were connected. There is also integration between Outlook and Microsoft Office Accounting which allows appointment slots in Outlook to be billed as time entries in Microsoft Office Accounting.
Fledgling businesses are often highly dependent on 'hand-holding' support from their accountant for VAT processing, payroll processing, cash flow and the production and interpretation of management information. In the past this has meant expensive on-site visits but using Microsoft Office Accounting it is possible to share the businesses' books with its accountant over the web. It is a simple matter to transfer the books to the accountant and for the advisor to review them on-line and make adjustments where necessary. From a sole practitioner's point of view, the availability of a simple to administer link to his clients' books means that he is able to offer affordable services which help his clients to prosper.
So what's the catch? Admittedly the user of the free Express Edition has to put up with some annoying advert banners on the page but that is a small price to 'pay' for really powerful software. You also have to pay a modest additional sum of £9 per month for payroll processing. On the other hand £149 buys you the Professional Edition with complete sales and purchase order processing (whereas Express is cut down) full stock control, cash flow forecasting, foreign currency processing and job costing as well as a suite of standard reports. In a nutshell the upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting is well worth the money.
With the release of Microsoft Office Accounting, Microsoft is opening up a brand new market for small SMEs that are presently badly served by any other means. It's difficult to see how others in the SME space can compete with free functionality and such exceptional capability. Users generally do not like change but Microsoft Office Accounting may just be compelling enough to make them switch suppliers.
For a complete guide to Microsoft Office Accounting you can buy the newly released book, "Using Microsoft Office Accounting to the MAX ®" written by Gary Simon and published by FSN this month.
About the Author
Gary Simon, Group Publisher of FSN and Managing Editor of FSN Newswire, is a graduate of London University , a Chartered Accountant and a Fellow of the British Computer Society with more than 23 years experience of implementing management and financial reporting systems. Formerly a partner in Deloitte for more than 16 years, he has led some of the most complex financial reporting and information management assignments for global enterprises in the private and public sector.
His latest books ,"Using Microsoft Office Accounting to the MAX ®" and "Fast Close to the Max®" are now available from FSN Publishing Limited.
Whilst every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete some typographical errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. This report is of a general nature and not intended to be specific to a particular set of circumstances. FSN Publishing Limited and the author do not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the use of information contained in this document.
© FSN Publishing Limited. All rights reserved 2008.
