business and office management software

I don't want to rate the product as such (3 means neutral) but I would advise anyone thinking of using Peachtree to either have an understanding of accounting or an accountant nearby. It is a very good program but it does demand some accounting kowledge or technical skill.

This software could be good if you are an experienced accountant. However I think it is very complex and hard to work with if you want it to be simple and fun to work with. Good luck in your selection.

I got this product (Accounting 2004) to run my small business. I would not recommend this product to anyone.

I tried running the included tutorial to learn to navigate around this product, but the tutorial was meaningless to someone who is new to accounting principles - the tutorial is simply a imaginary company with imaginary data. It just shows you in which "bin" each of the imaginary data goes, but doesn't help you to correlate your information to the imaginary data and then into the "bins."

This is particular true for me since the tutorial provides for a typical products based company (i.e. lots of invoices from vendors and some invoices from your company), while my business is a service business - much like the audience for this Peachtree product. I couldn't fully service business information on top of their product based company tutorial.

The final straw that made me junk this product before fully implementing it is that this product does not (or at least I cannot find) understand setting up multiple checking accounts and/or setting up a trust account.

In my line of work I handle trust money and must account for each client's trust money in a pooled trust account. I don't believe this product gives me that ability and upon a call to Peachtree customer service, they would not answer this basic question without requiring me to pay for a service plan. The help file and online help community was likewise unhelpful. Yes, they offer 30 days of free customer service, but my issue cropped up after the 30 days time period.

In short I am out a bunch of money for a product that I will uninstall. I don't even think I can sell it at a substantial discount legally. I would recommend Quickbooks instead of this thing.