Customer Reviews
Adequate for a small products business 
2006-12-16
We now have seven months experience using Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 (MSO SBA) to manage accounts for a product development company with a fairly small transaction volume. It has proven adequate for the job, but it has irritating quirks and key limitations. Some scrollbars do not scroll. Some displays jump after they are updated. Some selections take one click, and others take two. Some screens have a button for a function that on other screens is found in a menu. Several displays have extremely poor contrast.
The chart of accounts is limited to two levels. In our experience the built-in banking and payroll functions were not usable. They are both tied to vendors: a single bank that has no branches in our area, and a single payroll vendor using a company model with only hourly wages, no direct deposit, and no departments or other cost centers. Reconciliation of accounts is cumbersome and may fail; we use the register checkboxes and a calculator.
Microsoft touts the integration of MSO SBA with Office, but we found it of limited use. After forms such as invoices are exported to Word, extra work is needed to format them because MSO SBA provides rigid models and no macros. Potential usefulness of Excel is limited because, out-of-the-box, MSO SBA can only export. However, we found a reasonably priced add-in from DpDynamics of Morgantown, WV, that imports transactions from Excel. We currently use it in combination with data downloads from our payroll vendor to implement a departmental payroll, and we are planning to use it to calculate and import sales commissions and multistate sales taxes.
At the Amazon price, MSO SBA is a bargain, provided you are willing to ride out its quirks and do some work on the side as we do with the DpDynamics add-in. We have two network-coupled copies in the office and got a third for our accountant. We installed each of the three service packs issued to date. So far, we have had no trouble with essential functions and no garbled data or data loss.
This package s*cks 
2006-12-12
I am writing to warn unsuspecting entrepreneurs that they should avoid making the same monumentally stupid mistake that I did by purchasing this horrible, unforgiving, inflexible and extraordinarily frustrating package.
I think that this "tool" might be salvageable if it would allow you to correct mistaken entries (like an incorrect date), instead of making you void it out and re-enter it. And if that isn't bad enough, you cannot hide the voided entries. So there they are--a constant, glaring reminder of why you decided not to become an accountant in the first place.
There is a reason that they offer a full year of free technical support--you'll need it. Not that it does any good; if you ask them a question that even remotely resembles an accounting question, they politely tell you that they are not accountants and therefore cannot offer accounting advice. That's just grand. I bought this piece of software so I wouldn't have to pay my accountant three figures an hour to straighten out my finances. Instead I can pay him three figures an hour to show me how to use this cr*ppy software.
Thank you for allowing me to vent. As I write this, my accountant just called to offer me a free trial of Quickbooks. With that, I bid adieu to Microsoft SBA. Regrets? I have but one--that I was forced to give this junk a minimum rating of one star.
Save your money, use ledger paper--at least you can erase your mistakes.
Good, but no Cigar! 2006-11-11
I was excited about getting this new software, but just could not master double entry accounting needed to really make it effective. Great for tracking expenses, however. Many features.
small business accounting 
2006-11-10
I am still finding new things I can do with this software
It is the best for small business I would advise every small business to have this
Did Not Receive Shipment 2006-11-09
I had sent for this item in August, and had moved from that address. Unfortunately, the postal service did not forward my package to my new address, therefore, I am unable to give a proper review of this item.
Great accounting software 2007-07-12
Really like this product I have since upgraded to 2007 because this will not work with windows vista! Microsoft did the upgrade with no extra charge.
Clunky Software 2007-03-24
I had high hopes for Microsoft's SBA program, however, it does not stack up to QuickBooks.
Cons:
- Unable to open file using a file server. For some strange reason, it requires you to have Microsoft's SQL (database) server installed in order to have it served through a file server. This serves as a limitation because it forces you to purchase another Microsoft license. In a small business environment, a user should be able to open their books through any file server.
- Clunky. Another irritating aspect is that it opens a different program window on the task bar for each task that you open. If you multi-task, you will see many icons on your task bar, instead of managing your windows within the program under the menu bar. Navigation is also clunky where it feels like Outlook.
- Reports are limited. It may be that I have not figured it out yet (see above "clunky"), but I'm unable to find a way to easily customize my reports. It forces you to print detailed reconciliation reports (with many pages), instead of a summary.
- CTRL-F (Find). How hard is it to implement CTRL-F and be able to pull up a search box? Transactions are hard to find with SBA. As your book grows, an easily accessible search box is needed to find a check, invoice, and other transactions.
Pros: A QuickBooks alternative.
If you're a small business owner, it's best that you stick with QuickBooks. It's almost a standard for micro/small businesses.
It's not what it seems 
2007-01-10
I was told it was the same as Quick books! but for a fration of the price!
Theres no such thing as a good deal!
The only way to get this work right is to buy the rest of the software and then im sure it would be fine but then your paying more than Quick Books..
Its only a module!
Easy to use home office accounting package. 2007-01-04
I used QuickBooks and Quicken in the past and decided to try Microsoft Small Business Accounting and found it much easier to use. The flow is very intuitive with customization of invoicing and purchase orders being very easy with standard Microsoft Office products. I do recommend that the user read the manual first, it does help significantly. The most beneficial aspect of the software was the ability to do journal entries to correct items entered in the graphical interface. If all else fails simply do an accounting entry in the journal to correct things. Hats off to Microsoft on this one, it works well, is easy to use, and integrates with Microsoft Office.
OK IF YOU DON'T NEED PAYROLL SERVICE 2007-01-01
Though I received two free copies with some hardware, I will not be using Microsoft SBA because it's payroll services are really bad. If you want to get payroll taxes, etc. to do your employee's checks, you can sign up for a service, but the service is an online company for which data is EXCHANGED with SBA. Internet always required, multiple levels of passwords, what data is going out ? To avoid this you can find the tax rates yourself and use Excel to calculate payrolls and then EXCHANGE DATA with SBA. This takes about 4-5 times as much effort as Quickbooks' automatic DOWNLOADS and, if you go with the online company, costs three times as much as does Quickbooks' equivalent service. Too bad that SBA has this fatal flaw because I really liked the layout and feel of the program.
