My recap and discussion of ZdNets review of Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006

The article discusses Microsoft's Office Small Business Accounting 2006, which is a piece of small business accounting software. It relates to my studies in two ways. First, I have an accounting class where we are learning to use one of its competitor's software, known as Peach Tree. Secondly, I want to become a program designer and the more programs I get to look at, the easier it is to design programs.

The article starts out describing the price of Microsoft's new competitor to Peach Tree and Quick Books Pro. The price of Small Business Accounting 2006 is $179 which is half the list price of Quick Books Pro. However, there is a catch to Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006. The reader would notice the word “Office” in the title which means that the office suet, which has to be purchased separately, is necessary for most of the key features of this product to work. One of those features, as discussed in the article, is the ability to import records from Excel. Small Business Accounting 2006 also has the ability to import data from the 2002, 2003, or 2004 editions of Quick Books Basic or Pro. Accounting 2006 looks like the fusion of the design of the Microsoft products and Quick Books Pro. It even rips off Quick Books flowchart interface.

The lack of features is actually the appeal of Microsoft's Office Small Business Accounting 2006. Microsoft spent most of its design time on this product making it easy to use, and setting up wizards to walk the novice through how to use the program. Again, I would like to discuss the integration of this product with the rest of the office suite. In order to simply put your business logo on your invoice the purchaser has to export the invoice to Word, Microsoft's word processor. There is a way to buy a bundle that comes with the office suet but it costs $669.

Finally, The article rates the program. Microsoft's Office Small Business Accounting 2006 gets an overall 6.7. Small Business Accounting 2006 had individual scores of: a seven for setup and interface, a six for features, and a seven for service and support, which isn't a bad score by ZDnets scale.

My reaction and opinion of this software is that it’s just like the rest of Microsoft's software, overpriced and useless. Why would anyone pay for this software when there are perfectly good free alternatives. I personally run Linux and have a program called Gnucash which is a completely free piece of accounting software. There is also free windows accounting software, although not as good as Gnucash. I have not tested any of them but there names are Ace Money Lite and Wings 2000. Overall I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's software products. They usually seem rushed and lack basic functions that would make the product better. It seems that this product is no different.