Labs

Sage is a British company that's very well known in the business accounts market. Like most of the other programs, Instant Accounts works using a combination of flowcharts and data entry forms. Down the left-hand side of the screen are various organisational tabs, each for an area of your business's financial life. For instance, there are tabs for customers, suppliers, your bank accounts, the company itself and so on. Above the list of tabs are displayed the tasks and links relevant to tab you're in.

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The main part of the screen, to the right-hand side, is taken up with the now familiar flowcharts.

In almost every respect, this is a good program. It's easy to use, handling like a normal piece of Windows software - a relief after MYOB's clunkiness. Moving each transaction through its entire lifecycle is easy, as is entering details of other transactions. Instant Accounts can generate up to 50 reports, giving you detailed information on the financial health of your business. Reports are easy to create and can be exported to several formats, including HTML and PDF.

However, given just how much more expensive this is than its nearest competitors - nearly double the price of MYOB - we'd expect it to be nothing less than excellent. To justify this kind of premium, it needs to have far more of an edge than it really does. If you need business finance software that's more complex than the excellent QuickBooks SimpleStart, go for MYOB rather than Sage. It make take a bit of learning, but spending £50 more than you have to can't be a good start to managing your finances.