Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2009 review

Accounting's reporting tools, augmented by ten new reports in the 2009 version, are wide-ranging and are briskly produced. While most reports run inside Accounting, some, such as the sales and purchase analysis tools, are handed off to Excel. The most useful new report offers an instant year-on-year comparison of sales and profit.

Other improvements to the program, including a handy automatically updating Vista gadget that displays amounts due for immediate payment, are modest and ideally we'd have liked to see some of minor niggles from last year's version addressed. Its handy wizard, which makes it easy to import accounts from Sage Line 50, Instant Accounts or Excel, still can't import from QuickBooks.

On the plus side, PayPal integration is good. Just enter your PayPal login details, choose a button image and you can send PayPal Payments-enabled invoices by email. But if you have a merchant account, you'll probably prefer the way Sage Instant Accounts offers, through subscription, a way to accept credit card payments without the need for an intermediary. And there's still no direct online banking integration, only the ability to import bank statements.

But one other significant drawback of using the program - lack of industry support - is disappearing faster than a British summer. Microsoft has now set up an active professionals' network for the program, and through a single menu command lets you send your books electronically to your accountant through Windows Live. Cleverly, Microsoft offers the program free to accountants, although they do have to subscribe to Office Live Premium to use the transfer feature.

Although Accounting's entry price appears outstandingly low, it should be pointed out that not every feature needed by small businesses is included as standard. If you need to pay employees you'll need to stump up a modest £10 monthly fee for the payroll features; while automated electronic salary payments and electronic tax is another tenner a month. Even so, for a multi-user, multi-currency application, Accounting Professional offers incredible value, particularly as Amazon is selling the 2008 version, for which there is a free upgrade, for under £100. That, coupled with its sterling value for money, is enough to keep it atop the A List.

Author: Tom Gorham