Product Reviews

While Sage and Intuit have largely cornered the slow-moving enterprise accounting market, the battle for the small-business market continues apace. Microsoft Accounting has stirred things up by offering a free version of its new accounting suite, so how does Intuit's SimpleStart match up?

Like Accounting Express, SimpleStart is a cut-down version of a higher-end offering. In SimpleStart's case, it shares a similar look and feel to its more advanced big brothers, QuickBooks Pro (web ID: 128837) and Premier. As you'd expect from an entry-level product, only a fraction of Pro's reporting tools and features are available in SimpleStart: there's no payroll or stock control here, and it's single-user only. For the majority of startups, though, these absences aren't critical; if you end up needing them, just upgrade to QuickBooks Pro.

Intuit has made the software easy to use, claiming you can be up and running in SimpleStart in less than half-an-hour. This is under-selling, though, as we were inputting invoices in minutes thanks to a simplified setup interview that skips the offer to pre-prepare a set of accounts based on your business type. It's easy enough to add accounts to the skeleton set provided, though.

SimpleStart's homepage - similar to previous versions - includes a hefty amount of information in a limited space, while remaining easy to use. Dominated by an icon-based overview, it's split into three logical areas: Money In, Your Business and Money Out. Each is populated by related task-based icons; for example, estimates and invoices appear in the Money In section. Hovering your mouse over them reveals further options. Under the Invoices icon you can create a new invoice, list outstanding ones, or create a statement showing

The homepage offers other perks for first-timers, including a contextual "related activities" section, and screen-based tutorials, with 30 days of support included in the price. Links to Google Marketing tools and a discount on Google AdWords are thrown in, too.

In terms of features, SimpleStart is a good, basic accounting system. All the key areas - invoicing, estimating and bank reconciliation - are well covered. You can create invoices speedily through a hyperlink on the homepage and can now email both estimates and invoices as PDF attachments. And, aside from the standard entries in SimpleStart's slimmed down list of 14 reports, which now includes a trial balance and a better audit trail, there are useful gems, including a "Total Sales by customer" report that shows an overview of active customers and their balances. Handily, you can drill down on its figures to the invoices.

It's also good to see the use of plain English in reports: rather than the traditional aged debtor analysis, SimpleStart's equivalent is the clearer "Invoices that haven't been paid". Unfortunately, though, the reports are hamstrung. While you can now extensively customise the layout of reports and forms, we couldn't find a way to export them to Word and Excel for further analysis. This compares poorly with Microsoft Accounting's superb integration with Office applications.

SimpleStart is limited in other areas, too. Although it supports VAT and includes a VAT 100 report for filing your return, this is on a cash, rather than accruals, basis. Most small businesses will prefer the cash option, but we'd still like to have seen the choice.

While SimpleStart's features lag behind those of Accounting, it isn't without its own advantages. Its vibrant user community is a click away from the homepage, and the company file you create in SimpleStart is compatible with the 2008 Accountant Edition of QuickBooks, so your accountant should be able to read your files directly. But if you're not tied to other users, Accounting remains the more flexible and fully featured option.