Product Reviews

Barclays' Business Manager is designed to help you manage your business's finances. The company has gathered together all the leading finance packages into one bundle, including Business Planner Pro, Sage Payroll and a choice of either Intuit's QuickBooks or Sage's Line 50 account management software. You'll find a full list on Barclays' website.

If you have a Barclays business account, the software costs £25 a month, for which you get around £2,000 worth of software. You can get the software - including a boxed product and CD with all the applications - from your

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local Barclays branch, backed up by Barclays' technical support.

Barclays has written its own automated installer, which mostly worked well. However, after a Sage installation forced our PC to reboot it took a while to coax the installer into finding the CD to install other applications.

Once installed, applications are accessed only through the Business Manager. This groups applications together into logical categories including Manage Finances and Manage Staff. Business Manager also includes loads of helpful guides on such subjects as recovering unpaid debt and the importance of good customer service. These will be most useful to novices looking to start a business, but the information is well thought out.

All the applications are full, unlocked versions, but they require a valid licence to work. If you cancel your subscription they become read-only, so you can view your old files but not edit them.

There's no minimum contract, although the software is much better value if you bank with Barclays. With everything you need for your business, tied together with a neat front end, this is excellent value for the small business.