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I use Simply Accounting. I only use it for generating bill of materials for a product I manufacture, apart from that I don't know much about accounting. I only know how to fumble my way around Simply because it's built on Accpac which was around before M1cr0s0ft products were an itch in their daddy's nether regions. My bookkeeper uses Excel and my accountant imports from there to Pastel.
Thanks for the link Quinn, I'm downloading TurboCash to give it a whirl for my bookkeeper.
This is an oldish thread and I think last years prices were used or alternately another supplier.
Pastel Xpress 1 multi company user licences is R 1300 ex VAT or so (from Pastel).
To be honest since Softline has taken over Pastel and on more and more of their products I am afraid to say they are becoming increasingly devious and unethical.
Reasons, Pastel tell you to send your bookkeeper to a course (which is not free) and use intimidating tax clauses to frighten you into making sure this happens.
You send them then next year... Softline Recruiting phones them up and markets your employee's skills you spent money on to another company. Who needs to replace their bookkeeper who was placed somewhere else by Softline Recruiting as well.
Based on that principal, my advise is to avoid Softline completely.
On another note. Smaller businesses who really just need cash books can use accounting packages from their own banks. However most banks are still expensive (QWill is R99pm on the lowest option).
My vote is for TurboCash, Quickbooks, Omni Accounts (can work in 3 years at any given time of year).
Im not a big fan of SAP, however it is a good many site scale package.
My personal view for smaller business who use Pastel and Payroll / VIP ... rather use a pen and paper and fire your bookkeeper. They try to empower the employee more than the employer. When that happens... just get rid of em.
Why in Pastel should I be worrying about sales codes of staff if I dont even have licence for the business intelligence software? Some suppliers arent VAT registered and use invoice numbers that get used more than once, eg they use a Croxley duplicate book. Some persons use your account number as your invoice number. Pastel doesnt support this. Their business intelligence software is based on what they think is intelligent not on what you want, so you end up exporting to Excel and doing your own reports anyway.
And lastly.. why do they consolidate cashbook entries on a debit and credit basis. (Eg you got 100 000 debits and 30 000 credits so they post the 70 000 debit to your bank account... you say that is fine, but then why use computers, then we may as well use a pen and paper.
jinxter, I want to add to this. Quickbooks started edition cost R999 last time I check. I'm not an accountant but wanted to know what's going on in our books at any given moment. So when I started my business, I acquired quickbooks professional (to help with our stock keeping) and ran the books myself for a long time before I got an accountant to take over. The first accountant refused to work on Quickbooks and told me that unless I use Pastel my books won't be accepted by SARS. Well, she's lost the job Another accountant told me that she'd be willing to try it so I brought her license as well and she's currently doing other company's books on QB as well.
My main reason for QB back then is that out of all the options I tested, including Pastel; Quickbooks, TurboCash, Quicken, Omni Accounts, etc. Quickbooks was the easiest to get working and understand. I'm a developer by nature so I understand workflow very well, but not accounting yet I could get the books setup and it's been running for a lot of years with great success We currently sell & support Quickbooks to many of our clients and IMO it's the best option if you don't have much accounting knowledge but need to manage your own books. Our accountant currently only checks the books at the end of the financial year and then sign it off (her partner is a CA) then send it in to SARS. We've had no problems so far.
Accounting packages are sometimes confusing. I agree completely with regards to Pastel. Pastel is aimed at people with an understanding of accounting and accounting principles.
The only problem I have with quickbooks is the fact that anyone with access to the program can go back and change/alter data. From a security perspective it presents a risk.
Marius, did you know that you can create a different user than the admin with more restricted access, for this exact reason?
I have quite a few clients using qb, some of them prefer older versions like 2003. Only at the end do I go through the work. I have yet to see a client doing it as you suggest. It might sound bad, but I am not there to train clients. I have to go through their work, rectify mistakes and then afterwards find out that they have gone and do other adjustments....
Well, there is no such thing as a perfect accounting system
Accounting packages are sometimes confusing. I agree completely with regards to Pastel. Pastel is aimed at people with an understanding of accounting and accounting principles.
The only problem I have with quickbooks is the fact that anyone with access to the program can go back and change/alter data. From a security perspective it presents a risk.
Thx,
Marius du Plessis
this was a problem in old versions, about the year 2000 or so. You can now have different users and have large amount of control over what they can and cant do, including the ability to delete transactions.
I am a firm believer in QB - I have used AccPac, Brilliant, Pastel etc, etc. QB is the easiest to use, probably has the best reporting structures and is cheap. I always believed that sales of this package was a bit slow up until 3 or so years ago because a) accountants and bookkeepers recommend pastel(because they know it and are comfortable with it) and b) I believe sales people do not want to sell it because it is so easy that it is unlikely they will get much support work.
Anthony Sterne
www.acumenholdings.co.za DISCLAIMER The above is merely a comment in discussion form and an open public arena. It does not constitute a legal opinion or professional advice in any manner or form.
As A Quickbooks nut, I still think it is the best, especially for non-accounting people/users.
The concerns with "tampering" is unfounded. Yes it allows you to change transactions willy nilly. But if the "audit trail" is scrutinised, all these changes are shown, with time and date of the change.
No software is perfect, so is an accounting package. Remember accounting bodies propose that information should be "fair", not ACCURATE.
Sean Goss We all are scared, but only few are brave. www.sgafc.co.za
This is my 2 cents worth.....Pastel you gat cheap if you shop around. I got mine from Software 123, and they deliver for free. Around R250 cheaper than a Incredible corruption and R50 cheaper than the 2nd cheapest retailer I sourced.
I am a dumbass when it comes to accounting....On varsity I failed it yes, I am not proud but willing to share....a total of 6%. Doing business a few years you pick up some knowledge, and when I started using Pastel I got it within a day and have been using it since.
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Does anyone know how Peachtree accounting compares with Quickbooks Pro? I'm just curious because I need to invest in some software for my business but I'm really in the dark about what to get.
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Another accountant told me that she'd be willing to try it so I brought her license as well and she's currently doing other company's books on QB as well. 
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