QuickBooks Simple Start Edition Description:

QuickBooks Simple Start Edition review:
4 stars (Helps the micro small business get out of the shoe box) - I am a CPA who has advised clients with small businesses to use this product to organize income and expenses. This is a very stripped down version of the Quickbooks line, but it is built to get those micro businesses out of the shoebox and rag-tag spreadsheets, and into a structured, logical format.



I would highly recommend Simple Start for the following:



--Small Schedule C, owner-operated businesses with no employees;

--Small services businesses, and;

--Those who may have an apartment building or two.



Michael J. Dunton

Aurora, IL
4 stars (Good for beginners, finicky interface) - I like QuickBooks basic because it does everything I need and is simple to use. It's help feature when deciding how to categorize expenses is good. Some things are a little difficult to get the hang of (such as how to enter invoices, etc.) but it does a lot and is worth the price if you need to organize your small business finances.
4 stars (Very simple but very limited) - This is as advertised. Super simple to get started with accounting for a very basic business. It took about 5-10 minutes to load, walked me through half a dozen basic questions, and was ready to start taking bank account entries and categorize them. I was also able to set up a business credit card to track expenses there and enter things very easily.



The simplicity however comes with a real lack of flexibility for anything more involved. Within the first 30 mintues I was already noticing features missing that I would like, and found myself needing to upgrade to a more complete version of Quickbooks. For instance, expenses are only single level -- you can't have subcategories for expenses. Credit card entries can't have memo fields to remind you what the expense was (checks can however). Etc.



I imagine if you have a business with a very limited set of vendors and customers, and you have little need to categorize your expenses in too complicated a way, this program could be sufficient for your needs. It also is an easy first step into accounting software -- but I would probably start with the expectation that you'll have to upgrade.