MYOB or Quickbooks for Mac business owners?

At this point I can only share your pain. I wish Intuit would get with it and make a Mac compatible system that accommodates payroll needs as well as tax accounting and bookkeeping requirements.

Maybe Howard will jump in here....

DD

I use quickbooks for my accounting (I'm on a mac). I decided on quickbooks because it seems like that is what every accountant uses and I wanted to be able to send my accountant my entire quickbooks file for tax time, which I was able to do successfully. I have to say I absolutely hate quickbooks though! I really need to buy another copy for my assistant but I have not done so just because I can't stand the thought of giving them more money!

Laura - that's the same reason I kept buying it and trying to make it work, but in the end, the payroll issue broke the deal for me. I guess I never got to the point of hating it because I never used it enough.

You didn't say whether you use the payroll function, but assuming you do... is that part of what you hate about it?

BTW, I checked out your site, it's very elegant.

DD

Annie - did you learn anything else in your search? This conversation didn't seem to take off ...

DD

Dennis - I don't use it for payroll, I just have independent contractors and they make a different amount every period, I just enter that as an expense.

I wish I could do that, but as a self-employed person I take advantage of all the tax benefits of hiring the spouse. We leverage those benefits to the max and if it were only her to think about it wouldn't be much of an issue.

However, my other business, wildland fire suppression involves up to a half dozen employees. Most of the people in this business don't pay any payroll taxes by paying their people under the table. The contracting agencies and the State doesn't seem to care since they know about it. Some of the rest pay via the 1099, which is also illegal because by any measure the people working for them are employees. The rest of us pay more and have way more paper to push, and have a harder time making a fair profit: the price of being legal and ethical.

Among other things this issue of me having two Schedule C business seems to be an overwhelming confounder for most of the bookkeeping systems I have looked at and nearly all the people who are supposed to know that business.

Anyway, I guess if it were easy everyone would do it:-)

DD

Hi Annie, I am on Mac and use MYOB, and have used it for several years. It's worked great for me, and not being a numbers guy, maybe that says something.

I've never used Quickbooks, so it's hard to make a comparison. But I have certainly heard of more small businesses using Quickbooks vs. MYOB. Since we don't have employees, I can't say how it has worked on that end.

Wish I could be of more help, but as I said, MYOB works for me, but looks like I'm in the minority here...

Hi, Annie:

A few months back I worked a one-day-a-week contract for a new client who was on MYOB on a MAC. Other than learning some of the MAC-specific mouse tools and keystrokes, there was zero learning curve for me as a brand new user with more than 15 years as a user of Intuit products.

More interesting, a friend was describing his most recent QuickBooks upgrade, and it sounds like all of the new additions are elements stolen from MYOB. This supports my belief that MYOB is the better product.

Hope this helps...

Annie, What version and year of Quickbooks do you use?

I'm a long time Mac user. When I started up my business I did a lot of research into accounting packages.

I heard a lot of stories about both QuickBooks and MYOB. I wasn't really excited by either of them, and I was about to pick one, when another choice crossed my path: MoneyWorks.

It's from a little company in New Zealand called Cognito. It doesn't have the name recognition that the other two have, but I have to say it's a great product. I've been using it for a year and a half. It plays very nicely on the Mac. (They make a Windows version also.) And the support that the company provides is top notch.

It does everything I need. I can't speak for your particular circumstances though, so you might want to check it out yourself. You can download a free demo version.

Hi Annie,

This is funny. I just started a very similar discussion on a different Biznik forum yesterday - "Quicken vs QuickBooks and the Mac". This is a huge issue! I absolutely hate QB! I use it for my business and Quicken for my personal account and the difference is stunning. As a creative, I'm not wired like an accountant (yay!) and QB is such a struggle. Getting reports and information out of Quicken is so easy and intuitive so you know it can be done.

I absolutely hate being crammed into a square hole by a computer program. Thanks for the tip about MoneyWorks, Carl. I'm going to check it out right now.

Yeah, thanks Carl, I'm on that one as well.

Is is interesting how there is an entire industry dedicated to keeping some distance between us and an understanding of our tax and money matters... makes you wonder - but not for long - who benefits most from that. It does create the niche though for people who wish to bridge that gap for us.

DD

What's really sad is both solutions are dated for the modern age. I really don't know what Intuit is doing with their mac team but I wish their windows developers would kick them in the pants. hah. Their windows division stomps the mac counterpart, it's about the only thing I run in VMware.

I would love to see some upstart competitors come to dominate this space but we've yet to see any real inroads. I think banks and payroll services need to agree on a common API for others to use that is both validated and secure. Then we could see more services tie into them and allow us a lot more flexibility than the services currently offered.

Until then these style of discussions will reverberate over and over again as we all kick the ground wondering why we can't enjoy applications like we would like.

-andy

Andy,

Did you say that you're running your Quicken in a virtual Windows environment? The QuickBook support guy told me that I could do that. If it will run in a virtual environment, that that would make life much easier and give back some choice, at least until the revolution. :-)

Barbara

I quote you, " Is is interesting how there is an entire industry dedicated to keeping some distance between us and an understanding of our tax and money matters... makes you wonder - but not for long - who benefits most from that. It does create the niche though for people who wish to bridge that gap for us."

I could not agree more. There's alot of profit in keeping it hard for you, when it's not hard.

QB on the Mac is not much different than QB on a PC. It's like an older version, and you can't network it. But I've got a growing client base on Mac users, and I don't know Mac OS, and it's no problem. I know why too. Mac is a much better platform than Windows. So they'll be upgrading the Mac version of QB.

I can't speak to MYOB or other software (except Quicken), but there's no reason not to run QB for the Mac on your mac, and forget the virtual PC stuff.

If could say one thing to empower you, it's that your overrating the software, and underrating the accounting. Even this whole thing about needing to upgrade your sofware every year is ridiculous. My really smart, wealthy, successful clients said "the accounting is way harder than the software."

That's why I wrote an accounting book. That and I had a better idea about how to teach it so that entrepreneurs actually think it's easy. Which is is, by the way.

I'd like to echo the recommendation for Cognito's MoneyWorks. This is the best and most user-friendly accounting software I've ever seen.

I worked on MYOB for one job years ago, Since I know the in and outs of Quickbooks it is my prefered software by far. The Mac version has much to be desired. The PC version is great. One of my clients a photographer was runing virtual PC this was 3 yrs ago and we decided to buy a cheap PC for accounting because it ran too slow on the MAC. I was able to do his bookkeeping in half the time which more than covered the cost of the PC. Better reports, nicer invoicing. Payroll can be done within the software.

Thanks for the comment Brenda.

It's just wrong that we have to buy a separate computer to run a program that we have to hire someone else to use to handle OUR money. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

I want to have complete control over my money. We cannot do that if we don't have access to the proper tools - tools that we can USE. We don't need financial software that's made for bookkeepers and accountants. We need software made for people who run businesses and are experts at what THEY do. I think this new economy will make some very big changes. I hope this is one.

Barbara, the most basic QuickBooks program is free. Simple Start and geared more to the business owner that wants to do it them selves and does not have a degree or bookkeepers training. For those who have the time and want to do their own bookkeeping this maybe the program for you. Call me and we can discuss the best program for your type of business and training to use it.

Actually, I've been using QuickBooks for my business for eight years. I'm really unhappy with it. The problem is that it 'hide' money, the reports are ridiculously complex and it doesn't interface with my Quicken so I cannot get a 'complete' picture of my finances. I understand that it's the preferred program for accountants and bookkeepers. The thing is that my accountant does my taxes once a year. I need a tool to control and manage my money every day.

I've taken the QB training courses and worked with my accountant (for $120 an hour), but this is not a good situation. I was blind-sided this year with 3 times more taxes and STILL don't know why. This is crazy! I want to take back complete control and know exactly what's going on in my money. I'm very frustrated at how hard this is.

I did a search of all of the forums nationwide for self employeds and freelancers (as well as small businesses) in the last couple of months and found a huge majority of people having the same issues. Luckily, some open-source programmers are starting to get the message and are working at creating USABLE accounting and money management programs for us, but it will be a while.

I appreciate your offer for help and my give you a call. Weird thing. I'm working with a business development mentor now and this is one of the issues that is just consuming me. I work so hard, last year I thought I had reduced business expenses drastically and yet I'm just barely surviving. My taxes just flattened me out of the blue. I had paid my estimated quarterly taxes like a good little robot and then owed tons more. I'm just beyond words. I love my accountant and think that she's doing her best for me. But I feel that I haven't shepherded my money as well as I could have. I'm trying to correct that and it's dismaying how hard it is. I'm not stupid. I have a masters degree, yet this is just amazingly difficult. It should not be. People have been running their own businesses since time began. With far less education. So what's the problem? I really don't know.

I think a big thing is the wrong tool. I understand that the IRS wants business accounts to be separate from personal accounts. However, we do taxes once a year. We live every day. We have the right to have ONE tool that gives us ONE overall view of our entire finances. This doesn't seem like it should be that hard.

My business coach sent me this whole batch of excel spreadsheets to fill in budget stuff and net worth stuff. (Duh! it's the exact info being tracked in my Quicken) So I print my Quicken reports out, fill in the excel spreadsheets and get the same information I already had. Guess what? Still no info from my business end of things! ARGH! That's the problem!

The money of self employed people flows from both sides. We need to understand how they relate so we can make educated choices. Why is this so hard? Do you know of a solution?

I'm like a dog with a bone on this because I run a group called Self-Employed Creative Professionals (www.SECPpdx.com). One of our missions is to help our members be better business owners and to be more profitable. We're all struggling with the same issue. We're not taught this in school (why?). I thought I was doing everything right until this year's taxes. Now I feel totally lost. I love my accountant but she just wants to 'cover' QuickBooks more. That's not the problem. I'd give almost anything to find the solution for me AND my fellow self-employeds. This new economy is not going away and we need to have complete control over our money.

Do you have any suggestions? Does it make sense what I'm saying? Am I asking the right questions?

Hey Barbara,

The problem is that exercising complete control over your money isn't an easy thing -- that's why there is such a thing as accountants. We hire lawyers to do our legal stuff, electricians to do our electrical stuff, but we expect to be able to manage a business' money with no training.

This is especially a problem for creative professionals. I've designed MANY databases for creative professionals -- even some in the exact same line of business, in the exact same city, in competition with each other -- and every one of them wanted an entire different way of looking at their business. The majority of creative people just aren't wired to manage money, and definitely not in the way that accountants do -- but you already know that.

There's a middle ground between you and the accountant, though. There are lots of bookkeeping firms out there -- your accountant can probably even recommend one. These are people who are not certified accountants (translation: they are MUCH cheaper per hour!), but they have training and experience on how to manage a company's money. They are used to figuring out how much money should be set aside for taxes every year, and all the other problems that plague you.

What you are saying makes total sense, but the answer is that you need regular help from a professional -- not just once a year at tax time.

I think you're right, Paul - definitely on the our 'wiring' differences. I think it need a little more hand holding (and chocolate).

This has been and interesting conversation string. I appreciate everyone's input.

Annie, I would love to get back to your issue at hand even though it has been a while. I have quite a bit of experience on both ends of QB, Mac and Windows. And I agree with everyone else that QB for Mac is trash! I recently began my bookkeeping business this month and wanted to stick with my love affair of all things Macintosh. So I purchased an iMac, VM-ware, and Quickbooks Pro 2009 for Windows. It runs flawlessly and provides access to all the great QB features that are missing on the Mac version. Just wanted to let you know about that route. Good luck!