Office Accounting Fits Every Budget

OA Express 2007 includes:

• Quotes
• Invoices
• Receipts
• Credit memos
• Refunds
• Letter writing

OA Professional 2007 adds:

• Sales orders
• Finance charges
• Job tracking

Reach out: Additional add-on services enable you to build a web site, send e-mail newsletters, buy mailing lists, purchase online advertising, and more.

Figure 1: Advanced functionality, such as writing letters, is included free in the Express version.

Work with vendors

The Express version covers the basics for working with vendors, including managing incoming bills and outgoing payments. This capability works well for anyone who still handwrites checks because Office Accounting makes it easy to print checks. Businesses farther along on the growth curve will need Professional’s capabilities, such as printing 1099s and issuing purchase orders.

OA Express 2007 includes:

• Bills
• Credit memos
• Payments
• Bill and item receipts

OA Professional 2007 adds:

• Purchase orders
• 1099 forms
• 1099 reports

Timesaver: A surprising number of users print checks from their computers and then type or handwrite the envelopes — make sure that your clients use window envelopes instead.

Managing Payroll

Office Accounting Express particularly shines with regard to payroll. Features that other accounting software don’t even offer, such as employee expense reimbursement, are available. The payroll options between the two versions are virtually the same with the added feature that Professional offers to process a very simple payroll manually and avoid ongoing costs.

OA Express 2007 includes:

• Time tracking
• Payroll [if enabled?]
• Expense reimbursements

OA Professional 2007 adds:

• Manual paychecks

Test drive: Your clients can try ADP’s payroll functionality before they buy: in either version of Office Accounting choose Employees, Online Payroll, Sign Up for Payroll Service, and then click the Test Drive ADP Payroll link on the left side of the screen.

Control inventory

Office Accounting Express doesn’t allow users to track inventory on-hand — upgrading to Professional is required. However, for those clients that simply resell products or offer services, the Express functionality fits perfectly.

OA Express 2007 includes:

• Service items
• Non-stock items

OA Professional 2007 adds:

• Stock items
• Inventory kits
• Enhanced reporting

Figure 2: Office Accounting Professional enables inventory control for items on-hand.

Sum of the Parts: Office Accounting Professional enables you to assemble inventory kits, which simplifies inventory management for products comprised of two or more inventory items.

Other Important Features

Both the Express and Professional versions offer the innovative Marketplace Services feature, which provides direct integration with eBay and PayPal. Conversion utilities simplify the process of migrating your clients from QuickBooks or Microsoft Money. In addition, a nominal subscription fee enables credit card processing from within Office Accounting.

OA Express 2007 includes:

• Single-user access
• Over 20 financial reports
• EBay and PayPal integration
• Outlook integration
• QuickBooks conversion
• Microsoft Money conversion
• Credit card processing
• Equifax credit profiles

OA Professional 2007 adds:

• Multi-user access
• Over 40 additional reports
• Report design capability
• Memorized documents

Collaborate: Your clients can use the Accountant Data Transfer in both Express and Professional to send their books to you for review and/or payroll processing.

Decision point: Keep in mind that only one user can work with Office Accounting Express at a time. Businesses that need simultaneous access for two or more employees should upgrade to Professional.

Advanced Features in Office Accounting Professional 2007

Upgrading from the free Express version to the Professional version unlocks several advanced features, some of which are unique to Office Accounting:

• The Company Home page feature provides a snapshot of your company, including cash flow, banking, reminders, vendor payments due, and overdue customer accounts.
• Multi-currency capabilities enable you to conduct global commerce.
• Class tracking allow you to group and track related transactions.
• Memorized documents let you save frequently used documents, such as recurring invoices, payroll transactions, or journal entries, and minimize redundant data entry.

Upward mobility: Clients that outgrow Office Accounting Professional can migrate to the Microsoft Dynamics line of business-management solutions.

Unlock the Professional version

Your clients can easily upgrade from Express to the Professional version by following these steps:

1. Choose Help, and then Upgrade to Professional.
2. Click the Online hyperlink within the Product Key section, as shown in Figure 2.
3. When the 120 day Trial key appears, enter your name and e-mail address, and then click Continue.
4. Your product activation key will appear on the subsequent screen and will also be e-mailed to you. Enter this number in the Upgrade Product License screen that appeared when you completed step 1, as shown in Figure 2 — this window should remain open in the background.

Figure 3: Enter the free 120-day trial key to test-drive Office Accounting Professional.

Safety first: Your data will undergo a conversion process, so be sure to back-up your records or perform your test-drive of Professional on a separate computer. Otherwise you may not be able to continue to utilize your data in Office Accounting Express.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Microsoft.