For our small company, what are some viable alternatives to Quickbooks?

There are actually several options. Sage Peachtree offers several different levels of their software, so you can choose which best suits the needs of your company. Peachtree also offers software specific to industry, like manufacturing and construction. Of course, Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains) is another option, but it is a rather large investment, so it may not be the best option for a small company.

If your company has fewer than 10 employees and your accounting needs are basic, Wave Accounting is an option. It is a free online accounting application, so while it is cost effective, it may not meet all your accounting needs. There are a number of other online options, like Xero or FreshBooks, that offer tiered pricing and varied levels of support.

I would suggest looking into Intacct. It's cloud based, real time reports and a dashboard to manage your KPI's. For more info check out their web page. I can give you several names of CPAs who have been working with the system for years and love it.

http://online.intacct.com

Check out Netsuite... i used it found it very functional

I have been using Xero and was also looking at Kashoo.

There are many alternatives and the right fit is often driven by a handful of factors - what is your business model (e.g., service based business or need to track and sell inventory) and your technology functional footprint...Check out NetSuite, SAP's Business By Desigh, IntAcct and MSFT's products.

Often there are industry specific accounting software: fpr instance: Timberline for construction companies; Yardi for real estate property management. On important consideration is service and how much it costs.

The list above is a good first start; there are literally hundreds of others. If you need help narrowing down, maybe it would be best to restructure the question a bit and then repost it. What particular problem are you having with QuickBooks? Why do you want to get rid of it (or not buy it)? This would help the small accounting package hobbyists among us to focus on what's important to you.

Note that all the alternatives above (NetSuite, Intacct, Xero, Great Plains, the four other Microsoft small accounting packages, Peachtree, etc., etc.) were all designed for slightly different markets and fit very well with certain companies and quite poorly with others. Without knowing more about what you might need, it is simply a matter of chance whether any name one might suggest would actually work well for you.

I would recommend you seriuosly consider a SaaS model. There are many great options available for small firms. As David mentioned above you need to identify what you're looking to get out of the software package to pick the best option. Different vendors are better suited to different industries.

How large is the firm - people & revenue?
Are you scaling for growth?

My company is 80+ people and just now migrating off QuickBooks. I'm leading our migration to NetSuite now. We decided to go with NetSuite based on our future growth needs - multiple subsidiaries, detailed reporting, real-time information. To Mark's point, there are also different solutions and vendors who cater to different industries. We found NetSuite to be well versed and ready to handle our project based professional service firm.

If you don't need deeply advanced functionality, QB is an affordable way to grow, though I won't mask the fact that it can be painful at times. I'm especially excited to get away from the limited reporting abilities in QB.

Cheers,

John Krebsbach
Controller

If you have a Treasury Management function with limited functional requirements to include cross-border payments and Cash Management you should check out TGold Software: www.TGoldsoftware.com

ADrian Costello