In your opinion, when is Quickbooks or Peachtree worth the investment for a small Web-based business?

I believe it is worth it in almost all cases. Quickbooks can be purchased for as low as $200. It's just a good way to track your business' performance, will help at tax time, and provides financials right from the start, in the event the business were to grow. Now I am an accountant, so I may be biased! One of the biggest challenges I hear most small business owners say is that they don't really understand their costs, where their money goes, or how their business is truly performing. I think everyone who is in business should understand the basics of financial reporting and what better way to learn than by preparing them yourself as a small (even very small) business.

Agreed. Quickbooks is relatively cheap and will help you manage your cash flow, taxes and reporting. It should also save you money by helping to manage your finance and accounting issues in a proper manner so that your accountant is better able to prepare your tax returns. Just export the file to the accountant and you're done.

I can't tell from your question but are you using any type of record-keeping? How are you getting your information for sales tax returns, product liability quotes, etc.? Do you have employees? How are you determining the amounts to put on the payroll returns?

The $200 it takes for Quickbooks will more than outweigh the time it takes just to compile the information for the above questions. If you find that $200 is too much you might want to look at free online accounting software such as Wave Accounting. Quickbooks has an online version as well that would allow you to spread the costs monthly.

Bottom line is that you are going to spend much more than the cost of software in the long run. Start keeping track of all your transactions.

I would agree with all of the above statements. Basic accounting and financial functions work best with an accounting system. There is no way you can benefit from the savings ($200 - $3000) - personnel inefficiency and manual steps will cost you more than the savings very quickly.