Simply Accounting Reviewer's Comments

Please Note: This software is intended for Canadian based businesses.

Simply Accounting Pro has all the sections you need to control sales and purchases, but the program is missing a Banking Section and a few other business tools. (Simply Accounting Pro does offer bank account reconciliation through the General Section of the program, however.)

Simply's reporting sections are easy to understand, but are mildly difficult to use because there aren't any images or icons to help you find a specific report. But you can run report batches, run mailing labels, and customize your reports.

One convenient feature is the Daily Business Manager. This window lets you see specific parts of different sections you use daily, such as current memos, purchases, purchase orders, sales, sales orders, and recurring transactions.

Ease of Use:  

Simply Accounting Pro is easy to use. The opening screen has large icons clearly labeled so you can find your way around. The Daily Business Manager gives you a way to manage all your purchase and sales accounts easily in a window on startup. The navigation is excellent; you can enter each section with just one click and the setup button will allow you to customize your invoices or purchase orders.

We had no problem installing and setting up our company with Simply Accounting. The simple setup wizard walks you through all the setup questions.

Help/Documentation:  

Simply Accounting Pro has an excellent Help Section. Not only does the help cover every topic, it has a search tool to find subjects fast and easy. Simply Accounting also has a small help component attached to each section so you can learn how to perform each task within a section correctly.

Accounts Receivable:  

With Accounts Receivable, you can build general quotes, sales orders, invoices, receipts, and manage customers. But Accounts Receivable is missing a few tools, including tools to estimate shipping costs and figure finance charges. This section has five related reports available.

Accounts Payable:  

Like the section above, Accounts Payable lets you create quotes, sales orders, and invoices. Simply also gives you the choice to pay vendor invoices; credit bills, and miscellaneous payments. This section has six reports available.

Payroll:  

Simply Accounting lets you manage employees easily; you can add, remove or modify an employee's status and run Payroll collectively or individually. One feature we couldn't find was a reference to set the employee pay time period (such as weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). This section has six different reports available.

Inventory:  

One standout feature in the Inventory Section makes management easy, especially for businesses with large inventories. You can search for an inventoried item by item number or SKU (stock keeping unit number). You can also create assemblies (kits, or grouped items), and perform inventory adjustments.

There are, however, many features this section lacks. For example, there is no space to reference where the item is stored (such as a specific warehouse) and you can't keep an picture of the object in the program. There is also no way to create drop shipments for products that aren't in stock. This section has only five different inventory reports.

Banking:  

Simply Accounting doesn't have a specific section called banking or reconciliation. However, this program has four account reconciliation reports and can reconcile accounts through the General Section of the program.

Time Billing:  

This section lets you create time slips and build invoices from them; you can also pay employees from these time slips. There is no way to create time expense tickets for vendors. But the Time Billing Section in Simply Accounting does offer seven different reports.

Job Costing:  

In this program, Job Costing is called Projects. From this section you can add, remove, and adjust all the projects on your list, and three project reports are available. The only thing that this program can't do is track jobs. But you can create estimates and set projects to active or inactive status.

General Ledger:  

The closest tool to a General Ledger is the General Section. This includes a section called Accounts where you can view your balance. The assets and liabilities sheet—called Trial Balance—is found in Reports, under Financials. There are nine different reports that display the balance sheet, income report, and cash flow.

Fixed Assets:  

Simply's only reference to fixed assets is within the reports-under the Financials Section and on the balance sheet. The program offers a section of the worksheet to display fixed assets, but doesn't offer the means to manage them.

Summary:  

Simply Accounting Pro is a good accounting program but is missing a few ingredients. With Banking and Shipping Sections added, and a way to manage employee pay periods, the program would be more powerful.