Singapore Expats

Hi all, may i know which accounting software is suitable for small marine company?
Thanks.

Jenskin1011 wrote:Hi all, may i know which accounting software is suitable for small marine company?
Thanks.

Myob ??

How small is small ??

Or you can test-drive the Quickbooks ..

Thanks for your info. Small as mean suppliers & customer invoices even the petty cash volumn currently is less than 20 pcs each. Anyone got info or contact or website for retailers of MYOB & Quickbook which is cheaper or reasonable price?

Jenskin1011 wrote:Thanks for your info. Small as mean suppliers & customer invoices even the petty cash volumn currently is less than 20 pcs each. Anyone got info or contact or website for retailers of MYOB & Quickbook which is cheaper or reasonable price?

Ever heard of Google? Peachtree also good. Key feature you need in Asia is multi currency system.

It's not so much your industry that matters when deciding on the software, but what you need the software to do most. If you need to mainly do invoices, and get them out on time, I suggest trying one of these software-as-a-service solutions.
1. Xero
2. Freshbooks
3. Harvest
4. Zoho invoice
5. Outright

Harvest is the newest to join the ranks. All five take care of business with 1-2 staff, which bill clients regularly for services work. Be careful though as these SaaS solutions may have currency / language restrictions.

If you need to do more reporting like bank reconciliation and payroll functions, you need something beefier. Try to stick with online software and avoid the hassle of ownership. Apart from Quickbooks, MYOB and Peachtree, take a look at these as well:

1. Postbooks
2. Free Agent
3. Open Taps (ERP and CRM)

I'm writing a paper on this very subject. I'll share it with you once it's published.

Freshbooks seems to be popular. But is there anything that is free? =)

Ah yes, the magic word - FREE .

Not that I am aware of. It seems accounting is one category of software where FREE does not apply.

Any FREE accounting software either requires a lot of customisation / hosting or it has severe limitations. The free products I have seen are open source. You download the code, modify and host it yourself on a web server. Tedious - you need to be a developer or know one.

Sugar CRM I hear has a some kind of free accounting solution, but I have not investigated it. I'm not convinced it will be effective, as its likely to be a bolt-on to their CRM.

AnthonyC wrote: Not that I am aware of. It seems accounting is one category of software where FREE does not apply.

While you are promoting your solution, can you advice how you stand up against software that goes for say, 300 $ for perpetual license, vs your 'monthly fee' ..

For small companies, it doesn't fly, and that is my humble opinion ..

I investigated some online subscription based services a couple of years ago, but the initial cost of customization and then the ongoing subscription fees, while interesting, was a cost that would have been nearly double what we are current experiencing. We decided to give it a miss and continued to use MYOB Enterprise (for 5 companies & 200 +/- staff). Has worked rather well and it a pretty good solution unless you decide to opt for a complete CRM package which for our size company, isn't really necessary.

Okay. In addition to the earlier list, a friend alerted me to less accounting. Although not entirely free, it appears cheaper than freshbooks (only $30 US a month), and seems to do the same thing - invoicing.
http://lessaccounting.com/
I'm on the hunt for a mid-range free application that can run stably on Vista, so I'll post it back here if I find it. 6 months ago my search didn't uncover anything, but that was 6 months ago...

sundaymorningstaple wrote:I investigated some online subscription based services a couple of years ago, but the initial cost of customization and then the ongoing subscription fees, while interesting, was a cost that would have been nearly double what we are current experiencing. We decided to give it a miss and continued to use MYOB Enterprise (for 5 companies & 200 +/- staff). Has worked rather well and it a pretty good solution unless you decide to opt for a complete CRM package which for our size company, isn't really necessary.

How would that compare to QuickBooks now going into the Cloud with SingTel? I like QuickBooks but it failed to do Serial Number Tracking which meant we had to plump for something more expensive.

At the time I was doing the investigations, Quickbooks were a non-starter as they were not localized for Singapore. Are they now? Statutory reports, GST matters and such?

^^^ Likely not. Even for reporting for basic business needs it's a nightmare. I guess if you have to use something. And better than using Excel for all your bookkeeping like one of my clients.

I use Bizsof and MYOB which is more than sufficient for me