Review: Microsoft's New Office Powerhouse: Office Accounting 2007

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For VARs, Microsoft has set up another Web site, oapipeline.com, to help them drive sales of Office Accounting products by promoting other Microsoft products that can be combined with the accounting software to form larger solutions. For instance, SharePoint Portal can provide online time and expense management to Office Accounting. Oapipeline.com also can be a great resource for Visual Studio developers and ISVs looking to expand functionality on Office Accounting. Microsoft is offering partners an ISV testing framework as well as SDKs from MSDN.

Accounting Express is limited but is no toy. Microsoft combined both products into a single install, so users only need to add a key to activate the Professional trial version. Accounting Professional is priced at $149, and the full activation key will be available early in 2007. Upgrading from Microsoft Small Business Accounting 2006 is $99. Express users will be able to activate the full Professional version as well from their install without having to download new software.

Microsoft is pulling no punches with this version, as it aims to streamline e-commerce and accounting practices in a way that surpasses many Intuit QuickBooks capabilities, the CRN Test Center found. Through Office Live services, Accounting Express and Professional customers will be able to post up to 200 items on eBay for $9.95. The process is as easy as selecting items with images and passing them right into Office Live. Office Live then hosts the accounts and manages all of the listings and transactions on eBay, including reconciling the purchases and inventory inside Office Accounting. In addition, users can activate other services such as PayPal, ADP and Equifax.

A huge Microsoft development effort went into combining Office Accounting and Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager. Both products work from a single SQL Server database, and every feature is tightly integrated. Sales folks can now make direct business decisions by viewing any information from Office Accounting right from Outlook and Contact Manager. Business owners can pass viewing and editing rights in many fields to their sales staff.

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Outlook also can work as a front end to Office Accounting. Right from Outlook calendars, users can mark billable hours, and the information is sent directly into Office Accounting as billing expenses. No paperwork is required. To add payroll, the ADP service costs $169 per year, with electronic filing priced at an additional $60 per year.

Office Accounting Professional is tightly integrated with the PayPal service, and users will be delighted to know how easy it is to use it. Because Office Accounting and Outlook share the same database, e-mail can be set to work with PayPal right from Office Accounting. Just about any field can be activated to work with Outlook e-mail, allowing business owners to streamline supply purchases as well. A PayPal account is required for these transactions.

In addition to PayPal, users can activate the major credit cards -- American Express, Discover, Visa and MasterCard. Through a Chase Paymentech plan, credit card processing will cost $1.75 per transaction, with a $9.95 monthly fee. The PayPal CCP plan charges $9.95 per month and $20 per month for bank transactions.

Office Accounting also aims to streamline accountants' tasks by providing a single view of all Office Accounting customers. By making a simple request from one pane, accountants can request and upload any customer data without having to reload Office Accounting. In fact, accountants can work on dozens of accounts at once. Like the new QuickBooks, Office Accouting 2007 does not lock users when passing company books electronically to accountants. Office Accounting users can continue their work as accountants work on their quarterly taxes.

The Test Center was highly impressed with the bold look of the new front end. There is no denying that Office Accounting's workflow look and feel resembles that of QuickBooks. However, Office Accounting's integrated service features are much easier to learn.

From ADP to online marketplaces and even setting up new bank accounts, Office Accounting does not miss a beat in ease of use. Everything seems to be well-orchestrated into simple workflow steps and clearly defined tasks. Test Center engineers did not find any exceptions or circumstances in Office Accounting whereby small businesses would need to reconcile some tasks by having to rely on paper or spreadsheets.