RSSMS to Launch SMB Accounting Software
By Ed Oswald | Published August 12, 2005, 12:49 PM
Microsoft said on Friday that it would launch its small business accounting software at a summit in Redmond on September 7. Analysts say that the company is hoping to directly challenge Intuit, the leader in the sector. The application will be part of a new version of Office aimed at small and mid-sized businesses (SMB), code named "Magellan."
Last November, the company released a beta of the software to the public. Over the past several months Microsoft has refocused on SMBs by launching new products aimed at the market. The company has already released customer relation tools, with a new version of that software due early next year.
I have been testing the trial version of this software for about a month now.
Yes, it looks very promising.
1) The interface is very user friendly.
2) The program is much more of an accounting system than is MS-Money (for Small Businesses).
HOWEVER in the current version of MS-SBA:
1) There is no way to import any data from MS-Money.
2) There is no way to import an already-downloaded bank statement (that was downloaded in Money or QuickBooks format). Ergo the only way to import transactions into the program is via the built-in MS-SBA online connectivity.
3) Unfortunately, the built-in MS-SBA online connectivity is currently only compatible with Wachovia Bank. (And some users on the MS-SBA Support forum claim that Wachovia does not work either.) To view MS' miniscule list of supported banks, see here: http://sba.microsoft.com/bank_list.html
In short, MS needs to seriously beef up MS-SBA's online integration if it wishes to get this product off the ground. I cannot see businesses going back to the old-model of manually typing in and categorizing each bank transaction.
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It's also one of the most customizable MS apps out there. It was written in .Net from the ground up and has a very rich plugin/extensibility model.
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MSBA is a very nice program that will cater to almost everyone's needs. I beta tested it and was very pleased with it. I recommend that every small company from 1- 100+ employees buy it!
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