What Acounting Software Should You Use?

What Acounting Software Should You Use? by J Shipper

Accounting is the measuring, and disclosure or provision of
assurance about information that helps managers and other
decision makers make resource allocation decisions.


How to become an Accountant.

Accountants in the US are called Certified Public Accountants
and in the UK and Canada are called Chartered Accountants.
Chartered Accountants in Canada are expected to know all US CPA
knowledge as well as a Canadian Accounting body of knowledge. In
order to become an Accountant an undergraduate degree is
required and then a period of articling is required which can
take as long as 5 years with gruelling exams and an exhausting
series of finals.

In her notes compiled in 1979, Professor Linda Plunkett of the
College of Charleston S.C., calls accounting the "oldest
profession"; in fact, since prehistoric times families had to
account for food and clothing to face the cold seasons. Later,
as man began to trade, we established the concept of value and
developed a monetary system. Evidence of accounting records can
be found in the Babylonian Empire (4500 B.C.), in pharaohs'
Egypt and in the Code of Hammurabi (2250 B.C.). Eventually, with
the advent of taxation, record keeping became a necessity for
governments to sustain social orders.

Perhaps the most significant benefits to contemporary accounting
has been the introduction of computer programs to assist in the
accounting function..Computer programs were introduced in
business and government organizations in the 1950s, and the most
important applications of computers have been in the areas of
record keeping, balancing , and transaction recording.

Accounting uses various bases of measurement, mainly the cash
basis, the accrual basis (or historical cost) and variations of
these; all of these functions are greatly assisted by the use of
various accounting software programs.

Accounting is tied to the invention and dissemination of the
double entry bookkeeping process.Different Accounting Software
Solutions available today:

ACCPAC web-based accounting, launched the ACCPAC Online web site
in 1999 which allows end users to run ACCPAC from a simple
browser for a small monthly rental fee.

Intuit's QuickBooks for the Web represents a new product from
scratch. Microsoft Small Business Manager is a new player on the
block which is a scaled down version of Great Plains Accounting
Software. Netledger centralized net computing renamed Oracle
Small Business Manager Peachtree. This product was the older
Peachtree Office Accounting product and is also a web-based
solution. In 2000, Peachtree added a web-based module to its'
flagship Peachtree Complete Accounting product called Peachtree
Web Accounting.

SAP mySAP - web-based accounting featuring a limited number of
SAP modules.

So it appears that there are 2 different types of Accounting
Software:

Web Based Accounting: which is one application on a Web Server
running everybody's application.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to this type of
application, immediately coming to mind is confidentiality and
the security of the Servers being used as well as possible
breakdowns.

Advantages are of course in being able to use unlimited Server
Resources. And then there is PC Based accounting which everybody
has tried and is Bill Gates favorite.

Advantages;
In-house control of everything but subject to limited resources.


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