Oh The Choices!
QuickBooks holds 89% of the small business accounting market in the U.S. But we can’t forget about Sage’s small business product, Peachtree. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, so let’s dive right in…
Peachtree strengths:
- Stronger inventory management
- Job costing capabilities
- Over 140 customizable reports
- Work flow management
- Scalability/multi-user performance
- Through GAP checks for duplicates and suspicious activity
- Can accommodate up to 40 users, 10 more than QB
QuickBooks Strengths:
- Attractive and very easy adoption
- Accountant Copy Capabilities
- Multi-Currency
- E-Store/E-Commerce Integration
- Online SaaS option (QuickBooks Online)
- Very nice Point of Sale option
- More third party add ons
Conclusions: QuickBooks is great for service-oriented businesses; inventory control is where it falls short. Peachtree has the market on that. QuickBooks only works in average costing; Peachtree can manage inventory by LIFO, FIFO, serialized and average costing. Pricing for both products is very close. QuickBooks is overall more attractive and easier to use, and they have a Mac version. QB also has an online version that is VERY affordable, but limited and more appropriate for home finances. Both products are dependable and excellent.
Click here more information on choosing the right accounting software
And here for a quote on Peachtree OR QuickBooks
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[Disclaimer : I am an Intuit employee]…not taking anything away from Peachtree, I would just like to add the following comments as additional data points to the above analysis :
IMHO : QBES has over 150 customizable reports and also provide Job Costing capabilities (arguably much easier to use than those provided by SAGE products) and offer scalability and improved performance through our Sybase iAnywhere database engine.
Further, PT may have better inv mgmt capability “out of the box”, but we integrate with more specialized third party inventory management packages that ultimately provide more inv mgmt capability. Workflow Management can also be easily accommodated through a variety of robust third party packages.
Thoughts/Feedback welcomed and appreciated…
Comment by Darren — July 8, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
Well said Darren, thanks for the info.
Comment by Sonja Fridell — July 9, 2010 @ 1:40 pm
Sage Peachtree employee here, just letting you hear from the other side.
Clearly opinions vary but the choice really comes down to what your needs are. For instance Darren feels Job Costing is better in QuickBooks; but, if you track phases, cost codes, and their estimates you’ll find that only comes with Peachtree.
Take this review as a starting point. You don’t have a lot of time to spend picking a product but you don’t want to invest in something that won’t work for your business. To get a good evaluation of what meets your needs with minimal effort, go to the online community for the product you are interested in and post some specific questions. You’ll get great answers from users, consultants, and employees that have made specific scenarios work. You might also go to our websites and find a local Peachtree Consultant or Pro Advisor. Let them do all the leg work for you and a little bonus secret … they often have great prices.
Some additional points to think about:
- Peachtree technical support is US based while our competitor’s support is internationally distributed
- The last 3-4 yrs our competition averages 12 service releases a year while Peachtree averages only 2
- 3rd party products can drastically increase the cost of your choice. They can be great solutions if you need them and Peachtree has a comprehensive group of partners; however, Peachtree’s depth of functionality in many areas may negate this need.
Jared
Comment by Jared — July 13, 2010 @ 7:46 pm
Good points Jared.
Comment by Sonja Fridell — July 13, 2010 @ 8:27 pm