Competing Products

While QuickBooks is the undisputed champion of accounting software solutions, there are other products that compete with QuickBooks. The most competitive product is Peachtree Complete Accounting from Best Software. While QuickBooks offers many great features not found in Peachtree, most CPAs and experts who use both products extensively tend to agree that Peachtree is the stronger and better product overall. I personally find that Peachtree is easier to set up and use, easier to learn, easier to operate, easier to keep accurate and more powerful in the areas of inventory and job costing. Further, Peachtree’s time and billing solution is light years ahead of QuickBooks. On the other hand, QuickBooks offers superior financial reporting compared to Peachtree and much better online payment capabilities. A complete listing of the popular products that compete with QuickBooks is presented below:

Product Name For the low-end market (companies with revenues up to $5 million)	Single User	5 Users	10 Users	25 Users	100 Users
ACCPAC Adv Series Discovery ^{(3 users - add $250) ($1,500 for SM, GL, AP, AR, PR - $1,00 each for add'l modules)}	$4,500	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
ACCPAC Vision Point	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600
BusinessVision 32	$995	$5,495	$6,790	$10,675	N/A
BusinessVision SQL	N/A	N/A	$9,995	$16,985	$54,995
BusinessWorks Gold	$3,760	$4,750	$5,255	$6,745	N/A
DAC Easy 11.0	$250	$500	N/A	N/A	N/A
Microsoft Small Business Manager (Includes GL, AR, AP, PR and 1st Yr Service of $425 single user; $725 multi-user)	$1,920	$3,720	N/A	N/A	N/A
M.Y.O.B. AccountEdge	$236	$647	$1,142	N/A	N/A
Oracle Small Business Manager	$1,200/Yr	$3,600/Yr	$6,600/Yr	$16,200/Yr	$60,000/Yr
One Write Plus 8.0	$89	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Peachtree 2000 6.0	$1,650	$2,530	$2,930	$2,930	N/A
Peachtree Accounting 2002	$160	$525	N/A	N/A	N/A
Peachtree Complete for Windows 2002	$270	$557	$557	$557	N/A
Simply Accounting (ACCPAC)	$169	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Simply Accounting Pro (ACCPAC)	$319	$725	N/A	N/A	N/A

While QuickBooks has earned its place in the world as a low cost accounting software application, the world’s lowest price entry-level product that is well proven is ACCPAC Simply Accounting. If you or your client is looking for a good low cost accounting software solution, Simply Accounting is the best choice on the market today.

GAP Accounting Products

There is a significant GAP between entry-level accounting packages such as QuickBooks and Peachtree and popular mid range accounting software solutions such as MAS 90 and ACCPAC Advantage. The entry-level products are typically priced at $500 or so, while the mid-range solutions are typically priced at $15,000 to $20,000. That is a significant jump for most businesses to make once they have outgrown Peachtree or QuickBooks.

Within this range, there are a handful of products that strive to fill this void. These products include BusinessVision 32, Oracle Small Business Manager, and Microsoft Small Business Manager. Additionally, Best Software and ACCPAC have both tried to position their mid-range products for this GAP market with the Peachtree Edition of MAS 90 and the Discovery Series of ACCPAC Advantage. While these products probably represent the best value in the marketplace to end users, GAP accounting products suffer from a lack of an effective distribution channel. Priced at $2,000 to $5,000, these products are too expensive to sell off the store shelves, and too inexpensive to provide enough profit incentive for resellers to highly recommend them. These products are commonly referred to as GAP accounting products because they fit in this GAP (not to be confused with the phrase GAAP accounting which refers to generally accepted accounting practices).

As a general rule, these GAP products blow the doors off QuickBooks and Peachtree with advanced features such as support for serialized inventory, multiple warehouse locations, customer specific pricing, etc. If you or you client has outgrown QuickBooks, you might be well advised to take a look at the GAP accounting products.