by Jacquline Singer

Created on: June 05, 2009

Office software for home business, varies from business to business. Almost every home business will benefit from having a combined program package like, Microsoft Office. It gives you the basic tools, such as word processing, address books, spreadsheets, and some even offer desktop publishing to handle all your day to day office needs.

Word processing is used to write letters, lists, menus, whatever your heart desires in the line of creating text. Most word processing programs are pretty user friendly and easy to learn. Some offer tools to merge your address book with your word processor to make mailings easier. Word Perfect is an excellent program. While it is costly, it has a lot to offer.

Spreadsheets help you keep up with data in a tabulated format so that it is easy to view. Although spreadsheets are very helpful to those that need them, for the beginner they can be hard to understand or setup. However, with a manual in hand, anyone should be able to master spreadsheets with a little practice. Once you understand the basics, they can make keeping up with inventory, cost and productivity a snap.

Desktop publishing allows you to create calendars, invitations, flyers, newsletters all from the comfort of your own desk. The possibilities are endless. You are only limited by your imagination.

While Microsoft Office Suite costs around $300, I purchased a program at Wal-mart, Office Suite for $20. The program offers everything that Microsoft does plus a photo editor and a text to speech feature that is great when I need to hear what I am writing. I have been using the program on my laptop for over two years with great success. The only drawback is they did not have an XP version the last time I checked. So far, the program has been able to handle all my office needs and at a great savings.

As for accounting programs, I have used three; Peachtree, Quicken Pro, and Quickbooks Pro. In range of price, Peachtree was the most expensive and Quickbooks was the least, leaving Quicken in the middle.

Peachtree was my primary accounting program for five years. Peachtree is an excellent program and for a new business that has the resources allocated for accounting software purchase, it is worth every penny you spend. Just be sure to keep up with updates. It is cheaper to upgrade than to repurchase.

I looked into Quicken and Quickbooks at the same time, and opted to go with the Quicken. I ran into several issues with invoices and payments in the Accounts Receivable end of the program, and cash payments in the Accounts Payable end. It created more stress than it was worth, causing me to change programs after only 6 months. Presently I am using Quickbooks Pro with no problems. All of the features work well for me and my business.

When looking to purchase accounting software, I would suggest that you visit the sites of the software that you are looking into and try a free trial, if they offer it. Then sit down and go through every scenario of your business, from payments made to payments received, check out the check book register, the accounting reports and tax information pages. Create a budget and work with the graphs provided. You should know before the trial period is up if the program is going to work for you. I failed to do this with Quicken and it cost me 6 months of record keeping.

Another point to note is that Amazon.com has some amazing software bonus bundle deals. When you are in the market for software, check them out, you may be able to save a great deal of money by purchasing through Amazon.

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