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If you know me, you know that I hate math. I hate anything having to deal with numbers! So financial management software is not a happy fun priority on my list, but as a small business owner I can’t live without something! Well unfortunately I haven’t found a solution that I like yet. I have tried alot of different things out there and nothing quite fits the bill. Maybe I have to high of a goal for my software!

A perfect picture of financial management software for me would need to include the following:

1. Intuitive and looks like a Mac app (I won’t hold my breath on this one)
2. Seamless integration with OS X and my other tools (iCal, Address Book, Spotlight, Mail)
3. Invoicing (specifically to estimate, invoice portions of the estimate, and have custom designed invoices)
4. Billing (track accounts receivable and accounts payable)
5. Bank Reconciliation and Register (preferably something my account can take and work with)
6. Reasonably priced

I know, I know Brains and Beauty in a financial app…in your dreams! But I have scoured the internet and tried quite a few  different things that do one or two of the jobs but not everything. Here are my quick reviews of the best, at least what I think, are out there.

• Billings 3: Great invoicing, slick templates and easy to customize; sucks on invoicing before work is complete so deposits are a pain
• iBank: Simple register, iPhone and MobileMe integration is awesome!; won’t export to my accountant, not easy to see snapshot of my business
• MYOB: powerful, full featured; pricey, complicated (feels like my accountant would have a hard time using it)
• Quickbooks: Full featured, solid invoicing and banking integration; Intuit doesn’t think Mac (see screenshot of Safari, and they don’t support anything except IE for online), the software still feels like a port, they make the comment when you ask them for support, “if you want that run the PC version in Parallels or VMWare.”
• LessAccounting.com: completely in the cloud, awesome banking, great invoicing; sucks for invoice customization, pricey when you look at the cost for more than a year.

So anybody have a good idea of what to do? What do you use? What works and what doesn’t!

UPDATE: I caved in and got Quickbooks for Mac 2009. After searching and searching it became my only all-in-one solution. Intuit is taking strives to reach out to Mac users. I am also beta testing their online version.

(image courtesy of: Michael Witthaus: localrhythms.wordpress.com)

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