considering quickbooks for nonprofit

india just

I accepted appointment to educational nonprofit. They need basic accounting package, consistent with nonprofit structure around "programs" I am wondering if quickens biz side is a good fit for this task. Also wondering about cost/credits associated with my membership here in beta. Structure is 2 teacher/FT employees, rent, food, tiny amount of facility upfit. Second program is Learn Anywhere to hire HS kids to cook and get service learning credit. One grant so far plus Education Freedom Account money to the tune of 8k/kid. Expecting total budget to land around 80k, 10k in overhead and 2 folks with 30k each in salary gross.

Hoping for a recommendation that can directly import and train to categorize the very small number of transactions they process. Busy folks, looking for basic stuff.

Jim_Harman

Note that Quicken and QuickBooks are two entirely different programs, owned for the last several years by different companies. This is a Quicken sponsored forum and we can't really discuss competitive products here.

If you are interested in the Quicken Home and Business edition, I think it would be a stretch to get that to work for the nonprofit you describe. It is designed for sole proprietors and does not handle payroll the way a full featured accounting system would, for example.

india just

I was under the impression that there was an accounting program beyond the personal finance that I have used with quicken since the 90's. Perhaps that changed with business reorg and spinoffs now 6-8 years back.

I have zero experience with accounting, not even double entry ledger stuff, so I have been struggling to figure out what is going on, even with the very limited domain of this organization. I thought I might start here, but looks to be the wrong place.

I'm still not certain that the nonprofit is the proper structure for the organization. journey continues.

Ps56k2

plus - since Quicken is not a full fledged accounting system, there might not be the types of reports required for reporting your organization financial info to others…

Jim_Harman

Note that Quicken and QuickBooks are two entirely different programs, owned for the last several years by different companies. This is a Quicken sponsored forum and we can't really discuss competitive products here.

If you are interested in the Quicken Home and Business edition, I think it would be a stretch to get that to work for the nonprofit you describe. It is designed for sole proprietors and does not handle payroll the way a full featured accounting system would, for example.

volvogirl

And Quicken is not a real accounting program. It is a personal finance program and doesn't follow accounting conventions. You can make one sided entries and change and backdate transactions. It can't be used for proof of anything.

If you have a business you might want to use QuickBooks.  It has real accounting features like inventory and an online version.  You can can have multiple users.

You can check out QuickBooks here. 

http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/small-business-software.jsp

QuickBooks vs Quicken

Quicken is not an accounting software package and except for the most simple cash-basis business (vs accrual), it is not an appropriate substitute for QB or other accounting software. It is not a double-entry accounting software, has no audit trail, and lacks most of the features that make QB and similar packages what they are.

india just

I was under the impression that there was an accounting program beyond the personal finance that I have used with quicken since the 90's. Perhaps that changed with business reorg and spinoffs now 6-8 years back.

I have zero experience with accounting, not even double entry ledger stuff, so I have been struggling to figure out what is going on, even with the very limited domain of this organization. I thought I might start here, but looks to be the wrong place.

I'm still not certain that the nonprofit is the proper structure for the organization. journey continues.

Ps56k2

plus - since Quicken is not a full fledged accounting system, there might not be the types of reports required for reporting your organization financial info to others…