Peachtree

Sage Peachtree Accounting Software was created by Sage Software. Sage has been around for over 30 years and is one of the top accounting software providers in the world. They are geared specifically at small businesses. Peachtree Accounting Software comes in five different versions: Pro, Complete, Premium, Quantum, and Accountant. Peachtree Pro is the base version that has basic functionality and is the cheapest. I use Peachtree Complete for our small business and it has more than enough functionality. Peachtree Premium adds additional functionality with advanced budgeting functionality and a few other tools. Peachtree Quantum is what we use at the manufacturing company to take care of our corporate books. We used to do it for one of our side businesses before it went out of business. Quantum adds more functionality geared more towards accountants and larger businesses. The Accountant version is more for CPAs. For most small businesses, you can easily get by with Pro, Complete, or Premium.

Peachtree Accounting Software is great basic accounting software that offers several benefits. Let us explore each one and take a closer look.

Fully GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)

Peachtree Accounting Software is the only off-the-shelf accounting program that is fully GAAP compliant (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). 

Functionality

Peachtree Accounting Software is a fully functional accounting system. It allows you to issue invoices to your customers, receive payments, enter payables to your vendors, print checks, pay your employees, track expenses, enter journal entries, and much more. It is packed with all kinds of different preloaded reports. Peachtree also will perform an internal accounting review that will identify common transaction mistakes.

Easy to Use

Another great benefit of using Peachtree Accounting Software is that you do not need an accounting degree to use it. For most of the functions, it is as simple as finding the button on the screen and clicking on it, which will bring up the appropriate window where you can enter all of the information that you need to. If you are computer literate, you will be able to comfortably move around in a very short period of time. They also offer help on their website. One of the great and scary things of Peachtree is that depending on your security clearance, you can change anything that you want, which is great if you need to change something. However, if you change something in a prior period, it will change your financial results in that period. I have used several different accounting systems in my career; none have been easier to learn than Peachtree.

Reporting Capabilities

Peachtree Accounting Software comes loaded with a large amount of reports that are all customizable in some way like receipt, invoices, payslips and etc redesigned to suite your desire. They all can either be printed to PDF or dropped directly into Microsoft Excel. Almost all of the reports on the screen have drill down capability that you give you more information n what makes up the number that you are looking at.

Electronic Invoicing: Invoices can be sent directly to email address of a client or customer, just by a click.

Customer Management Center 

Expanding on the “Business Alerts” concept, Peachtree Accounting Software will offer an additional “dashboard”, focused on customer details. From this configurable interface users will be able to quickly retrieve comprehensive information on their customers, including open quotes, unpaid invoices, orders to ship, aged balances, open time tickets, specific inventory items purchased over some defined time period, and various other key business indicators relating to customer management. 

Inventory Management 

With the release of the product users will be able to look up inventory items based on searches for key words in the various “memo” sized fields (Description for Sales, Description for Purchases, and Item Notes. This feature could lead to some very creative uses of these description fields for classifying and categorizing items. A new report has been added which shows item sales history by customer, to help spot trends in customer purchasing behavior. Inventory item type can now store a “default” value, rather than the previous “hard coded” default of Stock Item, which should lead to fewer item maintenance errors when entering new items. 

Multiple Companies/Improved Security 

Users will now be able to open multiple Peachtree databases at once, without having to close one to open another. In addition, security has been strengthened by adding additional security options (“strong” passwords, lockout after multiple failed access attempts, password expiration, user access to change their own passwords, etc.) 

The Quantum version of Peachtree Accounting Software offers some additional interesting features available only to Quantum users. Users can even be restricted from deleting or editing ledgers and transactions. 

My Personal Dashboard

Users can create their own personal “dashboards”, with multiple “views” for different types of information recorded on the dashboard. These dashboards can provide a very visual indicator of business performance, and can allow managers to quickly pull together various accounting components into a comprehensive snapshot of the company. Track open quotes, orders to be filled, and customer open invoices on one tab, and inventory production runs, items below minimum quantities, and open purchase orders on a separate tab.

Friendly Database (Pervasive Database)

Peachtree Accounting Software has a very friendly database (Pervasive Database) and does integrate well with other programs using open databases.

Use of Account Numbers

Peachtree Accounting Software requires the use of account numbers when setting up the chart of accounts. This may sound minor, but it prevents a lot of occurrences of posting to incorrect accounts. 

Flexibility of Account Numbers

If you have multiple locations, divisions, departments, rental properties, etc. Peachtree Accounting Software allows you the flexibility to set up your chart of accounts into segments. You can then run reports based on segments, or “roll-up” the accounts into one master account.  This is useful for the smallest of tracking items, like locations. For example if you  have two locations you can make Operating Supplies, location 1 account 5200.01, and Operating Supplies, location 2 account 5200.02.  This provides for segregation on the Income Statement and also reporting purposes.