What is it? A free accounting package from Microsoft for small-business people who want to keep their books themselves
Cost: FREE!
Positives: Free, Comprehensive feature set, Intuitive Interface, Easy to use, Ideal for not-too-complex businesses and service businesses
Negatives: Desktop software limited to a single user, More complex features such as analytical reports are only available in the Professional Edition.
How to get it: Download at http://www.ideawins.com
How to learn more: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/accountingexpress/FX102097791033.aspx

News that Bill Gates will retire soon and devote himself to philanthropy made big news a couple of months ago. What you may not have noticed is that his company, Microsoft, is increasingly dabbling in philanthropy too.

In the last couple of years, Microsoft has steadily rolled out a long line of no-strings-attached free software.  First came the Express editions of Visual Studio, Microsoft’s premier application development environment. Express edition of SQL Server, Microsoft’s high end database software, followed soon. Then came Office Live Basics, the free web hosting package that even includes free domain name registration. The latest addition to all this freeware is Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, a comprehensive accounting package for small businesses.

Like Microsoft’s other Express or free software, Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 has a big brother too: Microsoft Office Accounting 2007. But the Express edition is surprisingly feature-rich. In fact, it will meet the book-keeping and accounting needs of a great number of small businesses — especially mom-and-pop outfits.

License and Installation
You can download a free copy of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 at http://www.ideawins.com. The Express edition is a single-user application and it must be installed on a desktop; it can’t be installed in a LAN environment. If you have multiple users, you must upgrade to the Professional edition.

The installation amounts to simply clicking on the downloaded exe file and entering your business information when prompted. It takes all of five minutes. As its name suggests, Microsoft Office Accounting is designed to be a part of the Microsoft Office Suite. So you won’t find a new program icon on your Windows start menu; you will find and entry in the Microsoft Office program group instead.

Integration with Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007’s interface will remind you of Outlook. It has a left pane similar to that of Outlook. If you use Microsoft Office’s Business Contact Manager for Outlook, you will be able to see payables, receivables and invoicing data right from within Outlook without starting up the accounting package.  Contacts, vendors, and customers are automatically duplicated between the two applications

You can export reports, invoices, quotes, and practically any document to Word or Excel. You can even create templates in Excel and Word. Take invoices, for example. Let us say you run a service business and invoice clients in two different ways: fixed rate for a service and variable hourly rates. You could then create a template for each type of service and export your invoices to Word by selecting the appropriate template.

If you subscribe to Microsoft Office Live, you could share your accounting data with your accountant by uploading it to a secure area in Office Live. Of course, to avail of this service, your accountant should also be using Microsoft Office Accounting 2007.

Features
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 naturally has all the basic book-keeping and accounting features that any self-respecting accounting package must have. So it is an able replacement for any basic accounting application. But it appears that Microsoft is attempting to build a marketplace of services around the package, just as it has done with Office Live. In addition to simply keeping books with Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, you can also:

1. Put up items for sale on eBay
2. Put up items for sale on your web site using PayPal
3. Request credit reports on clients from Equifax
4. Download transactions from your bank’s or credit card company’s web site
5. Send a link to PayPal in your invoices and process the payments automatically
6. Process payroll online through ADP
7. Process credit card payments through a merchant account

As you would expect, you do have to pay for these additional services; they are not free. But the nice part is that most are integrated with the application.

Support
Microsoft offers free support via a toll-free number for 90 days. Not bad for a free product.

My Take
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is a nice little accounting package, but it is not for everyone.

• If you use a combination of Excel, Notepad, handwritten notes to yourself, and a notebook to keep accounts, Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is a fantastic bargain for you.
• Ditto if you use a low end version of popular accounting programs such as Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Money, or MYOB. Now you don’t have to part with fifty dollars on an annual basis. Besides, you will find Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007’s features to be really high-end as compared to your current package.
• If you have a consulting or a service business and have modest accounting needs, you will love Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007. It is difficult to find a good low end accounting package for small businesses. Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is so flexible that you will be able to customize your quotes, invoices, and reports very easily and quickly.
• If you currently use the more expensive versions of QuickBooks, Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is not for you. It lacks some the high-end reports and analysis tools.
• If your business is such that multiple people require simultaneous access to accounting data, you will find Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 of no use. It is meant to be a single-use application.
• Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is tightly coupled with Microsoft Office. If you use another office application suite, such as WordPerfect, you will find Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 a pain to use.

But it is free. So it won’t hurt to give it a try.