A Review of Peachtree Complete Accounting 2004 By J. Carlton Collins, CPA

Peachtree Complete Accounting is perhaps the best value in all of accounting software. For more than ten years I’ve travel throughout the United States, lecturing to more than 20,000 CPAs on the topic of accounting software. I am continually impressed by how well the CPA community has embraced Peachtree Complete Accounting product line. The product consistently receives high marks and positive comments from the discriminating CPA community for its power, functionality, and ease of use. Clearly there is not a better accounting software solution for sophisticated small businesses on the market today.

What makes Peachtree Complete Accounting so special? It is a combination of the products’ low price and complete solution. Peachtree Complete Accounting packs very a strong inventory order entry solution, along with good job costing, fixed assets, time and billing solutions, and a strong e-commerce solution as well. The product’s installation wizard makes it easy to install, even for a novice. The rich default settings and user-definable fields are features you would only expect to find in higher-end accounting packages. Small businesses also appreciate the built-in cash and collection manager capabilities, the financial alerts, and the financial report grouping capabilities – not to mention the strong integration with Microsoft Excel.

My high regards for Peachtree Complete Accounting are not limited to just lectures and articles, I put my money where my mouth is. My company - Advisor CPE - has relied on Peachtree Complete Accounting for years and I have found it to be a very dependable solution. While no product is perfect in every respect, Peachtree Complete Accounting offers a near-perfect solution for a vast majority of small businesses.

Peachtree Software

 

Company Headquarters	Peachtree Software, Inc. 1505 Pavilion Place Norcross, GA  30093
Telephone	(770) 724-4000 (800) 247-3224 FAX (404) 564-5888
Peachtree Software’s Key Management: President and COO Senior Vice President of Product Marketing and Channel Sales Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Senior Vice President of Operations Senior Vice President, Customer Sales and Marketing Vice President of Development  Vice President of Product Management Vice President of Customer Support Senior Director of Internal Systems Vice President of Human Resources	Doug Meyer Jim Ducker Teri McEvily Connie Ceruse Susan Searle Tom Maszk Steve McHugh Ron Taylor Walter Jeske Russ Wise
Number of Employees	500
Number of Resellers	5,000+
Number of Customers	1,000,000+
Ownership	Peachtree Software Inc., is a subsidiary of Best Software Inc., U.S. Operations. Best Software U.S. is one of the divisions that form Sage Group PLC, the U.K. parent company and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (Reuters: SGE.L) with annual revenues of more than $600 million
Number of Modules	13 Modules
Account Number Structure	15 characters / 15 segments
List of other Accounting Software Products Sold by Best Software.	BusinessWorks MIP MAS 90 MAS 200 Platinum for Windows by Best MAS 500

Founded in 1976, Peachtree developed its first accounting program when IBM selected the company to produce business software for the then top-secret IBM PC. The system Peachtree created included General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Inventory, and Payroll modules. Called the Peachtree Business Accounting Series, this first-of-its-kind product set the precedent for the family of Peachtree products that followed. Peachtree products are designed for small to medium-sized businesses. Peachtree introduced the first Windows accounting package in 1991.

Peachtree was acquired by Best Software in 1999 and is now part of the Small Business Accounting Solutions platform headed by Doug Meyer.

Peachtree Accounting 2002’s Underlying Technology

To help you better understand the underlying technology of an accounting software package, I highly recommend that you first read the following articles:

Underlying Technology -
Programming Languages -
Product Testing -
What is a 32-bit Application -

Peachtree Products

Peachtree currently offers six products with varying levels of features. These products consist of:

 1.      Peachtree First Accounting ($100)

2.      Peachtree Accounting 2004 ($199)  

3.      Peachtree Premium $499/ multi-user $999

4.     Peachtree Complete Accounting $299/multi-user $699

5.  Peachtree Web Accounting $149 
     annually/multi-user option $149 annually

6. ePeachtree Accounting $149 annually/multi-user option $101 annually

 

Peachtree also produces special editions of Peachtree Premium for Manufacturing, Distribution and Non-profit editions, as well as a special edition of MAS 90, also from Best Software designed to transition from Peachtree.

 

A summary of the features in some of these packages, as well as QuickBooks and QuickBooks Pro, is presented in the table below:

	Peachtree First Accounting (Dual Media)	QuickBooks 5.0 (3.5" disks or CD)	Peachtree Accounting for Windows (Dual Media)	QuickBooks Pro 5.0 (3.5" disks or CD)	Peachtree Complete Accounting (Dual Media)	Peachtree Complete Plus Time and Billing (Dual Media)
Suggested Price	$69	$99	$129	$199	$199	$249
Interactive New Company Setup	P	No	P	P	P	P
with Multimedia Version		No	P	Sound Advice	P	P
Bonus Software Worth $$$ on CD	P	No	P	No	P	P
Posting Methods	Real Time/Batch	Real Time	Real Time/Batch	Real Time	Real Time/Batch	Real Time/Batch
Costing Methods	Average	Average	Average, LIFO & FIFO	Average	Average, LIFO & FIFO	Average, LIFO & FIFO
Accounting
General Ledger/Receivables/ Payables	P	P	P	P	P	P
Payroll and Inventory	P	P	P	P	P	P
Quotes/Estimates	P	P	P	P	P	P
Invoicing and Statements	P	P	P	P	P	P
Writes and Prints Checks	P	P	P	P	P	P
Prints Purchase Orders	P	P	P	P	P	P
Bank Reconciliation	P	P	P	P	P	P
Financial Reports/Budgeting	P	P	P	P	P	P
Drill Down Reporting	P	P	P	P	P	P
Custom Reports	P	P	P	P	P	P
Project Tracking	P	P	P	P	P	P
Business Management
Multi-user		No	P	No	P	P
Financial Report Writer		No	P	No	P	P
Business Monitoring/Contact Mgmt		P	P	P	P	P
Graphical Analysis		P	P	P	P	P
Custom Forms Design		P	P	P	P	P
Electronic Bill Payment		P	P	P	P	P
and More...
Job Costing by Phase/Cost				No	P	P
Fixed Assets				No	P	P
Backorders/Sales Orders				No	P	P
Partial Shipments				No	P	P
Integrated with Business Internet Suite				No	P	P
New! Plus Time & Billing
Expense Ticket Tracking				No		P
Create Invoices from Expenses/Tickets				Time Only		P
Multiple Billing Rates				No		P
Advanced Ticket Selection & Consolidation				No		P
Ticket History Linked to Invoice				No		P
Comprehensive Reporting for Time & Billing				No		P

Peachtree Complete for Windows

Peachtree Complete for Windows Plus Time & Billing is arguably the best value in all of accounting software. Priced at just $299 off the shelf, Peachtree includes 13 modules and is network ready right out of the box. Peachtree excels in ease of use. The set up wizard and wizard checklist make it the absolutely easiest accounting package to set up in the marketplace. The tutorials for both Windows and Peachtree are among the best self-user tools available in the marketplace. The reports, customized fields, and drill down capabilities are all very good. Based on our experience, “over half of our high-end customers over the past 10 years could easily get away with using Peachtree Complete for Windows today instead – because Peachtree Complete for Windows is that powerful”.

When choosing Peachtree Complete for Windows, many customers are aware that QuickBooks is the worlds leading accounting software in terms of sales. This being the case, why would someone choose Peachtree Complete for Windows over QuickBooks? There are many reasons. While QuickBooks offers good check writing and reporting, Peachtree offers a full set of 13 robust accounting modules. Further, Peachtree provides customization capabilities through user definable database fields. Finally, Peachtree is network ready right out of the box whereas QuickBooks is not. While they are both good products, Peachtree is clearly far more powerful and far easier to set up than is QuickBooks. While you may not need a LAN implementation today, who knows, you may need that capability this time next year. For these reasons, Peachtree Complete for Windows is our preferred choice over QuickBooks every time.

Introduced in the spring of 1996, Peachtree Complete Accounting for Windows offers business management tools, Fixed Assets, Sales Orders with unique backordering capabilities, and a Job Costing feature that breaks down jobs into even the smallest phase. This product has won the following awards:

q    Home Office Computing Editors' Pick
q    PC Magazine Editors' Choice
q    PC Computing MVP
q    Computer Shopper's Best Buy

Peachtree First Accounting includes General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Invoicing, Item Tracking, Checking Account Reconciliation, and Business Reporting

Peachtree Complete Accounting for DOS includes General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Invoicing/Order Entry, Purchase Order, Payroll, Inventory, Job Cost, Fixed Assets, and a Custom Report Writer. Peachtree Complete has twice won PC World's World Class Award, is the three-time winner of Computer Shopper's Best Buy Award, and is the recipient of Computer Reseller News' Vision Award. Peachtree also provides a multi-user version, Peachtree Complete Multi-user Accounting for DOS. However, we prefer to recommend the Windows based versions over the DOS-based version.

Peachtree Complete Accounting - Best Fit

I am continuously amazed by how many businesses that seem to think that an entry-level product like QuickBooks or Peachtree should meet the needs of their sophisticated company such as a $20 million manufacturing operation. People - wake up. No product is targeted towards businesses of every size, nor is any product ideally suited for every industry. With this in mind, here is where I think Peachtree Complete Accounting fits best.

Size of Company-Best Fit

Peachtree Complete Accounting is generally targeted towards companies with 1 to 25 employees; 1 to 5 users;  and up to $5 million in revenue.

Industry Solutions Best Fit

Peachtree Complete Accounting is well suited for many industries and is typically better for companies with inventory than is QuickBooks.

Product Tour The following section is designed to walk you through some of the look and feel and functionality of Peachtree Accounting 2002. The objective is to provide prospective purchasers the opportunity to learn a little bit about the product before taking that next big step of contacting a sales representative. Hopefully, this information will help you pre-qualify the product and determine whether it is a reasonable candidate for consideration. Peachtree has really tried to make accounting information easy to access.  They have used a simple, user friendly interface to walk you through the accounting function.  With the sun icons and browser-like interface, it is pretty easy to figure out what to do next. Usability aids, like this setup checklist presented in a familiar yellow pad format, are hard to beat. This quick snapshot view of key information makes it easy for a small business owner to see where he stands.  This is the only screen the owner needs to access. From here, he can drill down to additional details. Selected Screen Shots for Peachtree Complete Accounting:   When it comes to evaluating accounting software, sometimes I like to start with a quick look at some representative screens. Unfortunately, too often a quick glimpse of these screens usually means that you have to get a reseller involved, they give you the third degree, they eat hours of your time, and eventually you are able to get that sneak peak you have been waiting for. By then, you are beat down and weary by the process. Maybe you know what I am talking about. To help you out, I've provided some representative screens below. Enjoy.