MICROSOFT LAUNCHES FREE ACCOUNTANCY PACKAGE

Microsoft’s new Office Accounting Package launched in December 2007 is now available as a free download Office Accounting Express.

The free version offers the essential administrative functions a small business needs, from producing sales and purchase invoices to banking and quotations. Office Accounting Express also covers a broad range of accounting functions and will handle V.A.T.

The full version, Office Accounting Professional, will set you back £149.00 for the single user package and £399.00 for a three-licence deal. For your money, however, you will get some impressive additional features including an integrated cash-flow forecaster, sales and purchaser order processing and even a stock management function.

Private users managing their household budget through Microsoft Excel will be able to transfer their existing files to Office Accounting Express which is has been designed to be compatible with other Microsoft Office software.

Small businesses looking for a cheaper entry-level alternative to dominant market leader Sage will welcome the choice offered by the Office Accounting range. Sage shareholders, however, may not be quite so happy.

By offering Office Accounting Express for free and making the upgrade to Office Accounting Professional so easy, US Giant Microsoft is taking on the competition head on. Directly appealing those businesses already hooked on Sage Microsoft has simplified the process of shifting data to Office Accounting Professional.

All this, coupled with Microsoft offering free training and technical support until September 2009,
Will encourage existing Sage users to make the change. The impact on Sage could be significant.

One last thing, before considering switching to Office Account Express readers should check out their PC’s up to the job as the program needs a 1GHZ processor, a minimum of 512mb of RAM, a meaty 2GB of hard-disc space and running XP SP2 or VISTA.

Office Accounting Express can be downloaded free at www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk


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