Overview
Q. What is Office Accounting Express 2008?
Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2008 is an essential tool for managing your
business finances. Whether you’re a small or home-based business, you can
use this simple accounting program to make pen and paper-based tasks a thing of
the past.
With the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office, Office Accounting Express 2008
is easy to use and helps you save time, get organized, and do business online.
You only need to enter data once so you can save time managing everyday financial
tasks. All of your customer and financial information is stored in one place so
that you have a complete view of your business. You also have the tools you need
to sell online through eBay® and get paid faster.
Q. Who is Office Accounting Express 2008 for?
Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2008
is designed for millions of starting businesses and home based businesses that currently
use pen & paper or spreadsheets to run their business. It provides a single
place to manage the company’s business finances with the familiar look and
feel of Microsoft Office system programs.
Q. What are the key benefits of Office Accounting Express 2008?
Office Accounting Express 2008 offers the following benefits:
Easy to learn and use
- The startup wizard gets your company set up within minutes.
- Choose from dozens of business templates to set up your company.
- Easy to learn and use. No training is required because Office Accounting Express
2008 shares the same familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office system programs.
- Easily import data from other programs such as Intuit QuickBooks, Microsoft Money,
and Microsoft Office Excel.
- Visit the Resource Center to get help with common questions.
Save time managing everyday tasks
- Share and reuse information, enter information only once and reduce errors.
- Create customized estimates, invoices, and purchase orders.
- Track expenses automatically.
- Automate bank accounts and customer payments.
- Manage payroll and taxes with ADP’s integrated payroll service.
Store and organize all your information in one place
- Store and organize customer, contact, employee, vendor, and financial information
in a single location.
- Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager and Office Accounting Express
2008 share the same data so you always have up-to-date information on your customers.
- Create templates for documents and customize any form to suit your needs.
See how your business is doing at a glance
- Get real-time insights into your business by using more than 20 predefined reports.
- Export reports to Excel 2007 for further analysis in just one click.
Easily share information with your accountant
- Share your books with your accountant and still continue using them for your day-to-day
business.
- Share data more securely with your accountant via Microsoft Office Live.
Easily sell on eBay
- List items on eBay
- Track activity in real time and download and process orders.
Get paid faster
- Send invoices in an e-mail message that includes a direct link to PayPal.
- Process credit card payments quickly
Do business with confidence
- Monitor customer and even your own credit by using integrated Equifax services.
- Use the integrated PayPal option to get paid faster.
Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2008 an upgrade to Office Accounting Express 2007?
Yes. Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 is the successor to Office Small Business
Accounting 2006. Office Accounting is offered in two versions: Office Accounting Express 2008, available
for FREE as a download from this website, and Office Accounting Professional 2008, available for $199.95 for new customers, or $149.95 as an upgrade for current users of
Office Accounting Professional 2007 and Small Business Accounting 2006.
Q. I am currently using Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006. Should
I upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008?
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 does not have inventory and multi-user
features. . We recommend that users using SBA 2006 upgrade to Office Accounting
Professional 2008 which has these features. Office Accounting Professional 2008 is available for
purchase for a special upgrade price of $149.95.
Q. What should accounting professionals use?
Accounting Professionals should use the Office Accounting Professional 2008 version which
has special features to enable accounting professionals to be more productive.
- Accountant Transfer Wizard—Clients can now send their books to their accountants
and still continue to use Office Accounting Express 2008 for their daily business.
Accounting Professionals can work on the books and send them back, and the changes
get synchronized easily. Alternatively accounting Professionals can also remotely
connect to their client’s copy of Office Accounting Express 2008 and update
their books.
- Accountant View—From this central location, accountants can independently
manage client accounts and payroll, import and export client data, and create journal
entries for each client.
- Enhanced Cash Basis Accounting—CPAs have the flexibility to customize Cash
Based Reporting settings for each client’s accounts based on the nature of
their business. This helps ensure more accuracy as the transactions are captured
on the basis of these settings.
- Payroll Center for accountants—Accountants can now run and manage payroll
processing for multiple clients from a single dashboard.
- Office Live integration—Accounting Professionals can collaborate and share
financial information more securely with their clients by using the Office Live
service.
Q. Will I outgrow Office Accounting Express 2008?
Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2008 is designed for millions of starting businesses
and home based businesses that currently use pen & paper or spreadsheets to
run their operations. Businesses that grow and need an accounting system that supports
inventory, support for multiple users or a larger server based database (SQL Server)
can upgrade seamlessly to Office Accounting Professional 2008.
Office Accounting Professional 2008 is built to support small businesses that have
25 employees or fewer. It can be configured as a single user desktop installation
by using Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005. It can also be configured for multiple
users in a peer-to-peer environment or deployed on a Windows Small Business Server
computer with SQL Server. Businesses that outgrow Office Accounting Professional
2008 can migrate to Microsoft Dynamics.
Q. What is the international availability of Office Accounting Express 2008?
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008, and Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 are available for UK based businesses.
Please visit www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk for more information.
We have also introduced a Spanish language version of Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008, and
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 for U.S. based businesses. Please visit www.ideawins.com/espanol for more information.
Features and Add-on Services
Q. What are some of the new features in Office Accounting Express 2008?
- Online sales integration gives you the ability to sell inventory, track activity,
and download orders in online marketplaces such as eBay directly from Office Accounting
Express 2008.
- Equifax credit service enables you to monitor credit for your business, customers,
or prospects.
- PayPal integration enables you to get paid faster by offering the PayPal payment
option to customers.
- Microsoft Office Live integration enables businesses to more securely exchange financial
information with accounting Professionals and other contacts.
- Accountant Transfer Wizard helps you share data with an accounting Express and synchronizes
data easily after the accountant is done updating the books.
- Accountant View page provides a central location from which accountants can manage
Office Accounting Express 2008 data for multiple clients independently.
- Data import enables users to import accounting and financial data from additional
programs and versions, including Microsoft Money, Excel, and QuickBooks.
- Account and Customer Integration Wizard enables synchronized data sharing so that
you can make updates to a customer’s record in one program and quickly see
the results in the other program.
- Journal entry is now expanded so you can be more productive by creating numerous
journal entries posting on different dates and with different accounts.
- Forms customization has been improved so you can tailor any form by adding, moving,
creating, or renaming fields, and hiding unnecessary data element fields.
- Customizable security roles have been improved and now you can add and remove employee
permissions to control access to sensitive financial information.
Q. Can Office Accounting Express 2008 import data from other accounting software?
Office Accounting Express 2008 is designed to import data from other software including
QuickBooks, Excel, and Microsoft Money. Note that Office Accounting Express 2008
does not have functionality like inventory management. We recommend that users move
to Office Accounting Professional 2008 to reduce any loss in functionality.
Q. Can I process credit card payments by using Office Accounting Express 2008?
Using the Office Accounting Express 2008 credit card processing option, you can
accept major credit and debit card payments to better serve your customers and reduce
transaction costs. For credit card purchases, you can even print receipts and create
customer credit memo templates for future transactions.
Q. Is payroll included in the Office Accounting Express 2008 program?
Yes. Office Accounting Express 2008 is designed to work with payroll services provided
by industry leader ADP to help you manage your payroll process more efficiently.
Based on your business needs, you can choose among the various ADP payroll services
options and begin subscribing at one of the most competitive prices in the industry.
Q. What are the various add-on services available with Office Accounting Express
2008?
The following add-on services can be used within Office Accounting Express 2008
to help small businesses be more productive and efficient:
- ADP payroll services to help streamline the payroll process
- Equifax credit reporting services to monitor customer and business credit
- Office Live services to help you share financial data with others and to sell online
from your Web site
- EBay integration to help you grow your business online
- PayPal integration to help you get paid faster
- Buy checks and forms option to easily order custom business forms
- Online banking to help you save time
- Credit card processing to better serve your customers
Pricing and Licensing
Q. How much does Office Accounting Express 2008 cost?
Office Accounting Express 2008 is available as a FREE download to all users. Please
visit www.ideawins.com
Q. Is Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 really free?
Yes, the software is absolutely free. We only require that users activate and register the software after 20 uses, but registration and activation is short, painless, and free.
Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2008 be included in the 2007 Microsoft Office
release?
No. Office Accounting Express 2007 is currently available as a part of Microsoft Office Small Business 2007, Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007.
Q. Where can I find more information about Office Accounting Express 2008?
Visit www.ideawins.com for
detailed product information.
Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2008 available outside the U.S.?
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008, and Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 are available for UK based businesses.
Please visit www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk for more information.
We have also introduced a Spanish language version of Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008, and
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 for U.S. based businesses. Please visit www.ideawins.com/espanol for more information.
Q. How many simultaneous users does Office Accounting Express 2008 support?
Office Accounting Express 2008 is designed to be used on a single desktop.
Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2008 easy to install?
Office Accounting Express 2008 is so easy to install, you don’t need any IT
staff. The startup wizard gets your company set up, connected, and working right
away so you can be writing your first invoice within minutes. The familiar and intuitive
interface makes Office Accounting Express 2008 easy to learn and use right out of
the box.
Q. Can I install Office Accounting Express 2008 on multiple computers by using the
same license?
You can install one copy of Office Accounting Express 2008 on your main computer
and another on your laptop computer for your exclusive but non concurrent use. On
the same computer, you can install or reinstall as many times as you like.
Q. Can I run multiple companies from the same copy of Office Accounting Express
2008?
Yes. You can set up and run multiple companies from the same copy but all users
need to have separate licenses. There is no limit on the number of companies you
can run.
Integration and Compatibility
Q. How does Office Accounting Express 2008 work with other 2007 Microsoft Office
system programs?
Office Accounting Express 2008 has been designed to work smoothly with other Microsoft
Office system programs. Its integration with Word enables you to customize any documents
like quotes and invoices by using existing or new templates. You can then use e-mail
to send these invoices to your customers by using Office Outlook 2007. The integration
with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager helps ensure that all financial
and marketing information is available centrally, and changes made in any one program
automatically show up in the other. Furthermore, Outlook users can view financial
information from within Outlook, use Outlook to create invoices, submit timesheets
from Outlook, and track time in the Outlook calendar. Reports for business insight
can be created in Office Accounting Express 2008 and then exported to Excel, with
its rich formatting, for deeper analysis and calculations. The analysis pack included
with Office Accounting Express 2008 enables viewing financial data in Excel, PivotTable
reports, and Microsoft Office Access reports.
Q. Does Office Accounting Express 2008 work with earlier releases of Microsoft Office?
Yes, Office Accounting Express 2008 works with Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft
Office 2003. However, some features may not be supported by older releases.
Trial and Software
Q. Can I get a downloadable version of Office Accounting Express 2008?
Yes, you can get a full version of Office Accounting Express 2008 available as a
free download from www.ideawins.com
Q. How do I upgrade from Office Accounting Express 2008 to Office Accounting Professional
2008?
Within Office Accounting Express 2008 you can click on the “Upgrade Today!”
button. This brings up the upgrade dialog where you can purchase the
key for Office Accounting Professional 2008. To upgrade to the Office Accounting Professional 2008 you just
need to enter the key (You don’t need to download additional software) into
the dialog.
Q. What server platform can Office Accounting Express 2008 run on?
Office Accounting Express 2008 is designed to run on a single desktop. The desktop
operating system can be Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.
Support and Resources