Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008

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 and get organised. 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.

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:

• The startup wizard gets your company set up within minutes.
• 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 Sage© or Microsoft Office Excel format.

• Share and reuse information, enter information only once and reduce errors.
• Create customised estimates, invoices, and purchase orders.
• Track expenses automatically.
• Automate customer payments.

• Store and organise customer, contact, employee, supplier, 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 customise any form to suit your needs.

• 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.

• 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.

• Send invoices in an e-mail message that includes a direct link to PayPal.
• Use the integrated PayPal option to get paid faster.

Q. I am currently using Microsoft Office Accounting Beta. Should I upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008?

No. We recommend that Microsoft Office Accounting Beta users upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008.

Q. How is Office Accounting Express 2008 different from Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 software?

Accounting Software Features	Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional 2008	Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2008
Double entry accrual accounting
Cash basis accounting
Setup Wizard
Multi-level chart of accounts & nominal ledger
Sales Ledger & Purchase Ledger
Invoicing, purchase invoices and returns
Audit trail & change tracking
Financial reports	Over 60 reports	20 reports only
Rich form customisation
Granular Role based security
Backup and restore with data compression
Visit the Resource Centre to get help with common questions
Generate VAT returns
Microsoft Office Integration
Data migration - (Import from Excel or Sage© )
Familiar Microsoft Office user interface
Full Integration with Outlook with BCM with shared Accounts
Customise and personalise documents in Microsoft Office Word
Create and send letters to customers with Microsoft Office Word
Send forms, letters, and reports in e-mail
Export data to Microsoft Office Excel® for analysis and charting
Advanced Accounting
Cash flow forecasting tools & reports
Actionable company dashboard
Memorised documents for recurring transactions
Quotes
Sales orders
Multiple price levels
Purchase orders
Finance charges
Job costing & class tracking
Create and track inventory & kits
Multicurrency Support
Multi-user functionality (peer -to -peer OR Small Business Server network)
Run on SQL Server 2005 Standard, Workgroup or Enterprise Edition		SQL Server Express Edition only
Integrated Online Services
Electronic Invoicing with PayPal
Process payroll for employees
Order compatible cheques and business stationery
Online sharing of books with accountant via Office Live
Accounting Professional Features
Multi-client accountant navigator
Batch journal entry (Worksheet)
Accountant Transfer Export Wizard

* Third party services may require a fee.

Q. What should accounting professionals use?

Accounting Professionals should use Office Accounting Professional 2008 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 synchronised 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—Accountants have the flexibility to customise 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.
• 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. Can Office Accounting Express 2008 import data from other accounting software?

Office Accounting Express 2008 is designed to import data from other software including Sage© or Excel format. The following versions of Sage© are currently supported: Sage© L50 v11, Sage© L50 v12 and Sage© Instant Accounts v12. Please note that Office Accounting Express 2008 does not have functionality like inventory management. We highly recommend that users move to Office Accounting Professional 2008 to reduce any loss in functionality.

Q. Is payroll included in the Office Accounting Express 2008 program?

Please click here to learn more about Payroll functionality.

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:

• 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
• PayPal integration to help you get paid faster
• Buy cheques and stationery
• Integration with professional accounting software from Digita

* Third party services may require a fee.

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.msofficeaccounting.co.uk

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 2008 is currently only available as a standalone application in the UK.

Q. Where can I find more information about Office Accounting Express 2008?

Visit www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk for detailed product 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.

Q. What are the system requirements for Office Accounting Express 2008?

Go to the Office 2007 System Requirements page for more information.

Q. How do I get updates for Office Accounting Express 2008?

You can get updates for Office Accounting Express 2008 by going to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com or http://update.microsoft.com.

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 customise 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.

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.msofficeaccounting.co.uk

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 easily buy 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.

Q. How do I get support and resources?

Microsoft provides support for Office Accounting Express 2008 at 0-870-60-10-100. You’re welcome to participate in an Office Accounting 2008 newsgroup to share your experiences with others and ask for advice. Visit the Office Accounting Express 2008 home page for detailed product information.

Q. What is Office Accounting Professional 2008?

Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional 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 Professional 2008 is easy to use and helps you save time and get organised. 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.

Q. Who is Office Accounting Professional 2008 for?

Microsoft^® Office Accounting Professional 2008 is a complete accounting solution designed for business owners, bookkeepers, and office managers in any company with up to 25 employees. 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 Professional 2008?

Office Accounting Professional 2008 offers the following benefits:

• The startup wizard gets your company set up within minutes.
• No training is required because Office Accounting Professional 2008 shares the same familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office system programs.
• Easily import data from other programs such as Sage© L50 v11, Sage© L50 v12 and Sage© Instant Accounts v12 or Microsoft Office Excel.

• Share and reuse information, enter information only once and reduce errors.
• Create customised estimates, invoices, and purchase orders.
• Track expenses automatically.
• Automate customer payments.

• Store and organise customer, contact, employee, supplier, and financial information in a single location.
• Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager and Office Accounting Professional 2008 share the same data so you always have up-to-date information on your customers.
• Create templates for documents and customise any form to suit your needs.

• Get real-time insights into your business by using more than 60 predefined reports.
• Export reports to Excel 2007 for further analysis in just one click.

• 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.

• Send invoices in an e-mail message that includes a direct link to PayPal.
• Use the integrated PayPal option to get paid faster.

Q. I am currently using Microsoft Office Accounting Beta. Should I upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008?

We recommend that Office Accounting Beta users upgrade to Office Accounting Professional 2008 which has the latest features described above.

Q. How is Office Accounting Professional 2008 different from Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 software?

Accounting Software Features	Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional 2008	Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2008
Double entry accrual accounting
Cash basis accounting
Setup Wizard
Multi-level chart of accounts & nominal ledger
Sales Ledger & Purchase Ledger
Invoicing, purchase invoices and returns
Audit trail & change tracking
Financial reports	Over 60 reports	20 reports only
Rich form customisation
Granular Role based security
Backup and restore with data compression
Visit the Resource Centre to get help with common questions
Generate VAT returns
Microsoft Office Integration
Data migration - (Import from Excel or Sage© )
Familiar Microsoft Office user interface
Full Integration with Outlook with BCM with shared Accounts
Customise and personalise documents in Microsoft Office Word
Create and send letters to customers with Microsoft Office Word
Send forms, letters, and reports in e-mail
Export data to Microsoft Office Excel® for analysis and charting
Advanced Accounting
Cash flow forecasting tools & reports
Actionable company dashboard
Memorised documents for recurring transactions
Quotes
Sales orders
Multiple price levels
Purchase orders
Finance charges
Job costing & class tracking
Create and track inventory & kits
Multicurrency Support
Multi-user functionality (peer -to -peer OR Small Business Server network)
Run on SQL Server 2005 Standard, Workgroup or Enterprise Edition		SQL Server Express Edition only
Integrated Online Services
Electronic Invoicing with PayPal
Process payroll for employees
Order compatible cheques and business stationery
Online sharing of books with accountant via Office Live
Accounting Professional Features
Multi-client accountant navigator
Batch journal entry (Worksheet)
Accountant Transfer Export Wizard

* Third party services may require a fee.

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 Professional 2008 for their daily business. Accounting Professionals can work on the books and send them back, and the changes get synchronised easily. Alternatively accounting Professionals can also remotely connect to their client’s copy of Office Accounting Professional 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—Accounting professionals have the flexibility to customise 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. In addition accounting professionals can make cash-only journal entries for tax adjustment purposes.
• 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 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 R2 computer with SQL Server 2005. Businesses that outgrow Office Accounting Professional 2008 can migrate to Microsoft Dynamics.

Q. Can Office Accounting Professional 2008 import data from other accounting software?

Office Accounting Professional 2008 is designed to import data from other software including Sage© or Excel. The following versions of Sage© are currently supported: Sage© L50 v11, Sage© L50 v12 and Sage© Instant Accounts v12.

Q. Is payroll included in the Office Accounting Professional 2008 program?

Please click here to learn more about our Payroll functionality.

Q. What are the various add-on services available with Office Accounting Professional 2008?

The following add-on services^* can be used within Office Accounting Professional 2008 to help small businesses be more productive and efficient:

• Payroll services to help streamline the payroll process
• Office Live services to help you share financial data with others and to sell online from your Web site
• PayPal integration to help you get paid faster
• Buy cheques and business stationery
• Integration with professional accounting software from Digita

* Third party services may require a fee.

Q. How much does Office Accounting Professional 2008 cost?

Office Accounting Professional 2008 is available for £149.95.

Q. Is Office Accounting Professional 2008 be included in the 2008 Microsoft Office release?

No. Office Accounting Professional 2008 is only available as a standalone application.

Q. Where can I find more information about Office Accounting Professional 2008?

Visit www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk for detailed product information.

Q. How many simultaneous users does Office Accounting Professional 2008 support?

Office Accounting Professional 2008 is designed to be used on a single desktop, in a peer-to-peer network environment or on a domain server, like Windows Small Business Server. Each user needs to have Office Accounting Professional installed with a separate license.

Q. Is Office Accounting Professional 2008 easy to install?

Office Accounting Professional 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 create your first invoice within minutes. The familiar and intuitive interface makes Office Accounting Professional 2008 easy to learn and use right out of the box.

Q. Can I install Office Accounting Professional 2008 on multiple computers by using the same license?

You can install one copy of Office Accounting Professional 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 Professional 2008?

Yes. You can set up and run multiple companies from the same copy. There is no limit on the number of companies you can run.

Q. What are the system requirements for Office Accounting Professional 2008?

Go to the Office 2007 System Requirements page for more information.

Q. How do I get updates for Office Accounting Professional 2008?

You can get updates for Office Accounting Professional 2008 by going to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com or http://update.microsoft.com.

Q. How does Office Accounting Professional 2008 work with other 2007 Microsoft Office system programs?

Office Accounting Professional 2008 has been designed to work smoothly with other Microsoft Office system programs. Its integration with Word enables you to customise 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 2008 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 Professional 2008 and then exported to Excel, with its rich formatting, for deeper analysis and calculations. The analysis pack included with Office Accounting Professional 2008 enables viewing financial data in Excel, PivotTable reports, and Microsoft Office Access reports.

Q. Does Office Accounting Professional 2008 work with earlier releases of Microsoft Office?

Yes, Office Accounting Professional 2008 works with Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Office 2003. However, some features may not be supported by older releases.

Q. Can I get a downloadable version of Office Accounting Professional 2008?

Yes, you can get a 60 day free trial version of Office Accounting Professional 2008 available as a download from http://www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk

Q. How do I get support and resources?

Microsoft provides support for Office Accounting Professional 2008 at 0-870-60-10-100. You’re welcome to participate in an Office Accounting 2008 newsgroup to share your experiences with others and ask for advice. Visit the Office Accounting Professional 2008 home page for detailed product information.

Q. What is Office Accounting Professional Plus 2008?

Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional Plus 2008 is a complete accounting solution designed for business owners, bookkeepers, and office managers in any company with up to 25 employees. It provides a single place to manage the company’s business finances with the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office system programs. Office Accounting Professional Plus 2008 includes 12 months of prepaid Microsoft Payroll Service – a total value of £119.

Q. How is Office Accounting Professional Plus 2008 different from Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008 software?

Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional Plus 2008 includes all of the great features of Microsoft Office Accounting