If you run a small business, odds are you've got some sort of system for tracking income, expenses, and tax payments. But we're going to bet it's not as simple as the system offered by GoBootStrap. The web service offers a sort of accounting for dummies style interface. To enter income, just click the income tab, describe the client, assignment, and amount, and you're all set.

The expenses tab is slightly more complex, in that you need to select from a list of categories like travel, supplies, or rent. But the category list is relatively short, and there's absolutely no way to add your own clutter with custom categories. While that might seem like a severe limitation, it actually makes sense when you consider what GoBootStrap offers behind tab number 3: Tax estimates.

GoBootStrap examines your income and expenses and lets you know how much you will likely owe on your quarterly estimates taxes. Right now the site only offers estimates for federal taxes, but eventually state taxes will be supported as well.

Microsoft has updated its Office Accounting software, and just like last year, the company is offering free and paid versions. Office Accounting 2008 will set you back $199, while the slimmed down Office Accounting Express 2008 is available for free.

If you run a small business with international clients, you might want to shell out a few bucks for the professional accounting package with support for things like multiple currencies and multiuser access. But if you're self employed and are just looking for a way to manage accounts, track invoices and bill payment, and a few other basic business features, the free version looks pretty nice.

The 2008 edition also includes Spanish language support and integration with new online banking services.

[Thanks Gregger!]

Looking for some cheap but effective accounting software for your small business? The field just got a bit more crowded. Last year Microsoft began offering a free version of its accounting software, and this year Intuit has followed suit by providing a free download of QuickBooks Simple Start Edition.

Up until now, Intuit had been charging $100 for its starter accounting app. By offering a free version, Intuit stands to gain some small business customers who might have otherwise gone with Microsoft. And the only reason either company offers any software for free is because they plan to make money down the road, either through advertising, selling your data, or enticing you to upgrade when you outgrow the limitations of the free software.

But for a free application, Quickbooks Simple Start is pretty powerful. Here are just a few of the things you can do:

• Create and manage invoices
• Analyze your income and expenses
• Manage multiple accounts, vendors, and services
• Run sales, transaction, tax, and expense reports

If you want to access some of the more advanced Quickbooks features like payroll management, Quickbooks Simple Start will urge you to upgrade to Quickbooks Pro, which will set you back about $180 - $200.
[via AppScout]

Did they pay? Who still owes money? Where do I stuff all this cash while I wait for everyone to pay-up? Here are some questions you probably don't want to deal with but since you volunteered to be a group treasurer, team manager or money person, you're stuck with.

PayItSquare might be of some help to people like you who are collecting and recording amounts of cash for a group. The beauty of it is people can pay you online via their credit card or a paypal account and you get paid immediately through a paypal account.

We asked Brian Anderson, the founder of PayItSquare, what the service fee was. Here's his response:

Who wants to spend time and energy on accounting? Most people would rather wash the car or even scrub toilets. That might change soon thanks to Less Accounting.

The whole goal behind Less Accounting is to make book keeping as simple and easy as possible. The team behind Less Accounting, Less Everything, believes that users will never again use Quickbooks. In fact, they're so bullish, they see themselves changing the accounting landscape as much as 37Signals changed project management with Basecamp.

So how does it rank in real-life? Less Accounting provides users with three main categories, Money In, Money Out and Watch Money. Money In allows users to easily drop in sales leads, notes, proposals, invoices, and deposits made. Money Out has areas to input Expenses and Mileage. In the Watch Money category, users can get an account summary with bank account activity and view all paid expenses and deposits. It does not tie into your online banking; it's merely another tool to use for cross referencing. Through Watch Money, Sales reports can also be generated, as well as reports for both paid and unpaid invoices.

Everything is pretty straightforward to use, and the design is clean and very attractive. A few things that were missing in the beta test included some kind of tutorial or walkthrough of the application, and it wasn't very evident where data could be exported from reports, which I later came across on the top right navigation which might blend in a little too much. Aside from that, it wasn't too earth shattering. I would like to maybe see this application tie into 37Signals for contact and project management the same way that Freshbooks does, now that might be something to get people going on this.

Microsoft is on the hunt for the best small business idea, and has $100,000 on the table. If your idea is the best out of the bunch that are submitted, you get the cash, plus a free retail location in New York City for one year. How awesome would that be for a startup company?

The new Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 is sponsoring this contest. Microsoft released the free Office Accounting software that used to retail for $179US back in the end of October. To be entered into the contest, visit the website, and fill out the online submission form with all of your details. The free Office Accounting software can also be downloaded from the IdeaWins.com website.

Microsoft is entering the world of free software. Who would have thought? Today, Microsoft released Office Accounting Express 2007 for free. The software is an updated version of the previous Office Small Business Accounting 2006 that was sold for $179 US. A higher end version of the application will be for sale early next year. Microsoft has integrated eBay and Paypal into the system which I think are great features that a lot of people will jump at the opportunity to use. It does supposedly have great connection abilities with Outlook 2007, and a strong set of accounting tools that support up to five currencies.

Unfortunately I can't seem to download a copy to try out, the site looks like its down, however, I have some screenshots of the application in progress after the jump.

UPDATE: As "joshj" in the comments writes, you must open the link in IE in order to gain access to download the application. The application file size is 369.35 MB.