Financial Statement Software?

[kpangelinan]

Anyone know of a good Financial Statement Software?

[Maribeth]

Anyone know of a good Financial Statement Software?

If anyone replies, I would love to hear of it also. We tried QB Financial Statement Writer while it was free. Then when QB wanted $100 a year for it, we decided to make our own. Simply put, the financial statement writer wasn't worth the money. Maybe it has been improved but we move on.

We have Excel spreadsheets set up and fill in the blanks. We are working on just inputting the trial balance and having those numbers flow to the statements, so that is our next step.

Of course, the report, cover sheet and table of contents are still in Word. It is not perfect but it does get a quality product out the door.

Maribeth

[Golden Rocket]

Excel

There are times when a tobacco user is better off "rolling his own chew." Likewise, there are times when an accountant needs the flexibility of Excel.

Financial statements are one of them. There was the era of the "FSG" (Financial Statement Generator) where all software packages contained financials. They kept selling us on the idea that just "plunk in your numbers from the trial balance" and PRESTO!! out comes a set of financials you would die for!!

"Die for" is more correct than you know. You get to customize your financial package, or you can accept a "canned" package from the software. The "canned" package never seems to address your business, so you're stuck customizing, which is a never-ending process. Especially when you change it and have to negotiate where "history" was carried, etc.

If you're going to have do all this, you are better off with Excel, and not paying the software company for their wonderful FSG.

[Maribeth]

There are times when a tobacco user is better off "rolling his own chew." Likewise, there are times when an accountant needs the flexibility of Excel.

Financial statements are one of them. There was the era of the "FSG" (Financial Statement Generator) where all software packages contained financials. They kept selling us on the idea that just "plunk in your numbers from the trial balance" and PRESTO!! out comes a set of financials you would die for!!

"Die for" is more correct than you know. You get to customize your financial package, or you can accept a "canned" package from the software. The "canned" package never seems to address your business, so you're stuck customizing, which is a never-ending process. Especially when you change it and have to negotiate where "history" was carried, etc.

If you're going to have do all this, you are better off with Excel, and not paying the software company for their wonderful FSG.

Love your reply. Now that we have all the excel worksheets set up for each client and have done all of the customizing so that the statements adhere to our office policies, then really no sense to look for a financial statement package. I guess we will just keep finetuning what we have. It was a heck of a lot of work to get it first set up -- but isn't it a heck of a lot of work to get anything initially set up??

Maribeth

[kpangelinan]

Love your reply. Now that we have all the excel worksheets set up for each client and have done all of the customizing so that the statements adhere to our office policies, then really no sense to look for a financial statement package. I guess we will just keep finetuning what we have. It was a heck of a lot of work to get it first set up -- but isn't it a heck of a lot of work to get anything initially set up??

Maribeth

Yeah, I hear ya both....I guess I was hoping there was a magic bullet out there somewhere. Someone else on another site suggested Quickbooks writer and it's ok, but like you both said, we end up customizing and changing around the reports anyways and if it isn't entered in just right, it doesn't come out right on the statements.

[kpangelinan]

There are times when a tobacco user is better off "rolling his own chew." Likewise, there are times when an accountant needs the flexibility of Excel.

Financial statements are one of them. There was the era of the "FSG" (Financial Statement Generator) where all software packages contained financials. They kept selling us on the idea that just "plunk in your numbers from the trial balance" and PRESTO!! out comes a set of financials you would die for!!

"Die for" is more correct than you know. You get to customize your financial package, or you can accept a "canned" package from the software. The "canned" package never seems to address your business, so you're stuck customizing, which is a never-ending process. Especially when you change it and have to negotiate where "history" was carried, etc.

If you're going to have do all this, you are better off with Excel, and not paying the software company for their wonderful FSG.

Well said.