If you use Microsoft Office Accounting it’s time to look for an alternative. Microsoft will stop distributing the product as of 16th November 2009. More importantly for eBay merchants, the eBay sales data option will no longer be available after December 15, 2009.
Office Accounting was only released in 2007, so for it to be discontinued just two years later it’s pretty obvious it’s not been a success. However that’s small comfort for any small businesses that have adopted it and rely on it for their accounts.
In theory you’ll get product support for up to 10 years, but in reality you’re going to want to switch to an alternative pretty quickly. Obvious alternatives are Sage, Quickbooks or a simple spreadsheet. Talking of Office Accounting Microsoft themselves say they “have determined that existing free templates within Office used with Excel was a better option for small businesses“.
If you’re looking for automation then Tradebox can automate importing your eBay and other online sales data into Sage. Outright offer another option for automated online accounting.
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