Accounted

Following on from the disaster that is MoneyWell 2, I tried this app as an alternative. It's got a good GUI, the help messages are excellent that pop-up and the reporting tools are pretty powerful. However the deal-breaker for me was that the QIF import does not seem to filter out duplicate transactions. That makes importing data pretty tedious. In the real world, banks provide transaction data in monthly blocks, so it seem crazy that you have to manually filter the data yourself each time after an import and delete the duplicates? Would not have expected that in a $79.95 app. The other flaw I could see if that once your data is in, there does not seem to be any safe method to get it out again. That concerns me because if I needed to switch to using something else or needed to forward the data onto an accountant or auditor, I couldn't. The text export isn't suitable. Really the options need to be there for a QIF and CSV export. So for now, I'm continuing to use an OpenOffice spreadsheet. Not glamorous, but it's free and does everything I need it to. With some time you can write some pretty powerful functions to filter data and present various reports.

The other thing about Accounted is that you are limited by the number of Macs that it will allow you to use it on. I purchased Accounted years ago when it first came out and my now on my third Mac since buying. Recently there was an upgrade notice and I thought I'd check it out. I tried to open my version prior to even looking at downloading the upgrade and was tole that I had to re-register my copy. When I tried to re-register I receive the following: "This serial number has already been registered on the maximum number of machines". So there is no allowance for an individual upgrading their machines. What a load of rubbish!!!!

I've had this app for a few years now and while it is quite good it needs some improvements. - It's export abilities are limited to text files only which is a bit annoying if your accountant wants the data in another format. (Accounted will import in a number of standard accounting formats, why not the export???) - The drop down lists when entering into new transactions ( payee, etc) are not alphabetically ordered which slows the input of data considerably because you have to search the entire list. I have contacted the developer about these over the past two years, the last time almost 10 months ago, and was told that these improvements would be considered for the next update. The trouble is as of today there has been no update and I am sick of waiting so I am looking around for something else. For the amount of money the developers charge people for this app in comparison to some other, what I would consider, better accounting apps I now regret buying it. I am particularly disappointed because Oranged Software, the developer, also make the excellent Studiometry which is constantly being updated and improved as well as that their support and help when I've had issues with Studiometry has been 5 star. It's a shame therefore that they seem to be letting Accounted languish. If you're after a good overall business invoicing/organizer app definitely have a look at Studiometry but skip Accounted.