Accounting software for your LLCs...?

flyingcheesehead

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iMooniac
Hi all,

I know a lot of you have your airplanes in LLCs, as do I... But I'm tired of the software I've been using to track the finances. It's free, but it's klunky, no mobile app, etc.

What do you all use for accounting for your LLCs, both airplanes and otherwise? I want something that's easy to use, has a mobile app, and is preferably low cost (I know it's not going to be free, since mobile app kinda implies cloud-based).

QuickBooks is $20/mo for multiple users (my partner in the plane would like access too). That's about twice as much as I want to spend.

Has anyone used Wave? Any other suggestions for something easy to use that can be used with mobile devices?
 
Airplane: Co-owner keeps a spreadsheet.

Flight training biz: Xero (not the greatest, cake highly recommended but it’s a pain - only reason I use it is to link it to credit card payment services)

Didn’t find any of them to be all that great really. Mostly it was “pay for less annoyance” all the way up to using my accountant at the top end.
 
Any other suggestions for something easy to use that can be used with mobile devices?
My accountant has been pushing several cloud based programs which were reasonable. Which one depends on your needs. If I hadn't retired I would have gone the cloud route. I had used QB Pro for years with 2 LLCs. Unfortunately after QB bought out most of the competition they decided to "dictate" how I set up my user interface which didn't sit well with me or my accountant. Perhaps if you use or know an accountant get their input as they use this stuff everyday.
 
Been using a database that runs my business for the past 22 years. Built it with a friend. You could EASILY do the same for something simple like a airplane LLC. A little bit of code and you could easily front end a web interface for it.

Why the need for mobile? You aren't a millennial.
 
I use a CPA

I use them for my taxes, but I'm a cheap bastard pilot. ;) The more I can spend on flying, the better.

spreadsheet.
spreadsheet

I'm looking for real double-entry accounting with reconciliation and all the other stuff.

My accountant has been pushing several cloud based programs which were reasonable. Which one depends on your needs. If I hadn't retired I would have gone the cloud route. I had used QB Pro for years with 2 LLCs. Unfortunately after QB bought out most of the competition they decided to "dictate" how I set up my user interface which didn't sit well with me or my accountant. Perhaps if you use or know an accountant get their input as they use this stuff everyday.

Unfortunately, my accountant uses something that's no longer supported, because he's near retirement, and didn't have any suggestions for me.

Could you pass along the list of programs your accountant suggested?

Been using a database that runs my business for the past 22 years. Built it with a friend. You could EASILY do the same for something simple like a airplane LLC. A little bit of code and you could easily front end a web interface for it.

Meh... My time is valuable enough that I'd rather pay for quickbooks than start from scratch coding something that's already widely available, unless I was going to sell it.

Why the need for mobile? You aren't a millennial.

Because it needs to be easy. I want to snap a picture of a receipt and toss it in the trash, for example. Right now, the non-mobile nature of the solution I'm using means I have to sit down with the intent of doing accounting and I'd kinda rather claw my eyes out. Mobile lets you do things immediately, on the run, and that makes it much easier to keep up with things rather than building up a backlog and sitting down to do it later.

We've been using a really nice system at work called Expensify. Any time I buy something, I open the app and it has a camera button in the lower right corner of every screen. Tap that, tap to take a picture of the receipt, it OCRs everything, matches it with the credit card transaction from the bank account, and applies rules I have set up to automatically set the account in many cases. Literally three taps on my phone and I'm done. Once a week it sends me an email summary with a link to submit a report - I tap the link, tap "submit" and I'm done. Then, the CEO taps one button to approve it and it automatically goes into the accounting system. Really slick, really easy to use, and so people actually keep up with their paperwork.
 
You have a toddler, and a flying job, clearly. LOL. Ten transactions a month or even twenty is not exactly much paperwork if you still took that receipt photo without a tool.

That’s just called “Tuesday”. LOL.

Buck a transaction, minimum? Maybe two if you want the OCR stuff, at the typical transaction numbers of an airplane LLC, seems steep.

You still have to allocate monthly time to reconcile and do the annual taxes and business renewal, etc.

So you’re not saving time, really.
 
You have a toddler, and a flying job, clearly. LOL. Ten transactions a month or even twenty is not exactly much paperwork if you still took that receipt photo without a tool.

That’s just called “Tuesday”. LOL.

Buck a transaction, minimum? Maybe two if you want the OCR stuff, at the typical transaction numbers of an airplane LLC, seems steep.

You still have to allocate monthly time to reconcile and do the annual taxes and business renewal, etc.

So you’re not saving time, really.

I can tell you've never had a toddler. Monthly time? Hah! No, I sit down at the end of the year and cram it all in, which is a terrible way of doing things. Hence, my desire to be able to do it on my phone. "Accounting on the toilet" I call it. :rofl:
 
Could you pass along the list of programs your accountant suggested?
Sage and Xero. But he said there are others that work just as good like Fresh Books and Zoho. It boils down to what you need. He also heard nothing bad about Wave but he's never used it.
 
I use MS Money for my personal finances. I think you can use it for business accounting as well. It's free, and the sunset edition is still on download sites.
 
I've been using Patriot Software for accounting and payroll since March. Previously I was Quickbooks.

Patriot meets my current needs.
 
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