You will want to talk to an accountant, even one where you currently work, for some basic advice if you decide against consulting with an independent bookkeeper or accountant.  If you set up the account structure incorrectly to start with, you might have to re-do the entire system when your business starts to take off.  If you lay the foundation correctly, you will be able to save money later when tax time comes around, and they can just pull the information right into the tax form.  If the tax preparer has to spend a lot of time picking the information out of different places, it will cost you more.  Also, make sure you set up a separate bank account for the business, and track all your mileage and expenses, from business cards to printer paper to a dedicated cell phone.  Take every deduction you're entitled to.  Also, don't ever give complete control over your money to an accountant, bookkeeper, or anyone else.  Always make sure you look at your bank statement monthly, or on-line frequently.  Every day someone is being charged with embezzlement, and many times a simple precaution could have prevented it.  Trust, but verifiy.

I use Quickbooks Pro, and I think it works very well. If you are running a fairly uncomplicated business without lots of employees, you can do just fine with Quickbooks Pro. You can also use Quickbooks Simple Start, a more basic version at a cheaper price.     I am terrible at accounting and still find Quickbooks easy to use. I met with an accountant one time to help me set up the program originally, and it was really worth it. Hope that helps you.  

I am studying accounting at the moment finishing of my B.Com majoring in accounting I personally feel it is a start to organising your books in a orderly fashion.   Regards   Michael

Thanks again BizResearcher for your helpful responses!!! :) Sincerely, Emy

Thanks for the Quickbook tip. I'm about to start my own little green energy business and was looking for a good but cheap solution for my accounting needs. I saw that Quickbooks Online has a 30 day free trial, so i will try it. It looks several people here made good experiences with this program, so it should be good, i guess. I also like the anywhere anytime access, so you can access it with a mobile device, while beeing on the road. Great stuff.

Well since you are new and I am guessing you don't have much money to put into a monthly payment for quickbooks online, or even to purchase a more expensive license. So my advice would be to go for an open source solution to quickbooks. There are quite a few out there, and the best part about them is they are Free! One like sql-ledger.org has a simple download, see if you could use it and if not search for another. Just a solution if you don't want to fork out money for some accounting software.   Now from personal experience, I have used quite a few accounting solutions, and so far my favorite is in fact quickbooks online. Sure there is a monthly fee, but if your business is doing well enough, it is definitely worth it to have a robust piece of software to correctly handle everything. :)

I use Quickbook online version - It is excellent and can be configured to be very basic and simple to use... Being online I am sure that I will not lose any data due to computer failure... I am told I can upgrade to a regular version and port all my data from the online version into the desktop version       Message Edited by krummelhart on 02-07-2010 01:36 AM

Hope you are running your business well and using Qucikbook too. I'd like to share with you a website accountingcoach[dot]com which is very useful for beginners as well as for small business entrepreneurs.

Hi Emy:   As you might know already, QuickBooks offers helpful tutorials located under the Help tab.  You also can go on the QuickBooks online Community page and find answers to questions there or post a question yourself.   There are many bookkeepers also that can provide 1/2 day or 1 day training on QB that might be money well spent to make sure you are off on the right foot.    Best Regards to your New Business! 

I have used Quickbooks Small Business edition since I started my business 12 years ago. It will provide everything you need and more for an event planning business. At year end you will be able to print out just about any type of report you want or need.