Whilst exploring Swiss-specific accounting software options for small-business, I came across Cashcomm. It is supposedly an all-in-one accounting solution for individuals, self-employed or very small businesses. It interfaces with most e-banking protocols in CH. Reports generated are also CH-specific. Languages: D,F,E,I.

It is freeware, but after the first year, update access costs 79 Stutz per year.

Has or is anybody using this, and can they comment on it?

I have been using Intuit Quicken since 5 years and now since Intuit Inc has ended its tie up with UBS and withdrawn from the swiss market, UBS users are now left with no choice but to go use some 3rd class personal finance software. Thats exactly what Cashcomm is after I "tried" using it.

You are right, Cashcomm is sub-standard. Not intuitive at all and very difficult to manually input or retrieve information. English support is also terrible.

We've been using Banana accounting software... There was a bit of a learning curve in double accounting, but since then it has been quite adequate! It is available almost everywhere in Switzerland: http://www.banana.ch/
Jack

Loaded Cashcomm --- Deleted Cashcomm.

Why is it soooooo difficult to offer a simple, creative software to handle my finances, accounts, invoices and bills. Of course the price must be right

Oh well, back to Excel

So true Scott. When its CH specific then it comes with a CH price.

Thanks Jack, Banana looks good, but IMHO good FiBu software must also be intuitive (ie for idiots like me). I found also these, if anyone can give feedback it would also be good.

http://www.qbusiness.ch/qsoftware/pa...ltung.6.0.html
http://www.winware.ch/de/produkte/winway/index.htm

We have been using Banana for 2 years. It is the business, so easy to use and highly flexible.

I always like to see the words "creative" and "accounts" listed in the same sentence

Hi all

I have done a quick search in this forum and found nothing so I was after some advice.

We need some accounting software for the company I am working for and all the recommendations I have had is for Sage.

Does anyone know if Sage complies with the swiss taxation laws or whether it can be configured to comply with the swiss tax laws?

If not, does anyone know of any other alternatives to try

Regards

Harry

Take a look at mamut.com. I used this tool in NL for a couple of years and found that it delivered astonishing value for money.

They don't have CH on their web site, but they are a very fast moving company. I suggest giving them a call and seeing what they have in the pipeline.

Pete

Ask your accountant, as a first step. You will want to work closely with him in any case. I ignored mine - but thats the beauty of being your own boss
dave

The file attached should give you a start. Found this on www.kmu.admin.ch

Just too bad they don't have the site in English or this file.

Cashcomm is so difficult to get ones' head around, unless you are an Accountant and familiar with accounting packages.

But recently they introduced some changes, and it is a bit better.

Having said that, despite the difficulty I still use it, but ended up spending a whole weekend recently re-building and re-classifying all my 2006 transactions due to a mistake I made.

After all that effort, I MUST now use it !!!

Guys, look, a software program CANNOT make decisions about your tax.

All it can do is set out the decisions you make.

Unless you are doing a lot of accounts for a lot of people (in which case you have no life), the quickest way to do your books is on a simple spreadsheet.

Download the bank statements, sort them into books, total the figures and you are done.

And there simply isn't a faster way to do a single set of books, because you have to look at each entry once and classify it or you are guessing. And if you are going to guess, you don't need software for that, either.

MYOB and Quicken cannot make you money. they might save you time (if they didn't suck so much) but they don't. So what is it for?

I actually get paid to do accounts. The more i do, the quicker, the better for me.

You guys running a business and doing your own accounts, you just want to pay the least tax and spend the least time.

The answer?

Pay some sad dude like me (not me i don't do swiss tax) to do your tax.

Spend the time you would have spent at the computer working, and with the profit you have made after paying the dweeb to do your books... pay your tax.

I did a search and came accross this old thread. Can anyone give updated reccomendations about any of the accounting software discussed above? I'm sure in the last year there have been up-dates and some new products also no doubt. Thanks for any help!

Mike

I gave up with CashComm. It was too difficult to use versus the benefit gained.

I have gone back to downloading csv files and using Excel. I categorise every item on the statement and have a space for notes. Using filters I can quickly see what I have spent.

Quicken and MSMoney are pretty tools, but at the end of the day they did not give me the same flexibility with Excel.

Basically Excel gives you complete flexibility to do what you want. Yes you need to be an Excel user, but nothing advanced is needed.

Excel or any other tool, you still need to do the time consuming part and allocate categories to each item. There is no magic software for that!

Good luck.

For the last year or so, I've used MS Money and unlike most MS products, I'm rather happy with it. It was very handy when I was running my own business, except for the tax part - i had an accountant for that, Dutch tax was unknown territory to me. I didn't connect it with my e-banking accounts (to do that, you needed to run it through MSN - forget it), but it was no major pain to do that bit manually. Even now, it's very handy for keeping track of things for my personal finances.

But for anyone wanting to calculate your tax yourself, it's generally pretty simple wherever you go. The government presents you these three steps:

A. How much money did you recieve last year?
B. How much money did you spend last year?
C. Give us (A-B).

For business accounts - double entry and all that - I would still push Banana http://www.banana.ch . If you do it in German the account codes and heading match the Swiss tax guide exactly, which is nice.

Thanks Bob. It looks like Banana is the one for us to look at.

I am from India. Can someone please tell which is the most popular accounting software used by small and medium firms in Switzerland? Is Banana Accounting very popular there?