My business is starting to get going so I'm looking for a relatively comprehensive small business software package. Apart from accounting, I need invoicing and basic inventory.

I suppose American customers are lucky with Quickbooks and Peachtree being very popular (QB 75% market share) and well integrated into the American system, but there doesn't seem to be much consensus about software here in Europe.

These are some of the threads I've looked at before:
Book keeping software in English for Sole Trader in CH
Cashcomm accounting software
Accounting/bookkeeping program for small business/Home use
Business accounting systems/guides/software in English?

Some of those are older so maybe something new has come up. I looked at UK versions of some of this software, such as Sage (maker of Peachtree), but the UK versions seem pretty geared toward the UK market, with integration with HMRC, PAYE, and the such. In terms of Swiss software, Banana seems popular but lacks essential features such as invoicing, as far as I know. I've also come across Swiss software called Revelate but I haven't been able to find much info about it and as it's "ERP" probably costs an arm and a leg.

Sage's Swiss division does of course have products, but the website is all in D/F/I so presumably no English version? Another software that looks ok is Hansaworld's Books... anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance for any help, comments etc and hopefully this thread can be of help to others as well.

Maybe Exact would be something for you? Thats international ERP-solution.
http://www.exactsoftware.ch/
They have lots of stuff, but you can first get basic solution and then built up as the company grows adding extra modules (warehouse, project administration, HR, extra users, languages, country law support etc).

If you going to be operational out of Switzerland and following Swiss GAAP, the best software by far is Abacus. If you feel it is too expensive to buy a full licence, you can also get the service through web-hosting companies like e.g. Inspirion.

Abacus is available in English.

I use Quickbooks here for my personal tax/banking, works fine. The newer versions also have multi currency so would be better

I use Banana for double entry bookkeeping and preparing balance sheets and statements. Multi Currency, and VAT are no problem, but definitely a product more suited to sole traders & SME's.

For CRM and invoicing also take a look at Buspro http://www.buspro.ch/ They offer a free Financial Accounting package and customer administration modules. I used this last year but since carry out a lot of functions through the backend of my ecommerce sites pulled into Access.

I can also recommend Inventoria (free) by www.nchsoftware.com for simple inventory management, including ad-hoc evaluations and re-order point trigger notifications.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestions. A few of those programs look like they'd be for larger businesses. Maybe in a few years!

bytheseaside, I was prepared to pay up to a few hundred francs for a programme but it looks like nch makes quite a good trilogy of programs. I'll give them a try and maybe move on to something else if it proves inadequate. Most likely I'll have to get an accountant anyway in the near future due to my relative lack of knowledge in Swiss business financials.

Thanks again everyone.

if it's not yet on your list, add
http://www.gnucash.org/
It is officially free, and is quite mature

i have been using this one for many years

www.ato-comconnect.ch

Great software and best price.

Give OpenERP a look : www.openerp.com

Free & Open Source, and if I recall it should be ready to use in Switzerland ( I just know about the portuguese reality on this software )

Despite the fact that I don't like this company too much, you also can try this one: Greencube .ch (Europa3000)

Its free, well it add some ads-banner inside the program. This banner can cause the program to crash, so you being warned.

Its Swiss made, so the accounting fits here, it comes with a 10 user license, so you can use it on more then one computer, it has payroll included (to Swiss laws) - also for 10 employees

and you can upgrade to the commercial products from Europa3000 later

It runs on top of the MS-SQL Server

If you install it, my advice for SQL, switch temporary to Language "GERMAN" not Swiss and not English. It helps... a lot....

Cheers

George

www.referencelist.org

This is where you can find the good list of software companies.