FAQs

Q. What is Office Accounting Express 2007?

Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2007 is an essential tool for managing your business finances. Whether you’re a small or home-based business, you can use this simple accounting program to make pen and paper-based tasks a thing of the past.

With the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office, Office Accounting Express 2007 is easy to use and helps you save time, get organized, and do business online.

You only need to enter data once so you can save time managing everyday financial tasks. All of your customer and financial information is stored in one place so that you have a complete view of your business. You also have the tools you need to sell online through eBay® and get paid faster.

Q. Who is Office Accounting Express 2007 for?

Microsoft^® Office Accounting Express 2007, financial management software is designed for millions of starting businesses and home based businesses that currently use pen & paper or spreadsheets to run their business. It provides a single place to manage the company’s business finances with the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office system programs.

Q. What are the key benefits of Office Accounting Express 2007?

Office Accounting Express 2007 offers the following benefits:

• The startup wizard gets your company set up within minutes.
• Easy to learn and use. No training is required because Office Accounting Express 2007 shares the same familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office system programs.
• Easily import data from other programs such as Intuit QuickBooks, Microsoft Money, and Microsoft Office Excel.

• Share and reuse information, enter information only once and reduce errors.
• Create customized estimates, invoices, and purchase orders.
• Track expenses automatically.
• Automate bank accounts and customer payments.
• Manage payroll and taxes with ADP’s integrated payroll service.

• Store and organize customer, contact, employee, vendor, and financial information in a single location.
• Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager and Office Accounting Express 2007 share the same data so you always have up-to-date information on your customers.
• Create templates for documents and customize any form to suit your needs.

• Get real-time insights into your business by using more than 20 predefined reports.
• Export reports to Excel 2007 for further analysis in just one click.

• Share your books with your accountant and still continue using them for your day-to-day business.
• Share data more securely with your accountant via Microsoft Office Live.

• List items on eBay
• Track activity in real time and download and process orders.

• Send invoices in an e-mail message that includes a direct link to PayPal.
• Process credit card payments quickly

• Monitor customer and even your own credit by using integrated Equifax services.
• Use the integrated PayPal option to get paid faster.

Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2007 an upgrade to Office Small Business Accounting 2006?

Yes. Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 is the successor to Office Small Business Accounting 2006. Office Accounting is offered in two versions: Office Accounting Express, available for FREE as a download from this website, and Office Accounting Professional, available at retailers for $149.95 for new customers, or $99.95 as an upgrade for current users of SBA 2006.

Q. I am currently using Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006. Should I upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007?

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 does not have inventory and multi-user features. . We recommend that users using SBA 2006 should upgrade to Office Accounting Professional 2007 which has these features. Office Accounting Professional is available for purchase for a special upgrade price of $99.95.

Q. How is Office Accounting Express 2007 different from Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007 software?

Accounting Software Features	Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional 2007	Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2007	Microsoft® Office Small Business Accounting 2006
Double entry accrual accounting
Cash basis accounting			No separate cash basis books
Setup Wizard
Multi-level chart of accounts & general ledger			Two Level Chart of Accounts
Accounts Receivable & Accounts Payable
Invoicing, bill payments and returns
Audit trail & change tracking
Financial reports	Over 60 reports	20 reports only	Over 60 reports
Rich form customization
Granular Role based security
Backup and restore with data compression
Microsoft Office Integration
Data migration - (Import from Excel, QuickBooks & Money)			Excel & QuickBooks only
Familiar Microsoft Office user interface
Full Integration with Outlook with BCM with shared Accounts			Linked Accounts only
Customize and personalize documents in Microsoft Office Word
Create and send letters to customers with Microsoft Office Word
Send forms, letters, and reports in e-mail
Export data to Microsoft Office Excel® for analysis and charting
Advanced Accounting
Cash flow forecasting tools & reports
Actionable company dashboard
Memorized documents for recurring transactions
Quotes
Sales orders
Multiple price levels
Purchase orders
Finance charges
Job costing & class tracking
Create and track inventory & kits
Multicurrency Support
Fixed Asset Manager
1099 Reports
Excel based manual payroll (in product)
Integration with Microsoft Retail Point of Sale (POS)
Multi-user functionality (peer -to -peer OR Small Business Server network)			Not optimized for SQL Server installs
Run on SQL Server 2005 Standard, Workgroup or Enterprise Edition		SQL Server Express Edition only	MSDE
Integrated Online Services
Accept credit card payments via Chase Payment Services
Integrated online banking			Fewer banks supported
Monitor customer and vendor credit worthiness via Equifax
List, sell and process items on eBay
Electronic Invoicing with PayPal
Process payroll for employees, direct deposit salary and pay taxes via ADP
Order compatible checks and forms
Online sharing of books with accountant via Office Live
Accounting Professional Features
Multi-client accountant navigator
Multi-client payroll center
Batch journal entry (Worksheet)
Accountant Transfer Export Wizard

* Third party services may require a fee.

Q. What should accounting professionals use?

Accounting Professionals should use the Office Accounting Professional 2007 that has special features to enable accounting professionals to be more productive.

• Accountant Transfer Wizard—Clients can now send their books to their accountants and still continue to use Office Accounting Express 2007 for their daily business. Accounting Professionals can work on the books and send them back, and the changes get synchronized easily. Alternatively accounting Professionals can also remotely connect to their client’s copy of Office Accounting Express 2007 and update their books.
• Accountant View—From this central location, accountants can independently manage client accounts and payroll, import and export client data, and create journal entries for each client.
• Enhanced Cash Basis Accounting—CPAs have the flexibility to customize Cash Based Reporting settings for each client’s accounts based on the nature of their business. This helps ensure more accuracy as the transactions are captured on the basis of these settings.
• Payroll Center for accountants—Accountants can now run and manage payroll processing for multiple clients from a single dashboard.
• Office Live integration—Accounting Professionals can collaborate and share financial information more securely with their clients by using the Office Live service.

Q. Will I outgrow Office Accounting Express 2007?

Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2007 is designed for millions of starting businesses and home based businesses that currently use pen & paper or spreadsheets to run their operations. Businesses that grow and need an accounting system that supports inventory, support for multiple users or a larger server based database (SQL Server) can upgrade seamlessly to Office Accounting Professional 2007.

Office Accounting Professional 2007 is built to support small businesses that have 25 employees or fewer. It can be configured as a single user desktop installation by using Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005. It can also be configured for multiple users in a peer-to-peer environment or deployed on a Windows Small Business Server computer with SQL Server. Businesses that outgrow Office Accounting Professional 2007 can migrate to Microsoft Dynamics.

Q. What is the international availability of Office Accounting Express 2007?

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is currently available within the USA only. At this stage, no plans exist for international availability of the product, with the exception of the UK. In May 2006, Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 (UK version) entered Beta testing in the UK with a targeted set of customers and partners. Once Beta testing is completed and the results have been fully reviewed, further updates will become available on the UK product launch.

Q. What are some of the new features in Office Accounting Express 2007?

• Online sales integration gives you the ability to sell inventory, track activity, and download orders in online marketplaces such as eBay directly from Office Accounting Express 2007.
• Equifax credit service enables you to monitor credit for your business, customers, or prospects.
• PayPal integration enables you to get paid faster by offering the PayPal payment option to customers.
• Microsoft Office Live integration enables businesses to more securely exchange financial information with accounting Professionals and other contacts.
• Accountant Transfer Wizard helps you share data with an accounting Express and synchronizes data easily after the accountant is done updating the books.
• Accountant View page provides a central location from which accountants can manage Office Accounting Express 2007 data for multiple clients independently.
• Data import enables users to import accounting and financial data from additional programs and versions, including Microsoft Money, Excel, and QuickBooks.
• Account and Customer Integration Wizard enables synchronized data sharing so that you can make updates to a customer’s record in one program and quickly see the results in the other program.
• Journal entry is now expanded so you can be more productive by creating numerous journal entries posting on different dates and with different accounts.
• Forms customization has been improved so you can tailor any form by adding, moving, creating, or renaming fields, and hiding unnecessary data element fields.
• Customizable security roles have been improved and now you can add and remove employee permissions to control access to sensitive financial information.

Q. Can Office Accounting Express 2007 import data from other accounting software?

Office Accounting Express 2007 is designed to import data from other software including QuickBooks, Excel, and Microsoft Money. Note that Office Accounting Express 2007 does not have functionality like inventory management. We recommend that users move to Office Accounting Professional 2007 to reduce any loss in functionality.

Q. Can I process credit card payments by using Office Accounting Express 2007?

Using the Office Accounting Express 2007 credit card processing option, you can accept major credit and debit card payments to better serve your customers and reduce transaction costs. For credit card purchases, you can even print receipts and create customer credit memo templates for future transactions.

Q. Is payroll included in the Office Accounting Express 2007 program?

Yes. Office Accounting Express 2007 is designed to work with payroll services provided by industry leader ADP to help you manage your payroll process more efficiently. Based on your business needs, you can choose among the various ADP payroll services options and begin subscribing at one of the most competitive prices in the industry.

Q. What are the various add-on services available with Office Accounting Express 2007?

The following add-on services can be used within Office Accounting Express 2007 to help small businesses be more productive and efficient:

• ADP payroll services to help streamline the payroll process
• Equifax credit reporting services to monitor customer and business credit
• Office Live services to help you share financial data with others and to sell online from your Web site
• EBay integration to help you grow your business online
• PayPal integration to help you get paid faster
• Buy checks and forms option to easily order custom business forms
• Online banking to help you save time
• Credit card processing to better serve your customers

Q. How much does Office Accounting Express 2007 cost?

Office Accounting Express 2007 is available as a FREE download to all users. Please visit www.ideawins.com

Q. Is Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 really free?

Yes, the software is absolutely free. We only require that users activate and register the software after 20 uses, but registration and activation is short, painless, and free.

Q. Will Office Accounting Express 2007 be included in the 2007 Microsoft Office release?

Yes. Office Accounting Express 2007 is available as a part of Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 and Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007.

Q. Where can I find more information about Office Accounting Express 2007?

Visit www.ideawins.com for detailed product information.

Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2007 available outside the U.S.?

No. Office Accounting Express 2007 is currently for U.S. businesses only.

Q. How many simultaneous users does Office Accounting Express 2007 support?

Office Accounting Express 2007 is designed to be used on a single desktop.

Q. Is Office Accounting Express 2007 easy to install?

Office Accounting Express 2007 is so easy to install, you don’t need any IT staff. The startup wizard gets your company set up, connected, and working right away so you can be writing your first invoice within minutes. The familiar and intuitive interface makes Office Accounting Express 2007 easy to learn and use right out of the box.

Q. Can I install Office Accounting Express 2007 on multiple computers by using the same license?

You can install one copy of Office Accounting Express 2007 on your main computer and another on your laptop computer for your exclusive but non concurrent use. On the same computer, you can install or reinstall as many times as you like.

Q. Can I run multiple companies from the same copy of Office Accounting Express 2007?

Yes. You can set up and run multiple companies from the same copy but all users need to have separate licenses. There is no limit on the number of companies you can run.

Q. What are the system requirements for Office Accounting Express 2007?

Go to the Office 2007 System Requirements page for more information.

Q. How do I get updates for Office Accounting Express 2007?

You can get updates for Office Accounting Express 2007 by going to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com or http://update.microsoft.com.

Q. How does Office Accounting Express 2007 work with other 2007 Microsoft Office system programs?

Office Accounting Express 2007 has been designed to work smoothly with other Microsoft Office system programs. Its integration with Word enables you to customize any documents like quotes and invoices by using existing or new templates. You can then use e-mail to send these invoices to your customers by using Office Outlook 2007. The integration with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager helps ensure that all financial and marketing information is available centrally, and changes made in any one program automatically show up in the other. Furthermore, Outlook users can view financial information from within Outlook, use Outlook to create invoices, submit timesheets from Outlook, and track time in the Outlook calendar. Reports for business insight can be created in Office Accounting Express 2007 and then exported to Excel, with its rich formatting, for deeper analysis and calculations. The analysis pack included with Office Accounting Express 2007 enables viewing financial data in Excel, PivotTable reports, and Microsoft Office Access reports.

Q. Does Office Accounting Express 2007 work with earlier releases of Microsoft Office?

Yes, Office Accounting Express 2007 works with Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Office 2003. However, some features may not be supported by older releases.

Q. Can I get a downloadable version of Office Accounting Express 2007?

Yes, you can get a full version of Office Accounting Express 2007 available as a free download from www.ideawins.com

Q. How do I upgrade from Office Accounting Express 2007 to Office Accounting Professional 2007?

Within Office Accounting Express 2007 you can click on the “Upgrade Today!” button. This brings up the upgrade dialog where you can link to either buying the key for Office Accounting Professional 2007 from an online retailer or a list of physical retailers. To upgrade to the Office Accounting Professional 2007 you just need to enter the key (You don’t need to download additional software) into the dialog. For detailed step-by-step instructions, please click here

Q. What server platform can Office Accounting Express 2007 run on?

Office Accounting Express 2007 is designed to run on a single desktop. The desktop operating system can be Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.

Q. How do I get support and resources?

Microsoft provides 90 day free support for Office Accounting Express 2007 at 1-866-827-1619. You’re welcome to participate in an Office Accounting 2007 newsgroup to share your experiences with others and ask for advice. Visit the Office Accounting Express 2007 home page for detailed product information.