Given how many businesses perform their own accounting, you might think that write-up is a thing of the past. After all, why should a business pay you to do something that they can do in-house?

Fortunately, for the many practices for which write-up is a major revenue generator, that's simply not the way things are. Yes, there was a major switch to in-house accounting a number of years back. But a number of factors have renewed client interest in having someone else perform this task.

One of these is that many smaller businesses underestimated the ease of actually performing accounting, or even bookkeeping, in-house. As the years have gone by, entry-level accounting software has gotten ever more powerful, with more and more bells and whistles. Even though navigation and help systems improve with each yearly update, as entry-level software has become more powerful, it's also become more complex for many smaller businesses to use.

Sometimes this results in a client throwing up their hands in frustration and going back to the way things used to be -having you do the task. Sometimes, it results in the client really mucking up their books and records, leaving you to sort out the mess, and boost your revenue.

WHAT YOU NEED VS. WHAT YOU GET

There are a fairly diverse number of write-up applications available, ranging from inexpensive to budget-draining. However, it's actually pretty simple to narrow the choice.

First is deciding if you even need a write-up system. In the past several years, accounting software vendors including Intuit and Peachtree have really beefed up their accountant's editions, adding many of the features, such as transaction review and reclassification of entries, that were previously found in dedicated write-up packages.

Another decision point is what do you need to accomplish with the application? Write-up is optimized to allow the accounting practice to enter transactions and after-the-fact payroll, as well as make adjusting, reversing and closing entries. An easy-to-understand working trial balance report is a must-have.

Many practices also like the tight integration with tax prep, though if this capability is the primary need, you may find that a less capable (and less expensive and intimidating) trial balance package may be a better fit.

You also need to determine, if you are already using a write-up package, if it's time to change to another vendor's offering to better meet your needs.

Finally, you need to look at what other practice areas you need, and if the vendor has all of the components to not only meet this need, but to meet your budget constraints.

We tested a half-dozen popular write-up applications to help you in your search. All were tested on a Lenovo Dual-core laptop running Windows 7 Enterprise, so you won't need a super high-end PC to use any of the packages we reviewed.

Accounting Relief

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