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  • ProSeries Professional 2012

Trial Balance Software?

What Trial Balance software is an option that works good with ProSeries 2012?
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    5 answers
    • ArchieLeach , Gentleman of Leisure
      All Star
    This type of question has always confused me.  ATB and other trial balance software always seems to cost more that QuickBooks or Peachtree.  Why?  What will specialized trial balance software do for you that you can't do with a standard accounting package?

    Assuming that you can be satisfied with something cheap and off-the shelf, I'll make my standard observation.  I know I'll get lit up like a Christmas Tree for this, but I really don't care anymore.  If you want software that thinks like an accountant, get Sage (Peachtree).  But if you want software that thinks like Lucy Ricardo, get QuickBooks.  This is because, since "anyone can use QuickBooks," according to the ads, Intuit has gone to great (some might say, extreme) lengths to disguise the fact that QuickBooks is in fact an accounting program, not a video game.

    That said, if you want to import data directly into ProSeries (which I've never done), I believe QuickBooks is your only alternative.
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    • It's kind of like you and paper filing returns, I like trial balance software.  Part of that is due to doing a number of govt audits that trial balance software is just a lot more flexible than using a full fledged accounting software.
    • So do you have both?  Or will t/b software take you all the way?  I'm not being critical, I'm just curious.  I've never used t/b software -- at least, I can't remember doing so --  and I'm wondering what is the extra flexibility it gives you.  Can you create some or all of your audit w/ps with it?
    • In our office we have Peachtree and Quickbooks to cover our client needs (plus our own business needs with Peachtree).  I have used ATB trial balance software for centuries and when that supposedly died off we purchased the Creative Solutions trial balance software.  The only trouble is, ATB is still functional with XP so I continue to use it.  I am going to be shopping for new computers in the next week or two so I think at that time I will finally put ATB to rest.  The nice thing about the trial balance software is the layout allows you to load a client trial balance quickly and make journal entries just as quickly.  Instead of looking through a clumsy general ledger your balances and any journal entries are recapped nicely for easy reference.  I date back to an age when accounting software wasn't cheap like it is now so I grew from manual trial balances to Excel trial balances to trial balance software and I'm glad it was created.
    • Thanks.  I think I get your point, but, never having used ATB, it's a little hard for me to visualize.
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    • IRMN , CPA, PITA
      All Star
    Good question but I don't know if anybody that cruises this neighborhood can give you a definitive answer.  Of course, Intuit being Intuit, Quickbooks is the obvious choice for importing data but as far as naming specific trial balance software that works good is a completely different story.  This is all the knowledge base has on the subject:

    https://accountants.intuit.com/support/tax/proseries/document.jsp?product=PROSERIES_TAX&id=GEN48591


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      Follow up to my comment above:    With a recent 2013 ProSeries program update, the ATB import now works just fine for me (as it always has in prior years).  I know ATB is an older program, but it works better than any of the other trial balance programs that I have ever tried to use.  Good luck with your importing!
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        I use Caseware for trial balance work, that is, where the client maintains their own GL. Depending on how you import the data, you can import either the clients trial balance or all the gl data if you wish, by month, qtr or year.
        I've imported data from QB, ACCPAC and excel spreadsheets.
        You can export data to a file where it is imported into proseries.

        Caseware has document management capabilities so you can link word docs and spreaedsheets to accounts for documentation, financial statement add-ons, and other functionality. 

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          Currently ProSeries 2013 will not import directly from my ATB for Windows as it always has in the past.  I sure hope that this feature will be fixed very soon, since I have a lot of clients linked up to save many days of work.


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