Making book: take control of your company's finances with new accounting software from Microsoft
Author: Entrepreneur

IF YOU'RE LIKE MOST ENTREPRENEURS, you run its OS, you surf the web with its browser, and its Windows logo is on just about every productivity application you use. So should you entrust your company's books Hogan to Microsoft as well?

The new edition of Microsoft Office 2003 designed for small businesses, which ships later this year, will include the brand-new Office Small Business Accounting program. Its principal selling point is its seamless connectivity to all your favorite Office applications. You can connect your books' key employee, vendor and customer records to Outlook's Contact Manager.

You'll not only have a complete record of contacts with business partners over any medium, but also a history of your financial transactions together.

Customize invoices, purchase orders and other business forms in Word and e-mail or fax them from Outlook. Need to create different budgets or cash flow and pricing scenarios? Bring any of Accounting's lists or 60 standing reports into an Excel work sheet and what-if away.

There's already a dizzying array of tools under Office's half-gigabyte umbrella. You probably spend most of your day using one or more of them. But the stakes are higher with accounting software. It's not just your money--your books are a window into your company's most proprietary information and processes. So can you bet your business on Microsoft's new accountant? Well, let's take a look at the pro-release beta.