A beta version of Office Accounting 2007, Microsoft's basic accounting package for small companies and the follow-up release to Small Business Accounting 2006, will help small companies list and sell items on eBay, and it also supports multiple currencies. In addition, Office Accounting 2007 will make it easier for users to synchronize customer information with Business Contact Manager, a contact management and lead-tracking plug-in for Outlook.

What Is Office Accounting?

Office Accounting 2007 is the follow-up release to Small Business Accounting (SBA) 2006, which the company released in Sept. 2005. The product offers basic double-entry accounting with a simple, customizable interface, wizards for accessing common financial management functions, and integration with Office. The product is aimed at small companies (with up to 25 employees) and can be integrated with software from external partners (for payroll processing, for example) and extended with Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. As did its predecessor, Office Accounting will compete primarily with Intuit's popular QuickBooks and Best Software's Peachtree.

What's New?

An Office Accounting 2007 beta released in Sept. 2006 previews the updates that customers and partners can expect to see when the product ships in the fourth quarter of 2006. Among other features, these include the following:

• Integration with eBay, which will help companies create and post eBay listings based on inventory items managed in Office Accounting
• The ability to accept payment through PayPal, an eBay company that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive payment over the Internet
• Improved integration with Business Contact Manager (now called Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager) will allow users to view and update customer information using either Office Accounting or Business Contact Manager and view Office Accounting reports, such as profit and loss or customer history, in Business Contact Manager
• Support for multiple currencies in quotes, invoices, and bank transactions, which will help companies that have to deal with customers and vendors outside the United States
• Customization of Office Accounting 2007 forms, lists, and reports; for example, companies will be able to specify the fields contained in an invoice and its layout.

Availability and Resources

The beta of Office Accounting was released at the end of Aug. 2006. Microsoft plans to ship the final release of Office Accounting 2007 in the fourth quarter of 2006. Office Accounting will be available only in the United States, as was Small Business Accounting. The company has not yet announced pricing and packaging for the product.

More information about Office Accounting 2007 and a link to the beta download is at connect.microsoft.com/officeaccountingbeta.

Small Business Accounting was described in detail in "Small Business Accounting Fills Product Gap" on page 25 of the Dec. 2004 Update.