Small Business Manager Updates Features

The latest version of Small Business Manager (SBM), Microsoft’s financial and business process management tool for small businesses, boasts improved order, inventory, asset, and reporting features. Introduced in late 2001, SBM targets businesses with 25 or fewer employees and less than US$5 million in annual revenues and competes with popular small business accounting products, such as Intuit’s QuickBooks line of products.

Because it is based on the Great Plains code base, Microsoft’s accounting and business management suite for medium-size businesses, SBM customers can easily upgrade as they grow or require additional features. However, SBM is significantly more expensive than most simple QuickBooks offerings and somewhat more so than Intuit’s more functionally comparable QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. The challenge for Microsoft, therefore, is to convince small businesses that they will benefit from SBM’s better functionality, and that this functionality combined with a clear growth path offers enough value to justify SBM’s higher price tag.