I am a retired bilingual primary teacher. I am interested in obtaining software for helping a small business. I am self-employed and I don’t have any employees. I sell mostly vintage Nancy Drew books on two online sites. It doesn’t have to do my taxes but naturally that’s the biggest part of my objective(s) ie taxes. Of course, I need something to help me track of my extra income and my expenses.
Also, if there is something I can use for medical expenses but I believe that’s included when you itemize which I could use some help in doing.
Two people recommended Turbo Tax but it got horrible reviews in the App Store. And they keep your data.
Can you recommend something to help that’s not too expensive? I love playing with software so that would likely keep me motivated. Think: intuitive, if possible. Thanks.
A spreadsheet. Numbers or Google Sheets if you don’t want to pay for it. Just something for you to get the numbers down to track. Learn how to do basic formulas. At a basic level, anything you learn about Excel (which has tons of help online), works in Numbers/Google Sheets, or is close enough you can get it to work. I would go with Google Sheets over Numbers, since Numbers has a very odd interface (at least from an Excel users point of view).
Quickbooks otherwise (TurboTax is more of for home users), but that is probably overkill for what you are doing.
How do you file your personal taxes? I am very much against TurboTax personally, and think if you are earning enough that you need help, your best option is getting an accountant, or the very least talking to someone to help you.
I do use Numbers spreadsheets. I was hoping for something a little more interesting but that might be all I really need. Right? I sorta have a math phobia. I’m actually fairly good at it but we had “new math” as kids and it was awful.
There are several Quickbook Apps in the iPhone (iOS) Store. I looked for it for a Mac and it had just one which got lousy reviews. Are you referring to any kind of Quickbooks app or can recommend one or more in particular?
I enjoy using software if it’s well-done. I sort of wanted to take the drudgery out of my finances.
I just do my taxes the old fashioned way. Really boring and tedious. I itemized as a teacher too.
One year I got a call from the IRS. The guy congratulated me for doing a great job on my itemized taxes. My sister is an accountant and didn’t believe me but it’s the truth. (It happened to Felix Unger too).
When I used Quicken and other software I really, well almost ,enjoyed doing my taxes and my checkbook.
I wish I could afford FileMaker Pro. Oh did I have fun building databases! The computer nerd in the school where I taught let me take it home and to bring back the next day.
Is there any reasonable database software out there?
How are you defining “interesting”? Do you mean something more visually appealing or something that does more than the functions you have imbuded your Numbers spreadsheet with?
I’ve always wished I had a personal use case for Panorama X Database Software for Macintosh! It’s a lot of fun to play with (if you like databases). I’m getting by these days with a few Numbers spreadsheets and the Notenik app.
As a fellow database nerd, I very much enjoy using both Notion and Airtable (both of which have free plans). I don’t find databases useful for accounting though. A spreadsheet is much more useful there.
You might want to take a look at Etsy. There are loads of really well-designed spreadsheet templates for small business bookkeeping and accounting. I bet you’d find something “interesting” there that would work for you.
Do you need anything at all? At least over here pretty much every business bank account comes with a free online small business accounting package. Starling is good, so is Monzo.
I’ve used Finances 2 for several years. It is a simple, double entry bookkeeping with lots of ways to organize what you want to track. You define your assets and accounts, categories with subsets, and it works. You keep your data on your devices. The web site for support shows how to do entry, and its free. You can create several journals if you prefer, I usually keep a master configuration and 2 or 3 years of entries before I start a new one.
Panorama X is exactly what I’m looking for! It is very intuitive. I use to read Guide Books for fun but now you cannot find them anywhere- they are all online. I find them harder to read for some reason. And some of these apps I can’t make heads or tails out of them.
I tried Panorama X and immediately started working and playing on it. It’s a little more than I had planned to spend but that’s ok. If you don’t use it each month, you won’t get charged. Thanks for referring me to it.
And I appreciate all the MacPowerUsers for their ongoing help.
That relation rework is great news! This was my hangup when I evaluated Panorama awhile ago. I’ve only played a bit but the new approach feels right. I’ll be building further.
Many database applications require multiple database files working together. In previous versions of Panorama this was primarily accomplished with lookup( functions. This could generally get the job done, but was tedious because there was no overall definition of the relationship between the databases. This approach required the application developer to manage all the tedious details of database relations manually – a lot of extra work to set up and very difficult to change if the database structure ever changed. This manual approach could also be prone to errors since all of the details had to be manually managed by the programmer.
Panorama X 10.2 introduces a completely new, systematic approach to relationships between databases. Each relationship is managed in one place, with a comprehensive, easy to use visual dialog panel. This relationship is permanent (saved with the database) and can be quickly applied wherever needed. Many common relational database tasks are now built in, and available automatically once a relation is set up. Other tasks can be accomplished with simple dialogs and/or with far less code than was previously required.