2007 Readers' Choice Awards
Accounting & Tax Pros Pick Favorites
- CLIENT-SIDE ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS
- Insight: What we say that is pretty
obvious from the first few product areas: Intuit is the undisputed leader
in small and mid-sized business management programs. Since the company
started creating specialized versions of its QuickBooks system for several
different industry types, it has become further ingrained into the psyches
of entrepreneurs everywhere.
Considering our numbers come from tax and accounting professionals, the results are even more impressive. Once upon a time, the professional accounting community was grudgingly accepting of QuickBooks — they had to accept its use because so many of their clients were using it regardless of the professional’s advice. But now the community embraces the system, whether it’s to consolidate all or most clients onto the same system or because the program is generally easy to use and gets clients to maintain their books more effectively because of its intuitiveness.
Of the product categories in the client-side accounting section, only two are not dominated by a QuickBooks version: Property Management (for which another Intuit product took the top slot), and Accounting for Larger Entities (for which Intuit doesn’t really provide an option). In this latter category, Sage Software’s MAS 500 and Accpac 500 lines received the most combined votes, while Microsoft’s Dynamics brands, which include GP, AX and NAV, took second (these are the former Great Plains, Axapta and Navision lines).View Chart
| Construction/Contractor
Accounting |
Accounting for Larger
Entities |
Mid-Range Accounting |
| Not-for-Profit Accounting |
Retail Accounting/POS |
Property Management |
GENERAL BUSINESS TECHNOLOGIES
In keeping with last year, we included general business product categories in our Readers’ Choice Awards, as well as the preceding tax and accountant-centric categories. Since many of these general business products overlap or a professional might have more than one, multiple choices were allowed on these questions
- Computers (Laptops & Desktops)
-
Insight:
With about 50 percent of readers voting for Dell, the primarily online
retailer of everything biz-tech dominates the PC market, at least for
accounting professionals. Other notables continue to be HP and Toshiba.
View Chart
- Printers/Scanners
-
Insight:
Once again, voters were allowed to select more than one vendor in this
category, but an overwhelming majority chose HP as their brand of choice,
even if they also chose another. I guess the once-little company founded
in a Palo Alto garage is still doing okay. View
Chart
- Smart Phones
-
Insight:
While most professionals have yet to get on the “smart phone”
bandwagon, those readers who do utilize a data and Internet-enabled mobile
communication device seem sold on Palm’s Treo line and, of course,
the ubiquitous BlackBerry. The iPhone is making an impressive charge for
a product that wasn’t even on the market this time last year. View
Chart
- Office Supply Store
-
Insight:
The voter’s top choices in this category were, not surprisingly,
the nation’s top business supply chains. Online and catalog supplier
Quill took a noteworthy number of votes, while Big Box member stores Sam’s
Club and Costco round out the top six. View
Chart
PERSONAL TAX SEASON FUEL
- Favorite Late Night Tax Season Survival Food
-
Insight:
The Domino’s commercial isn’t about to change to “[Ding
Dong] … Get the door, it’s the veggie guy,” but trends
in healthier diets are working their way into the lives of tax and accounting
professionals, even during the darkest days and nights of April. Of course,
if we were to combine all kinds of take-out and delivery, the contest
wouldn’t be close. View
Chart
- Caffeine Preference
-
Insight:
And the profession still runs on good old caffeine, with nearly half of
all voters selecting traditional Joe as their preference for the stay-awake
stimulant, while combined votes for other coffee-based drinks accounted
for another 13 percent. Sodas are a strong second, with hot and iced tea
drinkers on their heels. More than 10 percent of our voters refrain from
caffeine beverages. View
Chart
