This week I finished up testing PcMars by reconciling and running reports. This is really good software. I would recommend nonprofits give it a try. It’s cheap at $80/year. You can add on payroll for another $36/year. Here’s my Top 5 things I like and Top 3 concerns
Top 5 Reasons to Choose PcMars
- Price: I’m a cheap accountant. It’s $80 for the basic version and almost $200 to add payroll, accounts receivable, and accounts payable. That’s $200/year which is similar to the cost per month for QuickBooks Online with payroll.
- Intuitive: This just has a lot of smart features built into. With some of the other accounting systems, I would spend time Googling or YouTubing to see how to set things up or process transactions. That was not the case with PcMars.
- Reporting: I don’t think the reporting is as flexible as QuickBooks, but it looked like I could run all the reports I’m used to. The reports were clean. I did like the option to add some ratios in the reporting as well.
- Quick to Customize: PcMars is almost as easy as working in a spreadsheet for setting up the chart of accounts. There’s five tabs. You just click in the cell to change something. Super easy.
- Connection to Ag: I really like the connection to farming. Again, this software was made by farmers from Iowa for farmers…who attend church.
Top 3 Reasons for Concern:
- Traction Ag Buyout: In a lot of ways, this is the best option. The Sheller’s started PcMars and look to be around retirement age. There would be a big change so the sale to Traction Ag is probably the best chance for keeping PcMars stable. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if Traction Ag starts messing with the software or puts it on the back burner.
- Payroll Reporting: I just didn’t dive into this enough. I really like just being able to hit a submit button to file everything from 941’s to W-2’s to FUTA & SUTA. I just didn’t take the time to check this out. Worst case scenario, I’m back to paper filing?
- Conversion from QuickBooks: I love having all the history and being able to look up transactions from several years ago. Unfortunately, I think you’ll need to start over new.
Overall, I give PcMars an A. I highly recommend it as an alternative to QuickBooks.
Useful Links
- PcMars: https://pcmars.com/