What is SBA and why are people so excited?

A few people have emailed me over the last week and asked what the big deal is about Small Business Accounting: "it's just another accounting program in a field of 5 others, right?" No. Let me offer a few quick thoughts as to why I'm so excited about this software.

SBA may be another accounting application, but it's really only one piece of the puzzle. The real beauty comes in when SBA is combined with Outlook & Business Contact Manager (BCM) and all of the other pieces of software that SBA integrates with: Excel (see Analysis tools post on 9/14), Word, MS Access, software like BillQuick (see post on 9/24), other industry specific software, ADP Payroll, etc. The key is the tight integration. SBA data is properly shared and makes a less automated business more automated -- there is no double or triple work. Larger companies have had this kind of automation/integration for decades, why shouldn't small businesses also benefit from some of it as well?

What other application is going to let you email a custom invoice to a customer with a few clicks (see yesterday's post) and be able to pull up that same email/invoice 2 years later by going to the customer record in your contact management software? That's powerful.

There are improvements that can be made to the SBA/BCM combination (I'll save those critiques for another post), but as best I can tell, this is the first application from a major, credible vendor that delivers good integration for real small businesses.