Expert: Arthur Naman - 5/22/2010

Question
Hi, my husband is an over-the-road company truck driver.  He will soon be an owner/operator because he will be buying his own truck and we will need to track expenses and income for tax purposes when this happens.  Can you recommend a software program that I could use to help me do this at home?  I looked at Quickbooks but I don't have a clue which version would be right for us to use.  At tax time we would let an accountant do our taxes, I just need to get it organized.  Any advice is appreciated.

Answer
I apologize for not having responded to your request sooner.

Quickbooks will work, but it is likely "overkill." Quicken is an abbreviated version of Quickbooks and should work just fine for your purposes.

Quicken is a program to track your cash receipts and disbursements. The program will produce reports which can be used by whoever you choose to prepare your annual tax returns. It will allow you to keep track of the income you receive, and the checks, cash and credit cards used for expenses.

I expect there are "apps" which can work with iPhone, Palm or Blackberry which could then be downloaded into your personal computer. You might choose to not bother with that as tracking income and expenses for this business on paper should be fairly simple.


If you in fact choose to use quickbooks and cannot find support in your local community, please let me know:  Arthur Naman anaman@naman.com, Austin, TX. I can assist somewhat for Quicken although I do not have in on my local computer.

If you have additional questions about bookkeeping which are not dependent on the specific program you use to track your income and expenses, please ask additional questions as they come up.