If you think this looks modern, you probably yearn for the days of eWorld.

 

MultiLedger 7 is touted as a "fully integrated accounting program" by its publisher, CheckMark Software. It does indeed have the features you expect from a small-business accounting package -- it tracks financial accounts, customers, vendors, inventory, and jobs. Budgeting, salespeople, and taxes are accommodated too. With built-in networking abilities and cross-platform compatibility, MultiLedger's feature set is quite compelling. But once you double-click the MultiLedger icon, disappointment sets in.

 

MultiLedger's Achilles heel is its outmoded interface. Navigating our way through MultiLedger's many components took us back to the time when a modern-day Mac had a built-in 9-inch black-and-white screen. It's not just a statement of fashion - user interface has evolved over the past 20 years, yet MultiLedger remains trapped in a System 7 paradigm. Toolbars, admittedly overdone in some applications, are simply nonexistent in MultiLedger. Windows and dialog boxes are nonstandard and often frustrating to use. Many windows, like Account Setup, have no buttons for saving or canceling. You just have to close the window and hope that your changes have been retained. When buttons are present in a window, they're not OS X buttons, and they're placed in the top left corner, not the bottom right as we've come to expect.

 

One of the most welcomed features among MultiLedger's competing apps, such as Intuit's QuickBooks Pro 2007 for Mac, is the setup assistant, an interview-style process that gathers information about your accounting needs and sets up an appropriate company file the first time you launch the app. Our appreciation for the setup assistant only expanded when we realized that MultiLedger doesn't have one. On first launch, MultiLedger offers no welcome, no offer of assistance, no guidance whatsoever. The app required us to create our new company almost entirely from scratch. This meant typing entries for all of our clients and vendors as well as some 40 accounts. Before setting up MultiLedger, we suggest users crack the manual and study pages 13 through 56. Professional bookkeepers and accountants may find the setup acceptable but tedious, but average small-business owners are sure to lose their patience. MultiLedger does offer some limited import capabilities, but we were disappointed to learn that text files are the only supported format. Address Book import would be a most welcome addition, not to mention some sort of migration assistant from other products.

 

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For $399, you'd think MultiLedger's main navigation window would have a more-refined design sense.

 

Once the app was set up, we found day-to-day use equally vexing. Learning MultiLedger is a bit like learning a new sport with a coach who only tells you what you're doing wrong. As you go about setting up, say, a quote, MultiLedger will frequently pop up a message indicating that you've violated some rule or another. This is not a bad thing per se, but we're used to interfaces that preempt such issues rather than stopping us after the fact and forcing us to start over.

 

MultiLedger is not without redeeming features. At 414 pages, the documentation is thorough, well organized, and well written. The glossary of accounting terms is a kind gesture to neophyte number crunchers, sample charts of accounts are handy when setting up a new company, and the comprehensive index is a welcome departure from the weak or absent indices common to contemporary documentation. We also appreciate the AppleScript support. CheckMark Software suggests using AppleScript to perform custom importing. But resorting to scripting only draws attention to MultiLedger's anemic import offerings.

 

MultiLedger is cross-platform and networkable, a claim that market-leader QuickBooks Pro for Mac can't make. Unfortunately, MultiLedger's sharing is at odds with Mac OS X and can only act as a guest of a shared file, not a host. If you don't have a Windows or OS 9 server available, you can forget about networking.

 

The bottom line. If you long for the computing experience of yesteryear and like to do things the hard way, MultiLedger may be for you. We've already moved on.

 

COMPANY: CheckMark Software
CONTACT: www.checkmark.com
PRICE: $399
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 8.6 or later
Good documentation.
Lousy interface. Difficult setup. Sharing is at odds with Mac OS X. High price.