NCH Express Accounts Review

Full review

One size fits all with the NCH Express Accounts package. One desktop license is all you can choose from, which provides the full package of features. You will need Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, or Vista or Mac OS X 10.5 and above. NCH Express Accounts is really only suitable for very small businesses, or freelancers, with no employees to manage since it does not include extensive inventory, payroll, or expense management facilities (although you can get these as separate paid-for add-ons).

Invoices & Billing

Using the software you can handle the basic invoicing tasks you need to collect the money from clients and customers, using professional templates including templates for quotes and sales orders – there are limited customization options within the invoice creation tool, however and this is done better by other software packages. Once invoices and bills have been sent out you can track the money that comes in, and also set up recurring invoices and orders to go out every month. One of the minor downsides associated with Express Account is you can’t easily work in multiple currencies without setting up separate company files for each currency you use.

When paying for items you can print checks and generate purchase orders. Generating an accounts payable report lets you know what you have spent and when you need to pay bills.

Expenses

Another minor inconvenience is the lack of automatic bank integration that takes your expenses directly over to your accounting software – with NCH Express Accounts you have to do it manually, which is not particularly useful. You can set up expense tracking and purchase records but it’s all manual here.

Time tracking

No timesheets or time tracking available unless you add on an additional NCH software package for an extra fee.

Reporting

You can generate basic reports with the NCH Express Accounts program, including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, tax reports, expense reports, and cash flow statements. You can save these reports as PDFs or CSV files and can easily email them to your accountant when you need to.

Mobile

There are no mobile apps with this software and no effective cloud accounting service, although you can access the program via the web and through your mobile phone.

Sharing & Integration

You can give access to other people who also need to use the accounting tools in Express Accounting. As with the other basic accounting packages in our list, you don’t have many options in terms of setting user access profiles – it’s more a case of yes or no. Also, there are no third-party add-ons to make life easier for you.

Ease of use

Installation of this software package is quick and easy. Once you have installed the program you can choose to add on a number of different options, some of which are paid for, and include facilities like project management and inventory management. You start by entering information about your company, a list of accounts, and your tax details. The interface once it’s running is simple, clean, and straightforward. It’s not the most stylish package we’ve seen but it gets the job done. Pick your task from a panel of items such as invoices, transactions, and orders.

There is also a toolbar on the top of the panel with tabs that show you details about your suppliers, invoices, and customers etc.

Help & support

HCH doesn’t provide much in the way of support for this product. There’s a customer support email form to fill out, which is for those people who have purchased the premium version of the software. Also there are a few how-to's on the website and the help manual is accessed from within the Accounts Express program itself.

Overall

NCH Express Accounts provides the tools you need to handle most aspects of business financial management. Express Accounts is not the full accountancy package and it does not set out to be. If you want a quick and easy solution to track payments and bills, this is a worthwhile option.