Mozilla Thunderbird and Lightning

Thunderbird and Lightning?

What does that have to do with getting organised?

Let me explain…

If you are using OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office you may have noticed a limitation it has; there is no email or calendar software included.

Microsoft Office has Outlook, but OpenOffice has nothing to handle emails or appointments.

So what does?

The answer is a programme called Thunderbird which is free, open source software, (like OpenOffice). Thunderbird is made by Mozilla (the people who brought you Firefox).

Thunderbird is an email client similar to Microsoft Outlook.

To add calendars to Thunderbird there is a free plugin called Lightning.

This bolts on to Thunderbird and gives you something very similar to Outlook, but without the pricetag.

So as promised in my last blog article, now you can have a fully functional, free office software suite, which is compatible with Microsoft Office file formats.

Just use OpenOffice, Thunderbird and Lightning and you’ll have everything you need to get your office organised; all for free.

• Download Thunderbird from Mozilla
• Download the Lightning Plugin for Thunderbird
• Read my previous article about OpenOffice

OpenOffice.org

If as a small business you can’t justify the cost of Microsoft Office, there is a very good and completely free alternative.

Instead of Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Publisher (all components of Microsoft Office) use OpenOffice.org.

OpenOffice.org includes:-

• Writer (word processing)
• Calc (spreadsheets)
• Impress (multimedia presentations)
• Draw (create pictures/drawings)
• Base (database)
• Calc (works out equations and calculations)

OpenOffice.org is compatible with Microsoft documents, so you can open Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Publisher documents with OpenOffice.org and work on them.  You also have the choice to save your documents as OpenOffice.org documents and/or Microsoft Office documents.

You may be thinking at this point that there’s a catch, but there isn’t. OpenOffice.org is 100% free and you can download as many copies of it as you want.  Every copy will be fully licensed (free of charge) and all updates are also free forever.

So forget using pirate copies of Microsoft Office and get yourself a copy of OpenOffice.org instead.

If you use Microsoft Outlook (which is part of Microsoft Office) you will have noticed that OpenOffice.org doesn’t have an equivalent email programme. There is a solution for this which is also free and will be explained in my next blog article.

To download your free copy of OpenOffice.org, click the link below.

Download OpenOffice from www.OpenOffice.org

An old-fashioned manual adding machine

Does your accountant live in the past?

Does their office remind you of a museum?

Are they technophobic?

Perhaps they do actually use computers and recommend that you use Sage Accounting Software.

However, if you are running a small business, Sage is probably a really bad choice for you.

Why?

Because it is designed for bigger businesses; businesses that have their own servers; not stand alone PCs.

If you install Sage on your PC, it will be fine while your business is still really small, (but it will still be unnecessarily complicated). But as your business grows you will have to start playing ‘musical chairs’ every time anyone else needs access to your accounts – like the woman who comes in once a week to do your book keeping, or your accountant, or even your business partner or fellow directors.

Ring any bells?

So why would your accountant recommend Sage if it is the wrong tool, and more importantly what is the right tool?

Most accountants follow a standardised career path and so they are taught from a very early stage to use Sage. But equally, most are taught to see accountancy purely, or at least mainly as a function of big business. Small business is virtually ignored by most accountancy training, so most accountants have very little idea about what small businesses need.

Most small businesses cannot afford office servers, specialist software, expertly configured networks, multi-user licences and the tech support to maintain them. Most small businesses use simple PCs.

For that reason (and several others), Sage is the wrong tool for small businesses.

The right tool is something which is internet based; an accounting package which can be accessed from any internet connected device including PCs, Apple Macs, iPads, iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones. With this approach, there is no need for a server, or any of those other costly and high maintenance items. For small business this choice is really a no-brainer. No more ‘musical chairs’ – just simple, multi-user access from pretty much anywhere – really simple.

So what will do this?

An award winning programme called KashFlow and an accountancy firm called Farnell Clarke who are based in Norwich. So if you’ve had enough of playing ‘musical chairs’, ditch the dinosaur and talk to an accountancy firm who understand both modern technology and small business; talk to Farnell Clarke. They will even give you a 60-day free trial of KashFlow Accounting Software.