I would sure like to---even though some of the pieces are really good, the greediness of Intuit is really irritating.
It would seem like a bunch of templates and the ability to produce printable documents is all that is needed. I went from a Word/Excel method to QBooks about 10 years ago because I liked some of the features. Now the bloat in the product has seemingly ruined it--at least for me.
I looked at and studied MYOB and it seems to be OK too, but it also demands you keep up with the newest release--even though its current product, as does QBooks, might work just well for you. However, they too won't even take a pay-for call if the product is more than two calendar years old.
I did and then Microsoft updated Excel and I went crazy. My life is in shambles, I hear you loud and clear good buddy. Please continue the fight without me.
I agree that QB is bloatware (why don't they let you configure menus for just what you need, and let the unneeded bloat lie in the weeds?). But, other than payroll, what do you need to upgrade for?
As for the original question, much would, I think, depend on what one is doing that one actually needs a QB-like product for. A one-person consulting firm could pretty easily convert to a spreadsheet probably (I don't follow what an Excel upgrade could have done to the other respondent's spreadsheet that wouldn't have broken so many other existing spreadsheets it would have been a patch) that other than the pain in developing the database structures or the bulk of dealing w/ the size of separate ledger pages if choose that as an implementation model, it would seem fairly straightforward.
W/ payroll, product, etc., things start to get more complicated, obviously. Where the breakeven point would be is hard (as in impossible) to tell remotely.
My example was roughly 10 years of the single consultant after "retiring" -- started at '99, updated to '00 and stayed at that point. Never could get invoicing worked out at level of detail required by primary client so always exported data to Excel for invoicing, anyway. As business tapered down and began to work less and less, gradually placed more and more of actual transactions in Excel and QB became essentially only a repository for tax summary year end reports.
At this point, have begun trying to reorganize the old QB to account for the current farming practices and all -- it's debatable that there's enough return for the effort as opposed to simply making journal entries on a spreadsheet but guess I'll slog on for a few more months and then see how it goes before making a final determination...
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