Thank you to all posters for your prompt and informative replies. It looks like Quikbooks will have the flexibility for me. Yep you are right reporting not being very customisable will be a point of irritation. I will look into whether Quikbooks has the usual flexibility to load to and from Excel with the aim of using Excel to do any more sophisticated reporting. Sophisticated? who am I kidding

Sage (Peachtree) frankly sounds a better more professional package that will actually force the user to do things properly. This is important to me.

Even though I have some accounting background, thanks to your advice it looks like I can get rolling quicker with Quikbooks. As and when things get more sophisticated or complex I will probably move on to Sage thanks to your recommendations.

Thanks ^