nchsoftware.com

It is very sad that I write this…

It is very sad that I need to write this Express Accounts review.As anybody knows, trusting your company financial books into software and database is a very critical decision. Chosen incorrectly, an unacceptable accounting system can lead to badly formed data that you employ during the construction of taxes you submit to your local, state, and federal tax agencies.Ok. so here is my review of Express Accounts.The data file architecture for Express Accounts stored transactions consists of collections of independent CSV files contained within "Folders" such as Account and Ledger. All the CSV records within each of these folders are based on dates.Assume for example you already have a date-based csv file (e.g, 03022023.csv) within the Ledger folder that contains a) a name and short description and b) the contained DR/CR records for that accounting transaction. When you later go and create additional but different in name and description transaction that accidently has the very same date, what happens to that already contained stored transaction? Well, sometimes your new transaction's DR/CR record set just becomes an additional set of DR/CR records appended to the already existing transaction's DR/CR record set.As an example, the First Transaction's record set might be for a Telephone Invoice, while the second record set might be for Auto repairs. Too bad for you, however, because there's only one name and short description allowed for the total set of DR/CR records within that Date-specific CSV file. That results in the loss of the Name and intent description of the second transaction. Simply put your auto repair's record set are named, Telephone Invoice.Even worse than that, however, despite your receiving a "success" message associated with your second transaction's creation and storage, your second transaction just disappears. It is nowhere. It is never stored. That missing Express Accounts record storage error can easily be missed because the NCH Express Accounts software does NOT EITHER a) indicate that the data has been stored in an already existing date-based CSV transaction file, or b) NCH Express Accounts does not flash a message that your second transaction was never stored.The practical effect of this non-stored fatal flaw is that you now must--after storing a collection of Express Accounts transactions--do a very careful review of your paper recorded source-transactions that you intended to enter and compare those with the actually stored Express Accounts transactions. You are left with trying to figure out how to address these missing Express Accounts transactions. The ultimate strategy both devised and undertook was to EXAMINE the entire set of existing stored transactions for a given month so as to FIND a date that had NOT been used. Once a missing date-based CSV file was discovered, transactions were created to contain the transactions that needed to be entered EVEN THOUGH THE DATES WOULD BE INCORRECT FOR THOSE MISSING TRANSACTIONS. At least however, there would be a Name and Short Description that fits each different missing transaction's DR/CR record set.Once this severe bug was recognized, analyzed and the work-around cited above was developed and several detailed step-by-step with screen-shot messages illustrating this flawed transaction behavior were sent to NCH tech support. The response was deafening SILENCE.This silence was a surprise to because previously sent questions had received 24-to-48-hour responses. It seemed that only after discovering this critical bug that the deafening silence started. Thinking hopefully that additional payments might evoke needed responses, I bought the NCH Expert Accounts a second time and also bought Express Accounts Premium Support.While my payments were accepted onto my credit card. and that the NCH Express Accounts responded signup information assured me that I would get a password so that I could directly "talk" with the Tech Support, the password was never sent. As to my background, I am a professional IT developer of many, many years. I know what was wrong. I know why it was wrong. I offered to directly talk with and demonstrate these fatal errors to the developers. But as was from above, NCH Response was deafening SILENCE. This version of my 7/9/2024 review was edited to form this more detailed and corrected review.

Date of experience: Jul 19, 2025