In my 17 years of starting and building four multi-million dollar companies I have only come across one solution of free software for small business accounting that was actually beneficial for my business.  The majority time, you get what you pay for.  In the case of using Google Docs and their spreadsheets, I was able to come up with a simplified accounting and bookkeeping system that did what needed to be done. 

For those of you that do not know, Google Docs is a free solution of software that competes with Microsoft's office.  Google spreadsheets does most of the important functions that excel does.  However, it is in the cloud.  That means you can let multiple employees add to it from where ever there is web access.  This allowed my company to delegate expense reports to each department.

It allowed for a deeper explaination of the costs, and took out the guesswork of trying to match the costs on the credit cards to each area of the business.  As each charge was made, the department added it to the spreadsheet.  They also gave the reason for the purchase.  This gave me a real time running report that saved time and increased effeciency.  In the past my accountant or CFO would reconcile all costs and attempt to match them to each department.  If we did not understand the cost, then we brought in the department head to ask them what the reason was for the purchase.  I highly encourage other small business owners to incorporate this method into their existing accounting system.