Icebergo for Windows

Good business tools can make a difference for mom-and-pops, one-man bands, and other small businesses, as well as give a professional look to records, documents, and communications. Icebergo is an accounting and billing solution powered by Microsoft Access. It can manage inventories, purchases, sales, ordering, accounts, taxes, statistics, reports, and more. Its Office-style interface integrates well in a familiar software environment. Icebergo requires an up-to-date version of Access. We tried Icebergo's fully functional freeware edition in Office 2010.

New users must log in to Icebergo as an Admin using a provided password, but it can handle multiple user accounts. Icebergo's Office-style layout, Office button, and ribbon give it a familiar look. The Office button in the upper left corner gives quick access to all basic document functions, just like its Microsoft counterpart. Icebergo's Home view has two tabs: Icebergo, with Contact and About access, and Tools, which displays the Counter and Calculator by default. The free-floating Keyboard tool is unique to the program. This handy little window lets us quickly open a variety of document templates, each with sample data: Sales, Receipts, Statement, Purchase, Payment, and Ledger. Selecting a template also opened the tool's settings on the ribbon's Tools tab. A pair of drop-down lists opened a variety of Invoice and Order documents in the main view, and a Job/Branch selector let us quickly choose a main store or other location. We could also switch users and set a date range. A large Search button dominates the Keyboard's center. The templates are all cleanly executed. A couple of templates wouldn't close when we clicked the corner X, but they did when we tried the Close Form icon in the lower left corner of Icebergo's windows.

We like Icebergo's combination of individual templates, Access-based capabilities, and familiar Office space. Its features proved competent. The only issue we had with the free version is the logo and advertising it places on reports and statements. The premium version removes the ads and logo and replaces them with the purchasing party's details, for a price. While some users won't mind the ad stuff, others will. But everyone gets to try Icebergo for free.