Acclivity's AccountEdge 2011(http://accountedge.com/mac/), the latest version of their business accounting software for the Mac, offers a plethora of new features, including retainers, progress billing, AccountEdge Mobile, Time Tracker, the ability to create an invoice from a purchase, increased description field sizes, updated search, interface updates, web store integration updates, and more.

Contractors, architects, engineering firms, and others that bill by project or job can now bill as work is completed. With AccountEdge 2011, you can bill by percentage of the total quote, percentage of each line item, quantity, rate, and more. AccountEdge will manage the invoicing of the entire project from start to finish. You can even bill in excess of 100% of the original quote for overages, change orders, and expenses.

Lawyers, graphic designers, and others that need to manage retainers can create and maintain retainers the way they wish. They can set up and manage retainers in AccountEdge 2011, keep a minimum retainer balance, and add expenses to a retainer to pay bills on behalf of clients. Users can request replenishment, receive payments, and print custom retainer statements with a single click.

AccountEdge 2011 reinstates the old way of searching through lists, while keeping the “starts with” and “contains” method introduced in AccountEdge 2010. You can search by any text string, or modify your search by specific field.

Frequently used functions can be accessed with a new action button that appears on sales and purchases windows. Click the button to open a drop-down menu that lets you use or save a recurring transaction, change exchange rates, and more.

The latest version of AccountEdge sports increased description, note, and email message field sizes. Field sizes for descriptions, notes and email messages have been upped to 1,000 characters. Also, AccountEdge’s check interface has been redesigned to be more in line with printed checks.

And what self-respecting piece of Mac software fails to integrate with their iOS cousins? With AccountEdge 2011, you can manage your business anywhere you go with AccountEdge Mobile, available at the Apple App Store. Tap an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to record sales and activity slips, enter expenses and contacts, and sync it all with your desktop version of AccountEdge.

AccountEdge 2011's Time Tracker features lets you give your employees and subcontractors the ability to enter time sheets and activity slips and apply time to jobs and payroll anywhere there's an Internet connection, without giving them access to your entire accounting system. Time Tracker is a subscription-based service.

You can keep track of when your banking accounts were last reconciled with the new Reconciled Date field on the Account History report. AccountEdge 2011 sports a new company file assistant and setup assistant redesign.

AccountEdge integrates Sofa's web store Enstore, which lets users offer their customers a simple, ant online shopping experience. EnStore is a pay-as-you-go web store that integrates with AccountEdge. Products, images, pricing and other details are managed in AccountEdge and synced up to EnStore. AccountEdge pulls down new orders, customers, payments and taxes.

EnStore comes with the flexibility to customize your store, automatic shipping and tax rate lookup, hassle-free payment processing through major payment providers and a set of designed templates. EnStore comes with free setup, free hosting and unlimited bandwidth and storage. Several store templates come with EnStore; you can add your own pictures and descriptions.

If you use Enstore with AccountEdge 2011, you can immediately see which sales are made via your web store, and the order number of each order. The New Tax Accounts tab in the Web Store Setup window lets you set up and manage the types of taxes collected via Enstore.

With AccountEdge 2011, you can create an invoice from a purchase. There are three new fields that can be added to forms when customizing. And new fields have been added to AccountEdge’s Import/Export of Item Sales for better Enstore integration: web order #, tracking number, shipping details, service and shipping details and notes.

AccountEdge comes with 110 custom business templates to get you started. There's also a Company Data Auditor found in the Accounts command center that lets you keep your important financial information in top condition. You can use it to learn information on your company file like size and location, troubleshoot problem areas such as imbalances in your receivables, and review changes made to the company file (and learn who made the changes).

AccountEdge is priced at US$299 for new users, and $159 for upgraders ($249 for Network Edition upgraders).