Any essential apps worth getting for a new mac?

[ravinder08]

Just got a new mac book pro for my son, he's doing accounting and finance what apps would you recommend to download? he's got the 256gb MacBook pro non Touch Bar

 

[campyguy]

How about advice from a client, with a tip at the end of this post? If yes, the accountants I consign with use 5 apps - Word, Excel, Outlook, Quickbooks Pro, and Sage Peachtree - generally on the Windows OS platform. The Office apps are being updated in 3-4 weeks so that they'll be a bit more uniform across OS platforms with the new version, but I still use the Windows apps on my Mac via a virtualization app (Parallels Desktop). The accounting apps are cross-platform, but all of the accountants I work with use Windows 7/10. My personal CPA uses the Office suite and QBP, again, on Win10, however, that shouldn't matter too much.

I'd offer planning for a virtualization app - I use Parallels (the Pro version) with my GF (who runs her own company) prefers Fusion, both do the job well IMO. And, installing the needed apps as Windows apps in that VM. I took 2 years of accounting in college, but that was 25 years ago - children of friends go to my alma mater and they're using Win 10 Pro and pushing Office and QBP and interning at local firms to find out what is being used in the industry so they can hit the ground running...

The tip? Pretty much most of the colleges have options to get SW at no cost, offering education versions with just an .edu email address. For instance, MS provides students an up-to 4 year sub to Office 365 to students. My caution would be to have your son visit a couple of firms that suit his field of interest in order to find out what's being used in those offices, and not be subject to an educator's bias of preference for SW/HW that never gets used in the real world. My 2¢.

 

[ravinder08]

How about advice from a client, with a tip at the end of this post? If yes, the accountants I consign with use 5 apps - Word, Excel, Outlook, Quickbooks Pro, and Sage Peachtree - generally on the Windows OS platform. The Office apps are being updated in 3-4 weeks so that they'll be a bit more uniform across OS platforms with the new version, but I still use the Windows apps on my Mac via a virtualization app (Parallels Desktop). The accounting apps are cross-platform, but all of the accountants I work with use Windows 7/10. My personal CPA uses the Office suite and QBP, again, on Win10, however, that shouldn't matter too much.

I'd offer planning for a virtualization app - I use Parallels (the Pro version) with my GF (who runs her own company) prefers Fusion, both do the job well IMO. And, installing the needed apps as Windows apps in that VM. I took 2 years of accounting in college, but that was 25 years ago - children of friends go to my alma mater and they're using Win 10 Pro and pushing Office and QBP and interning at local firms to find out what is being used in the industry so they can hit the ground running...

The tip? Pretty much most of the colleges have options to get SW at no cost, offering education versions with just an .edu email address. For instance, MS provides students an up-to 4 year sub to Office 365 to students. My caution would be to have your son visit a couple of firms that suit his field of interest in order to find out what's being used in those offices, and not be subject to an educator's bias of preference for SW/HW that never gets used in the real world. My 2¢.

thank you so much, this is invaluable advise, many thanks.