I'm supposed to create a 15 slide Powerpoint presentation on why an Accounting Software is the best compared to others on the shelf (prepackaged, not customized), but I don't have any valid points for why one should be better than another. Hence, I can't decide. Has anyone here had to use accounting software and do you have any criteria for why its "the best"?

Flexibility

Robustness

Talk to accountants about the software they use. They all don't use the same software. Users of the same software don't all like it or dislike it for the same reasons.

Talk to enough accountants and your 15 points will suggest themselves.

Cold call them.

At least half of them will willing express an opinion to a non-competitor.

They're self-image invested, afterall.

They paid good money for the public image of professional expertise -- half of them graduated in the lower 50-percentile of their graduating class.

You'll get a nearly equal sampling from both 50-percentiles, by the way. ;)

Just think about accounting. What kinds of complex tasks do you have to perform? How about inventory. Inventory options can vary widely accross programs, because it is fairly complex. A program could do just the vary basic. Another could separate different kinds of inventory like SimplyAccounting. Other more complex expensive ones can probably track inventories and change between FIFO and LIFO in a click (well, MAYBE)...