You can take the boys out of New Orleans, but you can’t take New Orleans out of the boys. I’m guessing. So when brothers Miles and Alexander Pincus relocated to NYC, they decided to make a business out of what they missed most. Sailing with a little southern hospitality.

Their mission was to bring that high-end sailing experience to Manhattan’s 79th Street Boat Basin and from the press they’ve received, it appears it’s mission accomplished. They offer private charters, corporate team building events, lessons and even a summer sailing camp for kids.

While word of mouth drives the business, they’ve been able to successfully leverage social media and networking sites like Facebook to their advantage. And through several down economic cycles, they’ve found that delivering a high-end service at an affordable price (charters start as low as $399) has insulated them against any sustained dips in sales.

“Regardless of what’s going on, people still want to get out in the water,” comments Amanda, Atlantic’s office manager.

Yet with all their success and accompanying growth, Atlantic still manages their business using FirstEdge and a couple integrated services. They process sales and track expenses using FirstEdge, they charge the credit cards using an integrated merchant account and they pay their 10 employees using Full Service Payroll (also integrated).

When they switched to Macs, Amanda was tasked with evaluating a replacement for QuickBooks. She downloaded several trial versions.

“I have no background in bookkeeping, but FirstEdge was really easy to get up and running. Plus, I called in a couple times with questions and each time I reached someone who was very helpful. That’s important. I want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a live person.”