Quickbooks/clearbooks etc etc - reviews?

[Loggerino]

Who's happy with their accounting software? I'm looking for some but unsure who to go with. I need things clear and simple! TIA

One question I always ask is can I do c/o invoicing. I work for letting agents and they often want the individual landlord to be named so my invoices need to be addressed: The Landlord, c/o The Letting Agent

As far as I can see, and I have asked most of them, only FreeAgent does this. Probably because they were originally for sole traders and were asked about it.

Then, do you use any other software, CMS etc? Does the software integrate with it? So I can integrate with Google calender for bookings, which is great but all except FreeAgent integrate with my main App!

After that they were all pretty much of a muchness for me!

Oops! Too quick. But I went with FreeAgent because it was by far the most straightforward, for me!

I did get free trials with them all before I chose and spent a few days playing with them, to see which fit my head best!

I think it depends on your business. I use QuickBooks and I like it, but I use it in combination with Greenback as I am an online retailer with multiple income sources. I also use it for my payroll and VAT returns.

We tried Xero and we didn't like it - it couldn't cope well with projects and no phonelines. We chose Quickbooks instead. I like the phone support we have received - having someone at the other end of the line who will have a look at your books and help you when things don't work is essential - for us anyway!

Freeagent is just about the easiest to use, but it is limited, i.e. no stock control features. Quickbooks and Xero are less intuitive and need more research/training to use properly, but they have a broader range of features. Clearbooks is a much less popular system with far fewer users and doesn't really have any great merits over the others.

Re QB, FAC and Xero, don't just look at the trails on desktop/laptop. Their "app" versions for mobile phones or tablets are VERY different to their computer versions, so if you plan to use phones/tablets, download their apps to trial too! It's not just ease of use, levels of functionality between apps and computer versions can also be very different, i.e. there are things you can do on the app that you can't do on PC and vice versa.