Is anyone a member of Sage Bookkeepers Club?

[TracyK]

Does it work out cheaper in the long run to have multi company access?

I have a few clients - and I'm having to backup and restore data each time - on a normal licence.

I believe that even though they all have their own copies at their offices - I can only have 1 installation of Line 50 on my laptop.

How much more is it?
We have 1 client with 2 companies and they got multi-company as it just got so annoying swapping and changing.

It's an annual amount £400 odd or £500 odd with payroll - from 5 to 100 clients.

I have 1 client too - with the 2 company licence - but I also have another client with just one company - and he wants to add another company.

But even if he pays to add another company - I'd need a licence for a 4 company version as I can't install 2 copies of Sage line 50 on my laptop.

Either that or I get another cheapy laptop for the 2nd install.

I was looking at Sage (as Mamut are competely discontinuing MYOB which I love ) and according to their website - it's an extra £250 for each additional company - which for me was going to be around £3k . You definitely get multi-company via the bookkeepers/accoutants club then?

Yes I think so - but remember it'll be £400 odd quid a year -FOREVER! So it won't take many years till you've broken even with the £3k.

I'm going to phone them this morning - 0845 111 11 11 if you want to phone them too. As it says FROM £400 - for 5 to 100 companies. SO maybe its £400 for 5 and £10,000 for 6 !!

Just phoned them - so it's £695 for a 5 company version, £720 for a 10 company and £750 for a 20 company version.
This gives you the highest version of the accounts software. 1 company for payroll, HR and ACT and accountants link.

I asked, and he confirmed it was an annual charge - but then he muttered something about if you didn't pay it annually - you'd lose your support and upgrades. Hmmm - I'm not sure I'd be that bothered about that tbh - I wonder if its too sneaky to pay the 1st years and get a 20 company version and then cancel it after a year??

if you don't pay each year, you don't get the updated tax tables, so can't do payroll. There ought to be a means to change VAT rates manually (unless they issue updates for that) though.

I'm looking at Quickbooks as an alternative - Tasbooks were good, but won't let me import customer records from an external database, nor will the cheaper Mamut software.
Thanks for that TraceyK, will have a ponder.

I don't really need it for payroll (not yet anyway). All my clients are on Sage at the mo and so I couldn't change to Quickbooks etc.

Zero is sposed to be - though never looked at it - it's online based.

I have TAS2 single user multi company
brought each of my clients across at year / quarter end (12 in total ATM)
Quickbooks - the balance sheet doesnt
for small payrolls, I run 5 throught the HMRC CD rom and Journal them into TAS
far cheaper than sage
I then hand key the whole lot into PTP for HMRC
hand keying is IMHO a very useful control against balances that do not "feel" right so is well worth the time

I bought Sage Bookkeepers club for one year then concelled the subscription after a year or so, as I didn't use the helplines and I didn't use Sage payroll. The software was for 5 companies and when I need to top up I bought 5 more from Sage for aroubd £50.

I do use Quickbooks too which is a bargain if you don't need payroll as you can open as many companies as you like. Is is quite different to Sage but I like the flexibility if gives me. I've also found it better for charities (if any of you work in that sector).

And as someone else as said, if its not a big payroll use the HMRC software for FREE!!

Thanks cktwo.

I might just do that - I just felt a bit guilty about paying for it and then not using it after a year.

I can't be bothered learning Quickbooks - I'd just stay with Sage if I could get enough companies on it.

I do use HMRC software for payroll at the mo - but it's a pia not being able to print payslips. Do you know a way off the CD?

The CD deliberately does not do payslips because HMRC do not know about pensions, benefits etc etc
On the UKBF it was mentioned that the whole thing switches to software downloads next year so there might be a decent CSV export program
I wish

I wish too... luckily I only do payroll for 1 of my clients with 4 employees - so a spreadsheet isn't too difficult to use for the payslips- but any more and it would be a pain.

Sage pricing is outrageous, and HMRC will never provide proper payroll software (that does pension deductions, SSP etc.)

You want Moneysoft payroll: £110 a year for unlimited clients up to 100 employees each.

Or if you only have 4 heads on the payroll and can't even justify that, the MyPAYE online solution will cost you less than £50 a year.

TAS knocks Sage into a cocked hat and is cheaper, but I prefer online solutions for bookkeeping. Not in a position to recommend one of those at the moment though!

Thanks MrA - I'll have a look at those payrolls.

Do you use the same online solutions for all your clients - or just what they happen to use themselves?

I had a look at TAS when one of my clients was switching to Sage and I haev to say I didn't really like the look of it. But I guess it's what you are used to. It took me ages to like Sage after using Pegasus for many, many years.

I used pegasus - senior 5 was lovely
sage is easier than tas
but the tas reports are better and its much much cheaper
I use have both running on my main machine
I have been using the software since the people on the help line were in primary school
tend to steer clear of them all !!

Online solutions: I haven't got anyone using one because they are waiting for a recommendation from me, but for various reasons I am not happy to go with any of them - I was on the verge of committing to Xero when I realised that its VAT is just not up to scratch.

Only one candidate left, otherwise I have to find a workaround for Xero.

I had a trial of Kashbook which looks to be good for small businesses, and possibly for accoutants/bokkeepers with only a few clients (you pay per business) - so another online one to add to the mix.

cktwo what is it about Quickbooks which is good for charities (I have a charity client which is the one causing me headaches re software)? Annoyingly I can't get a trial of the version i'd be using, only the basic free one.

oh, and I second Moneysoft payroll - maybe not the most intuitive software, but does the job, and costs comparatively peanuts.

Whats wrong with the vat in Xero MrA? I too have had it recommended to me by a couple of colleagues saying it was very good. But have been too lazy to get around to looking at it yet.

It is very good, except that it does VAT reporting by invoice date. So if you have a purchase invoice that you missed out of your last return for whatever reason and you post it now it just won't appear in your VAT return. Or any report whatsoever that will show that it wasn't included last time.

Now I hope they will fix this in time - they put in a lot of work to give Xero a robust audit trail to achieve ICAEW recognition, so VAT reporting by transaction sequence number is theoretically possible, but it doesn't do it yet.

Do you mean KashFlow? Kashbook seems to be an iPhone app.

Don't like KashFlow - just not slick enough as a web app and just not strong enough as accounting software to make up for it.

Oh no, you can't have meant KashFlow because you pay £££££££££££££££££ to sign up with them as an accountant/bookkeeper, not just per client.

Have you checked out the various threads at AccountingWeb - search for the product name and various threads will come up. Beware that the founder of KashFlow is active there (Duane) as is the UK rep. for Xero (Gary) - both are fairly good at identifying themselves.

I haven't been on accountingweb for a while - I'm trying to minimise the number of forums I waste time on! I get caught up in threads and lose half a day!