Book keeping software

[dalziel1]

Can anyone recommend a book keeping software package that is easy to use but would be enough that I wouldn't need to employ an accountant for anything except annuals accounts?

I've been advised to get a package that costs a bit more upfront rather than getting stuck with escalating costs on a cloud package. Does that make sense, do you think?

I do the accounts for our SME and we use QuickBooks. I have found that compared to Sage it is much easier to get to grips with and has a very good help section. There are several versions, depending on what your needs are and you can have a good look at it online before making a decision.

This link takes you to a comparison of their various products. If you want to pay a single payment scroll down the page to the desktop version. I think it costs about £289.00. You don't need to upgrade every year.

www.intuit.co.uk/quickbooks-accounting-software/online/compare.jsp

I'm not sure exactly what your accounting needs are, but I use Quickfile which is online and completely free.

Works for me (freelance developer with a couple of sidelines)!

We recommend [www.xero.com/uk Xero]] to lots of our clients - the online aspect means that we can check how things are going on a regular basis, and sort out any issues well before the year end - which makes things easier to produce accounts.

However, you need to be a reasonably big/complicated business before you outgrow excel (I've produced accounts for half a million turnover from a spreadsheet), and if you're just starting up, it's very likely you don't know yet exactly what you need until you start recording transactions. I'd start with what your accountant recommends to fit with their accounts software.

On the other hand, there may be something industry-specific which does exactly what you need - I've found a great little charity package for £120 when all the big boys did that "garage mechanic air sucked in through teeth" "that'll cost you madam" thing when i explained what I needed.

Whatever you do, don't get sucked into Sage - you need the ongoing service contract on top of buying the thing in order to get updates, it's horribly unintuitive and generally a waste of money. IME and IMO.

Thanks for all your replies. We are in the pre-launch phase right now and we saw a mentor who gave us various bits of good advice about a lot of different things. He was the one who said get a package and start as you mean to go on. He mentioned quickbooks and xero but he didn't say exactly which one (and now I've googled them, there seems to be lots of options!).
Payroll seems to be another variable.

We don't have an accountant yet - that's next week's job to find one - but I won't buy any until we've done that.

I may be overthinking this all though!

LeapingOverTheWall - hope you don't mind me asking but what was the chairt one you found?

this one. I'm using donations coordinator plus excel as I only wanted something to make the Gift Aid claim a bit easier to do - technical issues with how the donors info is stored within the charity means using the HMRC spreadsheet is tricky.

PM me if you want specific charity advice though, and get free trials of as many packages as you can, to find one which makes sense to you.

oh, and payroll - we use Moneysoft which is a good low cost package, but again, it depends on the volume of transactions you're doing. The HMRC portal may be enough, or your accountant may do it.

Thanks. I didn't even know there was a HMRC portal...!

I know someone in this thread has said to keep away from sage...

However we use it to keep track of our accounts, its not the cheapest solution but was highly recommended when we were looking into what to use.

They also offer a free trial which we found useful as then at least you can determine if it would be right for you without spending money.

If did you fancy looking into this you can find out more info on their site. I think its www.dmcsoftware.co.uk

Hope that helps

Mike

I just stumbled across this thread and noticed you'd mentioned Sage and DMC Software. I currently work at www.dmcsoftware.co.uk and would have to agree that Sage would more than likely be the best option.

Are you also looking at Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM)? As there is also Sage CRM, which would give you an overall package that would suit all of your needs and help increase your productivity and efficiency.

If you would like any help, please do get in touch.

Thanks,

Anna