Simplex 'D' Accounts Book - any good or not?

[taxi4ballet]

Hi there, calling fellow book-keepers and accountants!!!

I'm wondering whether anyone has used these books, and whether they were useful or a complete pain in the neck!

I do book-keeping for small firms and this new business is just starting up and has approached me saying they've bought the Simplex 'D' Book. I've read the introductory pages, and I'm not convinced they would be suitable for this particular firm.

Before I tell them they've wasted their money, I'd like to hear how other people have got on with them, so if anyone can help, I'd be really grateful, thank you!

Paper?
Ha ha.
Tell them to get real, download VT cashbook and keep proper records

They'd be better off just using excel, especially if you can set it up for them. At least then it's easy enough to manipulate the data.

the trouble with excel is that it is SO, SO easy to overtype and make errors

that is why we accountants like things like Solar and Xero and VT

Yes, but non accountants don't like things they aren't familiar with.
I'm an accountant and I don't think VT or Xero are all that, although a local firm I know are pushing Xero like crazy. All I can think is that they must be getting a good kick back from it.

I am a recent convert to VT as the free bit is SO easy for non accountants to use : I've even got some of my really luddite clients using it.

I still prefer TAS!

Thanks, my heart sank at the mention of paper account books!!

I don't think VT cashbook would be suitable either as although their sales will all be cash/card, they will have a fairly substantial purchase ledger - think retail shop selling high value items - and they are standard VAT, and not cash accounting or retail scheme (registered for VAT before I arrived).

The owner has experience of retailing, but not the financial side at all, and has no accounting knowledge - they will also have little time to do the books.

Sage Instant is fairly cheap and reliable, and I'm happy with the reporting on there, or are people moving away from that nowadays?

I can't be bothered - nor will they want to pay me for the time involved - to get a package I haven't used before and learn it inside-out myself before training them on it.

The other thing I could do is set them up with some basic Excel spreadsheets to fill in.

Suggestions?

Sage Instant is still a great product - the reporting is a bit clunky but its really simple to use

I notice that the latest version uses cloud storage - I'm using several different versions of Sage at various clients at the moment none of which use cloud storage - how does it work and can you still back up as normal etc?

I'm probably being a Luddite here, but having had experience of working in a company which had to do major disaster recovery after catastrophic building damage I like to have physical backups!!!

I'm having issues with a different cloud provider at the moment : they will not let the client download a full data backup

the other issue is that I often deal with rural areas where there is no proper broadband so cloud is not an option.