Accounts software for small business (under £4000 turnover)

[nannynick]

With the upcoming change to reporting to HMRC every 3-months (this starts April 2018 but you can do it voluntary from April 2017) have you found any low cost software which will do basic invoicing, expense tracking and submitting to HMRC?

Look at VT, their cashbook version is free, not sure if it has a submission facility.

VT Transaction is decent low cost software (£125 for a forever licence from memory).

This is very interesting. I didn't realise that the change to 3 months was starting so soon.

VT looks interesting. VT Cashbook is free, though not sure if it does submissions to HMRC.

Then other versions require Excel, which I don't have so another cost to factor in, plus the yearly license for VT.

The new tax returns are discussed in this episode of MoneyBox: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c0rfv

You don't need to buy Excel to run VT Transaction. I run it on the windows side of my mac and don't have excel on that side of it.

It was developed in Excel but does not require you to have Excel.

System requirements are here

The above applications require Windows 2000 or later (including Windows 10) running on either a 32 bit or 64 bit PC.

Excel is only needed for VT final accounts which you won't need as that is really more for the co house limited company reporting. You'll be able to do submissions straight from the VT book-keeping program which produces the profit & loss account and balance sheet in a good enough format for sole traders and partnerships.. But, the proposals are that businesses with turnover under £10,000 will be exempt from the new quarterly reporting regime anyway.

Thanks. I do hope to be exempt.

The threshold for exemption hasn't been set although the Treasury Select committee, the major accountancy bodies and also the House of Lords economic committee have recommended that it ties in with the VAT threshold of £83,000. Along with HMRC stating that there will be free software available but not providing any details, I wouldn't be rushing out to spend money on potentially unnecessary or ultimately incompatible software just yet.

Can anyone give me a bit of info on the changes? If you submit your returns quarterly, at what point do you have to pay tax?

Listening to MoneyBox now, thank you.