Invoicing/accounting software

[Torrango]

Question for those of you with ltd cos - do you use an accounting package to do your invoicing, or just put them together by hand in excel/word?

I've been looking at the various solutions out there and was surprised there seem to be so many decent contenders. Sage instant accounts looks to be best of breed for installed software, but I think I'd prefer an on-line solution so that I can manage things from any location without being tied down to one physical machine.

The main SaaS contenders seem to be kashflow, e-conomic, xero and freeagent. Freeagent seems to be the most focussed on contractors, but all of them look upto the job. So does anyone have any recommendations regarding these (or other products)? Even better if you've used more than one!

At the moment I'm planning to switch from umbrella to ltd, so just need something which will keep all my numbers in order and make life as simple as possible. Invoicing is all really need, but payroll, dividends etc are all a plus. Needs to be something which can handle multiple currencies since I'll be invoicing in GBP and EUR.

[Archangel]

Word for invoices

Spreadsheet for accounts, HMRC CD for PAYE

Online VAT,
Online Corp tax (incl year end accounts),
Online Companies house filing (return & accounts),
Online P11/P35 (via HMRC CD)

Online Self assessment.

HTH

[Sockpuppet]

I use sage here. Can't fault it.

Might be overkill but allows me to double check that 100% of the accounts are correct.

[speedo]

Cashflow spreadsheet

can anyone share a cashflow spreadsheet?

[FarmerPalmer]

Word for invoices

Spreadsheet for accounts, HMRC CD for PAYE

Online VAT,
Online Corp tax (incl year end accounts),
Online Companies house filing (return & accounts),
Online P11/P35 (via HMRC CD)

Online Self assessment.

HTH

WHS

[poser]

can anyone share a cashflow spreadsheet?

sjd website

[speedo]

sjd website

What do you mean????

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I use FreeAgent and thoroughly recommend it - as well as invoicing, estimates, banking and expense handling, it also does directors payroll, dividends, self-assesment calculations and all the other usual accounting bits and pieces. The only thing its really lacking right now is multi-currency support but I get around this by generating my non-GBP invoices by hand and creating GBP invoices in FreeAgent and accounting for the exchange rate fluctuations manually.

[Platypus]

I know this company and they offer a free trial of their on-line accounting software. As I recall it's a re-skinned version of kashflow.
http://www.pkgroup.co.uk/pk-online---sme.html

I also know these folks but I suspect this will be too up-market for you.
http://www.accountsiq.com/

[speedo]

thanks to everyone who participated in the thread - however i would prefer a local solution rather than a web based system - i am currently working on spreadsheet which should do the trick or not - only time will tell!!!