Online Accounts (again?!)

[Andrew@Wisteria]

Accounting software

We offer both the spreadsheet and online option, I think it's important to offer client both, depending on what they are more comfortable with.

[northernladuk]

<good stuff>

Yep agree that with all the above. It is one of those situations where the spreadsheet does most of it with a modicum of effort which is more than acceptable but once I have made the jump and gotten used to it I will wonder why I used the spreadsheet. Just the effort to make the change really.

[EstherA4C]

I'm another fan of Xero. It's very user friendly.

As an accountant I find that our clients enjoy using the Xero app on their smartphone or tablet whilst on the go and we can easily support them with day to day book-keeping, as well as providing great management reports.

They have a free demo which you can register for (as I'm sure do most of the other online solutions).

[EstherA4C]

For example, if I pay for a years worth of Clearbooks, I get it for around £17pm. AccountsPortal is £10pm as is Sage One, and QuickBooks is £9pm. I don't do that many transactions but that could change.

Forgot to say that we provide the Xero software as part of our all-inclusive package so it doesn't cost clients anything. Now about that spreadsheet....

[7specialgems]

Sign up to some free trials and have a go on them to ensure that they've got all the features you need.

The tool provided by the accountant I am with at the moment (a four character portmanteau of "BOOkkeeping" and "BolloX") is very primitive. I am finding the hard way that:

• 1. It has no mileage tool, so I end up doing the job myself with a spreadsheet
  2. It cannot cope with expenses directly from the Company account such as a Company mobile, , so I end up re-calculating the amounts for Corporation Tax and profit and all of the numbers in the tool are wrong
  3. There is no "live profit" report so you can see straight-off how much profit you could declare as a dividend on the spot, if you wanted to
  4. The tool assumes you don't build up a war chest and take full dividends, so the hardcoded Divi vouchers are all wrong , so I end up doing the job myself with a spreadsheet

[ContractorsSpouse]

Honourable mention to SJD and their spreadsheet which they give away for free. If you want a simple low tech book keeping system then you can probably do most of it on that though you would need an accountant to do the end of year stuff.

+1

[JonNorris@Crunch]

Constantly baffled by online accounting software that doesn't offer real-time profit / tax information. If you can do it in a spreadsheet, why go to the trouble of building an online system that doesn't?

[Noni]

Online accounts Again!



As a part time practising accountant and banking contractor, I have seen many of my colleague contractors doing their own online book keeping. I wonder what value added service accountants provide them at year end? There are many tax allowable expenses which contractors are not aware of, and are incorporated in year end accounts. My experience is that online bookkeeping accountants doesn't add any value. Better to be with vanilla accountants.

[commando]

Hi Noni

As a part time practising accountant and banking contractor, I have seen many of my colleague contractors doing their own online book keeping. I wonder what value added service accountants provide them at year end? There are many tax allowable expenses which contractors are not aware of, and are incorporated in year end accounts. My experience is that online bookkeeping accountants doesn't add any value. Better to be with vanilla accountants.

Please can you shed some light on the tax allowable expenses which contractors are unaware of ?

Many Thanks

[northernladuk]

Please can you shed some light on the tax allowable expenses which contractors are unaware of ?

Many Thanks

How is he supposed to know what you don't know? We have people on here that don't have a clue about the basics such as phones right through to guys that know the in's and out's of everything including directors loans, company van's/bikes.

Do some research starting with the expenses link to the right. Your accountant should do some good guides on this, SJD, InTouch and NW have good stuff on their pages. Have a look at all that and pro-actively find out what you don't know.