Accounting software for startup

bluferbl

Hello, I am hoping to get some opinions on the best value and easiest to use (no accounting experience here) accounting software for a sole trader. Any help would be appreciated. Regards, David

djdeclan

I honestly think that Sage line 50 is the best for this purpose, I have experienced it both from having used it as an accountant in industry and auditing clients who use it. I believe that regardless of your accounting knowledge you should be able to pick it up if you are bright enough. It has brilliant reporting capabilities (its worth taking a while to explore these, even if you have been using it for years there are probably some things you don't know it can do) and won't break the bank.

boardswalker

I really that you need to give more info in order to get a proper answer.
Is your business products or service? Do you need or want to track stock?
Will you have recurring sales/purchases?
Will you be giving credit?
Will you be taking credit on purchases?
Will you have many transactions - how many sales pw, how many purchases pw?
How many banking transactions?
Any employees?
Who will be maintaining the books for you - yourself?
Assuming it you, how comfortable are you with computers - navigating, using keyboard, backing up etc. I'd expect you to be quite comfortable.
Have you an accountant already? What is he/she familiar with?
I have used Sage, Quickbooks, TAS, Microsoft Accounting among others.
I think they are all good. Which one is best for you depends on your situation - Without knowing your specific situation then its pointless giving a recommendation.
If you want to give a bit more info - I'll give my two cents worth.

bluferbl

Is your business products or service?
Service - computer repair.

Do you need or want to track stock?
Not really.

Will you have recurring sales/purchases?
Not really.

Will you be giving credit?
No.

Will you be taking credit on purchases?
If possible!

Will you have many transactions - how many sales pw, how many purchases pw?
Startup phase at the moment so it's very low, I don't expect there to be a high volume of transactions for quite some time.

How many banking transactions?
As above, not a lot at the moment.

Any employees?
No.

Who will be maintaining the books for you - yourself?
I will do as much as I can myself.

Assuming it you, how comfortable are you with computers - navigating, using keyboard, backing up etc. I'd expect you to be quite comfortable.
Using a PC is no problem.

Have you an accountant already? What is he/she familiar with?
No accountant yet.
Do accountants generally just know/use one package?

I have used Sage, Quickbooks, TAS, Microsoft Accounting among others.
I think they are all good. Which one is best for you depends on your situation - Without knowing your specific situation then its pointless giving a recommendation.
If you want to give a bit more info - I'll give my two cents worth.

I look forward to your 2 cents cos it will be worth way more than that to me.

By the by, having done a bit of research I had pretty much decided on Sage Instant Accounts. Seems to offer a good bang for the buck...willing to be shown the error of my ways tho!

Thanks,

David

boardswalker

Hi,
as regards accounts. I would look at quickbooks simplestart or microsoft office accounting express for now. I think simplestart is about € 100 and MOA Express was free last time I looked. There's also an open source option - Gnucash - I don't know much about it though.

There's nothing wrong with Sage - its not cheap especially if you take the support options - € 312. I find it a bit bloated. But it works.

If you have already chosen an accountant, they often have a "house style" if you know what I mean. Its easier if everyone is using the same package so you should get a slight discount.

I'd go with one of the top two. You can always change after one year.

crazzzzy

i would recommend The Big Red Book for ease of use but it doesn't have as many functions as sage.

boardswalker

I just had a look at the Big Red Book Website.
Am I reading this right - € 875 for Debtors/Creditors/Ledger?
I think thats expensive.
Alternatively you can rent it for € 45 a month - still expensive!

bishops palace

Thesaurus Solutions Plus.

Theaurus have good support making it easy for new users. It costs 100 +vat. Check out their website for a free trial. www.thesaurus.ie.
It allows up to 100 accounting entries free of charge so you can have a look at what it's all about.

Mr Clonfadda

If you are buying it takes a lot to beat Sage Instant at 156.

I also believe that Tas will soon have a free version to download off their Website.

Boom Boom

TAS Basic is a free TAS download of their website. I downloaded it three weeks ago and have been playing aroud with it. couple of sticky points on it but all in all a decent package for wait for it.............FREE :eek:

I would recommend it to the likes of sole traders also the user interface and help guide is fairly good

Cordner

Would def reccommend Tas Books Basic- no offence to earlier poster- but in my opinion Sage Line 50 is expensive and not user friendly at all. Tas Basic does exactly what you need- and yes- for free!!! You can always upgrade to a better Tas product later- or other software. If you do get Tas Basic and have any queries- PM me and I'll give you my contact details. And no I dint have any connection with the company at all- I just think its a great, easy to use product- and FREE!!!!

nickyone

Hi Cordner,
I can not download the Tas Book Basic, don't know why, filled all details in the form but it does not work
Thanks for any help in advance

bluferbl

I tried the free version of Tas but found that the proram used up 100% of CPU power on the PC and even when the program was colsed, the Tas process remained running and consuming all of the CPU cycles. Not sure how much sense that will make if you're not a techy but it's not a good way for a program to behave.

The other thing I found was that it was beyond me to create an invoice with two VAT rates. Tas realised what I wanted to do but the dialog box it presented was less than helpful.

Just my 2 cents on my Tas experience.

spongeman

D'ont use Tas or Big Red book. Line 50 is the best.

Having been in practice for 12 years I have seen many people plough everything into packages, with no end product. You have to understand what you are doing beforehand.

I see these packages advertising " Accountancy made easy". Balls. You have to understand the principles.

Get somebody in who knows what they are doing. Get them to show you the package usiing your actual invoices etc.

boardswalker

In my experience, the needs of accountants in practice can be very different from the needs of people doing book-keeping or management accounts.

There are a few things that I don't like about Sage L 50. It is not a period based system rather an open item based system. You cannot really close a months set of accounts. If you finalise your may accounts and a may invoice comes in a month later, the system will let you post that invoice into May even though May was finalised. The only way around it is to put the date receeved on the system for the invoice rather than the actual invoice date (May). But will that be remembered by everyone? I don't know. If you don't want management accountants its not a big issue.

Also, you can change the chart of accounts but if you don't amend the reporting you could possibly miss on out on accounts.

Sage is expensive. In the early years they sold it through accountants who got a good markup and hence the accountants pushed it hard. Also it fed into accounts preparation software that was used by lots of accountants when reporting - so accountants recommended it because it made their lives easier.

As in the old days when nobody ever got fired for buying IBM nobody will get fired for buying Sage. But there's better value out there.

lpm

Like OP(Bluferbl) we are a startup company. Have read through the posts and very informative and will try some of the suggestions. We are just using excel sheets at the moment which means manually having to pull sheets up and entering the same figure numerous times for different people, so have a couple of questions.

We have a mixed bag of clients, some cash/some 30 days+:rolleyes: credit and some pay on completion of work.

So I suppose what we are looking for is a package that when you do up an invoice for a client it would do the below things to save on manully pulling up the figures

1)Flag any unpaid invoices after a certin date(set by user)

2) Allow you to pull up a certain customers account to print off any info needed ie:end of month/unpaid invoices etc.

3)When you do an invoice for a job it automaticly puts the different vat rates into a place where you can pull it up to see what vat you have to send into the vat man. Even better if you can put in any purchases and it will take the Vat off your vat bill and give you a final figure.

4)When a payment or part payment is received and you input it in, the package will ajust the figure as fully paid or amount still owing.

Anything else needed?:
We are mainly a service company but at some stage will dable in selling the products we install.

IF all of the above is standard stuff in account packages please excuse;)

The person doing the Book keeping before we hand it over to the Accountant at the end of the year is fairly up to speed with regards to what should go where. But the last time they used a Acc/payrol package would have been for T5 i think. So they are doing all of the above manaully which when the client base grows will be come very time comsuming.

Thanks alot;)

Mr Clonfadda

Hi lpm

most, if not all, accounting software can do that.

cheers

lpm

Cheers Nigel. Is there any good links put up by users or how to guide with regards to using Sage ?

bluferbl

Is there any difference between an accounts package bought from the UK and one bought in Ireland?

I found a good deal for buying Sage Instant Accounts from a UK supplier but was wondering if there were specific UK and Ireland versions of the software?

Many thanks,

David

WeFixIT
http://www.WeFixIT.ie
Computer Maintenance
Dublin, Ireland

Mr Clonfadda

bluferbl wrote: »

Is there any difference between an accounts package bought from the UK and one bought in Ireland?

I found a good deal for buying Sage Instant Accounts from a UK supplier but was wondering if there were specific UK and Ireland versions of the software?

Technically no. All modern versions install based on the regional settings on the PC for British or Irish Install.

Beware of older versions and Legit copies

Kinetic^

bluferbl wrote: »

Is your business products or service?
Service - computer repair.

Do you need or want to track stock?
Not really.

Will you have recurring sales/purchases?
Not really.

Will you be giving credit?
No.

Will you be taking credit on purchases?
If possible!

Will you have many transactions - how many sales pw, how many purchases pw?
Startup phase at the moment so it's very low, I don't expect there to be a high volume of transactions for quite some time.

How many banking transactions?
As above, not a lot at the moment.

Any employees?
No.

Who will be maintaining the books for you - yourself?
I will do as much as I can myself.

Assuming it you, how comfortable are you with computers - navigating, using keyboard, backing up etc. I'd expect you to be quite comfortable.
Using a PC is no problem.

Have you an accountant already? What is he/she familiar with?
No accountant yet.
Do accountants generally just know/use one package?

I have used Sage, Quickbooks, TAS, Microsoft Accounting among others.
I think they are all good. Which one is best for you depends on your situation - Without knowing your specific situation then its pointless giving a recommendation.
If you want to give a bit more info - I'll give my two cents worth.

I look forward to your 2 cents cos it will be worth way more than that to me.

By the by, having done a bit of research I had pretty much decided on Sage Instant Accounts. Seems to offer a good bang for the buck...willing to be shown the error of my ways tho!

Thanks,

David

You don't need an accounts package imo. A few simple spreadsheets will cover what you need. You've no credit sales/purchases and only a few bank transactions. You're creating extra work for yourself when you'll have more to worry about when starting up. Leave it for a while tbh.

Mr Clonfadda

lpm wrote: »

Cheers Nigel. Is there any good links put up by users or how to guide with regards to using Sage ?

Sage installs with a very comprehensive user guide in a PDF format. Occasionally small questiions have popped up on boards.ie but nothing comprehensive.

The one thing to watch is that the standard document templates for Invoices and Statements do not include Telephone numbers, fax numbers, email or web addresses. Please add these.

another thing i do after installing is to delete the supplier default nominal account (normally 5000) as I have been told by accountants that they have got data in with everything analysed to 5000!

Cheers