Big Red Book - Any Opinions

drunkmonkey

Looking for some accounting & payroll software for a small business, what's the best options available...
Reviews seem good for the red book, anybody using it?

Mr Clonfadda

Hi Drunkmonkey

I do sell and support a competive product however i will try to give an objective Opinion

Big Red books is essentially a computerised version of the big red books which were used pre computer systems. They are very much like spreadsheets.

Get a free trial and try it. I personally think it is expensive for what you get.

Cheers

Nigel

spartacus93

No experience of them.

Mamut (http://www.mamut.com/ie/) is worth a look, very powerful software. Easy to use and set up.

Sonnenblumen

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Looking for some accounting & payroll software for a small business, what's the best options available...
Reviews seem good for the red book, anybody using it?

We've been using it for years now. I'd recommend it, very easy to use, local support, relatively inexpensive. It's a great Irish success story also!

Brenda Kelly

I provide as part of my consultancy service to clients a service where I organise putting in place payroll and accounting system in companies.

I recently had a small 3 person business to which I put in the big red book accounting and payroll packages.

I have probably up to that tended toward Sage as they were keener priced for the total package and also probably better known.

However my client and I made the decision to go with big red book in his particular circumstance because we found the initial consultation service selling the product was much better, my client is not accountancy minded and felt they were much more approachable when dealing with initial queries and hence once he bought the package he banked on the aftersales service been better also.

That held true, they have been very helpful and they are also a completely Irish owned company which is good.

Hope that helps

Brenda

Eoineo

I used it for over 5 years in a small business and it worked for them from startup to growth and afaik they're still using it now. I wouldn't have studied accounts or business in school but I found it very easy to use and the accountant (external firm) found it easy to do annual accounts from it. For payroll I used another Irish firm - Collsoft which I found brilliant.

segaBOY

It's pretty good especially if you are a small business and you don't have a lot of time on your hands to sort out employees PRSI etc. It is a bit pricey for what you're getting, but then again they all are.

axonware

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Looking for some accounting & payroll software for a small business, what's the best options available...
Reviews seem good for the red book, anybody using it?

Accounting Software: Quickbooks is very popular (4 million users worldwide)
Payroll Software: Collsoft Payroll won Irish Payroll software for 2007 and 2008. It links nicely with Quickbooks.

You can download a free trial of both and see whether they cut it.

mickbyrne

The big red book is an excellent bookkeeping package if what you want something which will prepare your VAT returns (You could do this on excel also) and keep track of your debtors and creditors. It is also excellent for a cash business like a pub.

If you want to get more from your software, i.e. Monthly Accounts, Cost analysis etc, you need to go beyond the BRB.

QuickBooks as mentioned in a previous post is a fantastic product and at an extremely competitive price. Its reporting is also excellent. The one draw-back with it is that it doesn’t handle VAT on the Irish Cash Receipts basis. If you account for VAT on an Invoice basis I wouldn’t choose any other software for a small business.

For payroll, Collsoft is excellent as is Thesaurus. If you go with an option of Collsoft and QuickBooks, you can link both together.

I believe that Sage need to rethink there pricing structure. It is just to expensive at the moment. BRB is also to expensive for what it does also.

cubix

Lads, can anyone tell me if any of these packages will allow you to raise an invoice and once info/figures are filled in it will put all relevant information into its right place. So at the end of a month I can see what vat we owe/what money we are owed/ etc. We are a small company with no accounting back ground.
Thanks

mickbyrne

All of the above will do this for you.

cubix

FusionNet

Am I right in thinking big red book is between 1000-1400 euro?? Thats the last figure I heard for a two company set up. If that is the case Id find that rather steep. I Know sage start at around 50-100 euro and then as you grow so does the price. I have used Sage tech support on behalf of clients and I have to say I always found them great and thankfully still mostly Irish people with Irish accents.. Anyone ring Three recently!!!!

I use one from a small software company in Killarney called sort my books. Its 190 euro. It lacks a few things but its grand. Im thinking of switching to Sage as of this week..

DoMyBooks

You should also consider www.xero.com before fully committing to sage. Im using it here for a while and it has a nice iPhone website. Let me know if you'd like further information.

FusionNet wrote: »

Am I right in thinking big red book is between 1000-1400 euro?? Thats the last figure I heard for a two company set up. If that is the case Id find that rather steep. I Know sage start at around 50-100 euro and then as you grow so does the price. I have used Sage tech support on behalf of clients and I have to say I always found them great and thankfully still mostly Irish people with Irish accents.. Anyone ring Three recently!!!!

I use one from a small software company in Killarney called sort my books. Its 190 euro. It lacks a few things but its grand. Im thinking of switching to Sage as of this week..

byrne0f56789

OpenOffice spreadsheet works well for me.

DoMyBooks

byrne0f56789 wrote: »

OpenOffice spreadsheet works well for me.

Spreadsheets can work if you know what your doing and your disciplined, But I have seen people get into a complete mess with them in the past.

Mr Clonfadda

DoMyBooks wrote: »

Spreadsheets can work if you know what your doing and your disciplined, But I have seen people get into a complete mess with them in the past.

+1

dof65

Beware of Big Red Book - found them to be very nice when selling the product but once I bought it it was a different story - it cost approx 800 euro to buy the full software but you also have to but a licence fee of 99 euro a year every year or support for 199 euro a year. I'm an accountant so didnt need the support.

When I tried to move the software to a new PC was told I'd have to pay 99 euro as well - they charge every time you reinstall the software lets say if you get a new PC. When I questined this arrangement the staff were actually rude and seemed not to care - all they cared about was getting more money. The software is expensive in the first place so I find this a bizarre set up.

The software is too basic and the reports are very clumsey - I will be advising all my client to stay away from it in future. Have bought SAGE line 50 and its a lot better.

unklerosco

I've been using quickbooks simplestart for the last year and find it great... I am in no way an accountant but find it simple to use. It £99 and u can set up more than one company on it. (I use it for a sole trading business and ltd company) It's hassle free..

Sage, haven't used their software but as a company I find them painfull. I rang once about something and get calls every week from them. Have had to write in a letter to get them to stop ringing me. A friend bought their software and gets the same, calls each week trying to sell him training... They're a pain...

Mr Clonfadda

Sage have a network of local business partners who can protect you from all the marketing while giving you a more personal service

barbiegirl

The Big Red book gives you what you need if you are small and need something cheap and easy to use. When you are ready to move on, bigger stock requirements, nominal ledger break downs and reports, POS, Barcoding, CRM, etc then the bigger products will come into play. If it's simple book keeping it's fine.
When you are ready for the next step pm me as I sell Pegasus Opera 3 and can be of assistance.

Kinetic^

I'm using Quickbooks pro, find it very easy to use.

ebbsy

Ive been in practice for 12 years.

Stay away from Opera and Big Red Book.

Sage is the easiest to use.