Tas Books or Big Red Books . . . or?

Mosey101

Just trying to figure out which might be the best system to use? I've used Tas Books before in college and i'm looking at getting Tas First Books but I've also been told that the basic version of Big Red Book is also pretty good (But €150 more expensive) . . . wondering if anyone has any suggestions or recommendations?

I'm just a small start up company so i'm only looking for a basic package.

Theexcelclub

if you are a start up, how many transactions would you have each period? Could you use Excel, you probably have it already. If you just need to do bookkeeping then Excel will do the job.

Mosey101

I've been using Excel in the past but i want to use something more dedicated to accounting. . . it will make management a lot more easier for me i think . ..

Accountancy

Have you asked what your accountant is using so it will keep the costs of end of year down.
Also big red make sure you are getting general ledger with it.

jarvis_c82

I would stay away from Big Red to be honest. I'm an accountant and when clients have used this system it causes more problems then solutions to be honest.

Tas Books or Sage Accounts would be my recommendation.

Herbalist

For a basic accounts package you could take a look at Tas, Sage Instant Accounts, Big Red Book, Quickbooks, Thesaurus among others.

If you wanted to try out Tas you could download the Free Tas Books Basics package from the website. Its a full package and free of charge - it is the step below firstbooks but it would allow you to see what Tas is like. It may turn out that the free package can do all that you need at the moment. There is no transaction limit on Basics or First Books.

Big Red Book do a trial on their website that you can download also. Its not a free full package but it is a trial of their regular package and would allow you to take a look and see what you think.

How many transactions will you have in the first 6 months / year? Be aware that on BRB Lite you can only have up to 1000 transactions. Also like Accountancy said make sure you get all the ledgers you need to start as some of the products do not have them all included.

If you have been doing accounts on excel when you switch to a package you will need to choose and changeover date and then enter all your opening balances - for customers, suppliers, bank accounts and nominal accounts.

Da GOAT

as an auditor i prefer sage, with tas maybe coming in second. red books and quickbooks are poor imo.

If you havent already u should get some training in bookkeeping.

Jim2007

Have a look at TurboCASH, I've not used it myself, but it appears to be a good basic accounting package at the right price - free! All the basic modules are there: Debtors, Creditors, Stock, General ledger and so on.

It's an open source product that has build up a very big following.

Jim

Mosey101

I have been using Tas Lite and i found it pretty simple to use (Albeit a bit limiting in terms of Vat returns) . . . i've also been told about Big Red Book as well. . . i'm getting a demo of that so i'll check it out. . .

Judging by the reaction here i think i might go for Tas though . . . thanks for the advice!

JD Dublin

Hi I'm an accountant in practise and I rank the commonest packages below. Bear in mind that I have held the dirty end of the stick in relation to all these accounting packages, not just looked at them in demo mode, so I have paid ( dearly ) for the following info:

Quickbooks - easy to use, easy to post a big volume of transactions, easy to make changes, the front page looks like a spreadsheet, if you buy the extra module you can do stock accounting booking stock in on purchases and booking stock out on sales, it was only $300 last time I checked. Drawbacks - it North American so some of the terminology is annoying. Also dangerous is the fact that you can potentially post transactions to any period i.e. make a mistake in the 'year' section of the date and the transaction disappears in to another year.

TAS Books - good solid package, accountants like it and it is impossible to crash as it is robust, some of the screen shots are clunky, and it is tricky to correct errors. It costs 500-800 I think so not cheap. Loads of people have used the system so it is easy to get a bookkeeper to do some work for you if you get sick of it. It is scaleable - some of our customers have used it for very large companies.

Sage Accounts - a bit expensive, very messy to change transactions, geared to accountants not ordinary users, quite expensive 800+ as far as I know from customers. I wouldnt touch it as a newcomer to accounting.

Big Red Book - dreadful, it looks simple but you cannot get useful information from it. If one of our customers tells me they are using it, I automatically add 10-20% to their fees / quote because it's such a pain to get reports from the system. The main problem seems to revolve around the lack of codes to put spending in to. By the way, it aint cheap, and it comes in various formats which leave out essentials like the Nominal Ledger. Do not buy this unless you are running a school project, or a Young Entrepreneur, or you enjoy paying extra accountancy fees.

DoMyBooks

I've been using Xero and Kashflow both online for the last few months. Never crash. No worries about upgrades and paying for support and I have almost automated the bank rec's.

Link them in with paypal and CRM packages and you've a nice simple solution you and your accountant/ book keeper can access from anywhere.

starfish30

would totally agree with JD, very good and very useful points.

Just to also learn from my experience on the Sage Accounts, again learned the hard way... went on a training course in one locally, but needed to use the other version in the company...

Sage have two types of accounts packages, Sage Commercial and Sage Accounts Production and then the Sage 50 family of software, which essentially were bought from Apex accounts a good few years ago. Commercial is the client version of the accountants Accounts Productions. This is more difficult to use, designed for bookeepers, doesn't have the stock features etc. but is designed to be able to take integrate the clients commercial very easily with the accounts production, take back ups make changes and give back to the client etc. Good if there is a good bit of integration with the accountant

Sage Instant and Sage 50 then are another family of accounting products totally separately, Sage 50 can do the project costing, stock control and foreign currency and is the most well known, BUT the Instant accounts is only 156 ex. vat, does invoicing, statements, purchase invoices VAT, full nominal ledger, editable invoices with co. logo etc. and I would consider easy to use and can move up to sage 50 if you need stock etc.

Web packages I've looked at look good, but i'm always afraid about VAT, they often group us with the UK, and things like vat cash accounting are calculated differently here than in the UK.

Kristopherus

Have a look at Sort my Books. Or if you are looking for a simple 1-man system the have a look at the spreadsheet on www.mytax.ie

JD Dublin

Just on online systems, going slightly off-topic, can anyone tell if there are really cheap good online bookkeeping package that everyone ( client and accountant ) can access?

I have looked at Kashflow and a few others, and they are all looking for 12 ( Quickbooks ) to €40 ( Accounts IQ ) per month, thereby converting what should be a €300 once off sale into a monthly bill for the user of €720 to €2400 over 5 years.

shaygibbons

Does anyone know if TASBooks can provide management information for a small company which wants to keep tabs on several different operations/activities/divisions? I want one which will allow me to have a running total of each main expense (salaries, electricity, purchases etc. etc.) on a divisional basis so that monthly management reports will tell me what the cumulative profit or loss is from each division, and then deduct central overhead to get the overall company result. I am being told that TASBooks won't do this, which I find hard to believe.

JD Dublin

shaygibbons wrote: »

Does anyone know if TASBooks can provide management information for a small company which wants to keep tabs on several different operations/activities/divisions? I want one which will allow me to have a running total of each main expense (salaries, electricity, purchases etc. etc.) on a divisional basis so that monthly management reports will tell me what the cumulative profit or loss is from each division, and then deduct central overhead to get the overall company result. I am being told that TASBooks won't do this, which I find hard to believe.

If it's a small company can you not do this manually i.e. export TAS Books reports in to Excel and fiddle with the information in the spreadsheet?

NCG

"I've been using Xero and Kashflow both online for the last few months. Never crash. No worries about upgrades and paying for support and I have almost automated the bank rec's.

Link them in with paypal and CRM packages and you've a nice simple solution you and your accountant/ book keeper can access from anywhere."

Fully agree. We try to use Xero with as many of our clients as possible and couldn't recommend it highly enough.

"Just on online systems, going slightly off-topic, can anyone tell if there are really cheap good online bookkeeping package that everyone ( client and accountant ) can access?

I have looked at Kashflow and a few others, and they are all looking for 12 ( Quickbooks ) to €40 ( Accounts IQ ) per month, thereby converting what should be a €300 once off sale into a monthly bill for the user of €720 to €2400 over 5 years. "

JD By your definition Xero would not be cheap (about €20 per month), but it is good. Indeed, because of its efficiencies we generally swallow the subscription cost for any clients using it. Apart from the features and efficiencies, which add their own value, you should consider the cost savings in IT, backups, annual support costs, updates, etc.

Sage: Lorna

Tas Books will allow you to create departments and to choose which nominal codes will be affected by those departments. Departments in Tas are numerical (i.e. 1, 2, 3) as opposed to named (e.g. Sales, Purchases).

You can view a departmental breakdown by report, can get a running total for each department and can consolidate the reports to get an overall result. I am unsure though what is meant by 'deduct central overhead'.

If you have a support contract for your Tas product I would advise to contact the support team who will be able to advise you if what you are looking for can be done.

shaygibbons

Thanks everyone, I will take your advice. I need to set up a few trials with Xero etc. and also talk to the TAS Books people.