Inefficient Accounting - Any OCD accounting/book-keeping nerds here?

cormie

My accounting system is very inefficient and there's probably a lot of room for improvement in terms of needing far less data entry and less headaches when it comes to VAT returns and invoicing.

I don't need charts or anything, as long as I can see the figures. I don't mind the data entry and would be ok doing it myself, I just need something a little more streamlined in that I'd like it to correlate with my Google contacts (customers), AIB or other online banking and to be able to just generate an invoice from the data. I also need a better way to manage foreign purchases with their different VAT rates (and sometimes multiple VAT rates per receipt) as well as my own invoicing for jobs that would have both a service and goods rate. I then need it to be easy to distinguish between the different VAT return periods (I file my returns every 6 months at present), and then I need to have all that presented well so my accountant can do their bit and make sure everything is in order.

I'm currently using excel, this requires me to export contacts from google and import it into a sheet on the excel file, then I need to copy and paste from AIB recent transactions or historical CSV file, I then cross ref each AIB transaction with its respective receipt.

It just seems it's a lot of work to simply make things easier for my accountant to understand so he doesn't end up charging me through the roof for sorting out any mess. I keep it in pretty good shape, but think it could be done a lot better by means of programs/apps, maybe something like bullethq?

Any feedback or advice would be appreciated!

pedronomix

Bullet hq does a pretty decent job on the basics you are looking for. The uploading of receipts from smartphone is very handy too. The only thing I dont like is that it will do a VAT return to ROS at the push of a button but you cant see it/print it to do a manual return....

Gloomtastic!

pedronomix wrote: »

Bullet hq does a pretty decent job on the basics you are looking for. The uploading of receipts from smartphone is very handy too. The only thing I dont like is that it will do a VAT return to ROS at the push of a button but you cant see it/print it to do a manual return....

Have you let them know?

pedronomix

No

Gloomtastic!

You should.

pedronomix

Why?

cormie

Thanks for the replies folks, would anyone have any idea which of the below bullet can/can't do? I'm a bit apprehensive about switching from spreadsheets to a program but it could be worth it in the end? What's the uploading receipts from smartphone? Is that to take a photo of paper bills so there's no need to keep the paper itself?

Gloomtastic!

pedronomix wrote: »

Why?

So they can make it better.

Gloomtastic!

cormie wrote: »

Thanks for the replies folks, would anyone have any idea which of the below bullet can/can't do? I'm a bit apprehensive about switching from spreadsheets to a program but it could be worth it in the end? What's the uploading receipts from smartphone? Is that to take a photo of paper bills so there's no need to keep the paper itself?

The discipline required to maintain your current accounts spreadsheets means your accounts are open to errors ie you. Using a recognised software package, that has been developed to meet your needs, means all the accounts processes are automated and once the information has been input correctly then reports like your VAT returns and monthly management accounts can be run off at the touch of a button.
One vulnerability in any accounts department is the storing of receipts. Revenue demand that receipts are kept for all purchases. What happens if there's a fire or an explosion and all your receipts are lost? How will you prove to the Revenue your costs are valid? Storing all your records digitally means you don't have that problem.
If you are serious about your business then I would go with an Accounts Package.

cormie

Oops, just realised I never pasted my requirements in the post above. This is most of what I'm after:

*Self input for receipts and sales.
*Variable VAT rates and option of multiple VAT charges in one sale/purchase.
*Ideally sync with Google Contacts.
*Quick pasting and cross referencing from AIB or other online banking.
*Quick Generate invoice to PDF option from within Sale section.
*Easily calculate and determine VAT returns and have seamless progression to the next period.
*Manual entry of notes.
*Easily presentable to accountant.


When you say about going with an accounts package, does bullet meet the criteria of what you consider an accounts package?

dbran

Hi

I have used BulletHQ and my honest views on it are this

Advantages
1) Its free, you only pay for the extra add ons as you need them such as payroll, invoicing etc.
2)It is has a very user friendly interface and it is generally quite easy to post a journal and get the result that you want. You dont have to spend time setting it up and it is not too complicated.

Disadvantages - (and they are significant)
1) The VAT reporting side is really quite poor- for example it does not deal with inter eu acquisitions at all. Also, there is no way to close down vat periods that you have filed so if you enter an invoice with the wrong date you may run the risk of the invoice going into the wrong vat period. Then vat periods on the system will not tally with the relevant return you have filed.
2) Because it does not have any bells and whistles such as product groups etc, every invoice has to basically be entered from scratch. This adds a lot of additional data entry time and thus more chances to make mistakes. You have to enter in the same vat rate, nominal code each time even though the invoices may be to the same customer or supplier. You can "copy" previous invoices but I dont like this as it smacks of a "work around" to me. So if you have a lot of invoices to enter it is going to be very cumbersome.

I have emailed them about all this but I didnt really get anywhere. The usual answer was essentially "We've never been asked for this before" which I found very hard to believe.

So, basically if you only have a few invoices and sales to deal with, then it is really a good system. However if you have any way significant amount of data to input in I really think you will be tearing your hair out. Some of the short comings are quite serious and potentially dangerous especially if you have a revenue audit and none of your VAT returns filed agree with your books and records etc.

I would give Xero (and receipt bank)a go, it is not free but I think it is an easier system to use and to enter data into. You will save a lot of time imputing stuff (that nobody likes doing) that you can then use to better effect to run your business more efficiently.

Hope this helps.

dbran

Edit: You can upload receipts and invoices to bulethq, but that is all. You still have to enter the data so there is no real time saving other then knowing your invoices cannot be lost because they are in the cloud.
With receipt bank/xero you upload the invoices as pdf, etc and it reads them, sorts them into customer, vat etc. All you have to do is check that it has read them correctly and correct the few that it cannot read.

pedronomix

Thanks dbran.......and I thought it was me. Never did any book keeping in the past and just use it for my little retirement trading operation. I find it cumbersome but I only have modest transaction numbers. The EU vat thing is a real pain which is why I wanted a print out and do a manual online return.

cormie

Thanks again for the replies folks. Hmm, I technically have my current system in the cloud as it is, well, it gets backed up via sugarsync. Xero looks good, but $480 a year for everything I need is expensive, I'd almost get a book keeper to do it all for that! Considering I'll have to do most of the manual entry stuff myself anyway, that's $40 I'd be paying for taking away the hassle of copy/pasting a few things, which I'm ok with, it's just the confusion between sorting different return periods etc I was hoping to have made easier, but if that's a problem with doing the manual returns as pedronomix points out, maybe it wouldn't even be a solution with bullethq

Gloomtastic!

Sage have an on-line Accounts Package. Anyone tried that? If it can't do what you want then you can get a bolt-on that will.

Gareth Sherry

wave accounting is the best one I have come across for easy to use accounting. Have lots of apps, does invoicing, expenses, phone receipts and best of all it's free.

cormie

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I remember hearing about that before actually. Do you know if it will achieve what I want from my list above?

I wonder is it going to remain free? Is advertising revenue a secure and rewarding enough way for them to make money? Is it obtrusive too?

How does it handle Irish set ups, is it more geared towards US bank accounts etc?