What accounting software for IT Consultant?

JohnCleary

Hi all,
I am an IT Consultant (sole trader) and to date, the majority of my work has been service work (no hardware resale) and not VAT registered.

Customers now want more and more, for me to supply hardware, and I am becoming VAT registered.

To date, as it was pretty much all basic expenses / income, I have been getting away with spreadsheets. I won't get away with this for much longer.

Does anyone recommend any particular software, or would I be safe with Quickbooks Pro (Desktop version preferred).

Basically, how an average job does....
Customer will have an account with me. I do the work, Invoice on completion and they receive 2 weeks credit. (Invoice e-mailed / payment via EFT)

If there is hardware to be purchased, I pre-pay for it (not an issue) for easy accounting, add the total cost of hardware to the Invoice, and Invoice on completion.

There are some customers whom I have agreed to Invoice either 1) Monthly or 2) When labour charges reach a certain point (ie. every €1000) - So I do need to be able to save Customers details / worklog / job list.

Usual expenses, which I could catagorise as follows (might be missing a few): Car / Office Expenses / Software: For Self / Hardware: For Self / Software: For Customer / Hardware: For Customer.


This has been manageable via spreadsheets and makes for an easy job for the accountant as I keep on track of things daily, but again with the VAT element i'm going to need a dedicated package.

I will not be VAT registering until 01/01/2019, so now is a good time to start researching this, hopefully!

Many thanks.

JohnCleary

On 2nd looks, Quickbooks Online may be more suited to my needs - any experience?

castie

I consult to investment banks which includes travelling to different offices as well.

I've been using QuickBooks for almost two years and it's pretty good. In the UK at least it pretty much does all my VAT returns as well as my invoices.

I still need an accountant to do the corporation tax side of things but it helps keep track of everything else very well.

spoiler

There a lot of online packages that may be suitable also you can save templates and you could just email invoices from your phone etc. Another advantage of online packages is they can link to your bank account and you don't need to be entering your bank just check everything is picked up and allocated correctly.

Online packages for consideration:
Zero - be careful of the VAT you need to do it slightly manually as it isn't set up to do Irish VAT ie VAT on cash receipts basis.
Surf - pretty good and it does VAT correctly as it is an Irish company.
Kashflow - quite simply to use and understand although can be a little slow at times.
Quickbooks - again this is another one that doesn't do the VAT correctly need to watch it.

You may consider setting up a company as it can have advantages over sole trader.

JohnCleary

Thanks all for the info. Was chatting to Accountant and he recommends Quickbooks, i'll go with it.

spoiler - I note you mention VAT issues with Quickbooks. As lots of Irish companies (etc) use Quickbooks, would be interested to know what VAT issues you refer to?

The accountant mentioned i'll just need to adjust VAT amounts (13.5 / 23)

JohnCleary

Again have been mucking about with Quickbooks and I feel it's too complex for what I need.

Big Red Books - Downloaded for the craic, not for me!

I found Wave - it seems very basic, but I think it will actually do what I need it to, so going to give it a shot.

I'm also going to try the suggestions above, presuming they all come with a trial.

I'm VAT registered 01/01 so going to start mucking about from then on, as it's my only motivation for the move to a package.

marizpan

Hi john,

I do a good bit of work including VAT for various companies using cloud based platforms.
Here’s my opinion;

Surf accounts - very user friendly and simple. Vat calc is excellent. Perfect for a small business. For me the down side is that certain functions are locked. Ie. You can’t just jnl across NL but it is aimed for bookkeepers etc so that’s fair enough.

Xero - excellent and very user friendly. More advanced than surf. Not Irish so vat can be an issue. More so for reporting ica eu VAT. So you have to export to excel and filter the data for the VAT3. It doesn’t lock/reconcile the transactions that make up a return after filing so open to error.

QBs - not a great fan. It’s not tailored for the Irish market at all.

Wave - no experience

Hope that helps.
Worth considering if you will be buying/selling goods/services to eu member states while vat registered

spoiler

It's VAT on a cash receipts basis that Quickbooks can't do. In your case seen as you will only have 23% VAT it may not be that difficult to reconcile.

As regards using WAVE it is very basic have a look at SURF you can do a trial for a month or Kashflow is pretty good too and they work VAT correctly I would advise getting assistance with set up as some options cannot be changed once you set it up.

EamonOSullivan

JohnCleary wrote: »

Hi all,
I am an IT Consultant (sole trader) and to date, the majority of my work has been service work (no hardware resale) and not VAT registered.

Customers now want more and more, for me to supply hardware, and I am becoming VAT registered.

To date, as it was pretty much all basic expenses / income, I have been getting away with spreadsheets. I won't get away with this for much longer.

Does anyone recommend any particular software, or would I be safe with Quickbooks Pro (Desktop version preferred).

Basically, how an average job does....
Customer will have an account with me. I do the work, Invoice on completion and they receive 2 weeks credit. (Invoice e-mailed / payment via EFT)

If there is hardware to be purchased, I pre-pay for it (not an issue) for easy accounting, add the total cost of hardware to the Invoice, and Invoice on completion.

There are some customers whom I have agreed to Invoice either 1) Monthly or 2) When labour charges reach a certain point (ie. every €1000) - So I do need to be able to save Customers details / worklog / job list.

Usual expenses, which I could catagorise as follows (might be missing a few): Car / Office Expenses / Software: For Self / Hardware: For Self / Software: For Customer / Hardware: For Customer.


This has been manageable via spreadsheets and makes for an easy job for the accountant as I keep on track of things daily, but again with the VAT element i'm going to need a dedicated package.

I will not be VAT registering until 01/01/2019, so now is a good time to start researching this, hopefully!

Many thanks.

Hi OP,


We use Sage One Accounting, which is an online accounts package and the reasons we use it are:


Integrates with bank feeds i.e. no keying in of bank transactions


Links with automation software which means you can scan supplier invoices to the accounts with no need to key in supplier, total, net, VAT amounts and no need to code to any supplier once you have done one invoice to them


You can issue your own sales invoices from the package, with customer accounts, issue statements to customers looking for payment


The usual cloud stuff applies -no need for back-ups, all data sets are up to date because there is only one version of records.


Sage has a handy feature that lets you produce monthly or quarterly accounts once everything is up to date.






I'm not sure if non-accountants are crazy about the package but we find it easy to teach to anyone that wants to use it themselves.

JohnCleary

Many thanks for the info.

Having being messing about with Wave, i'm going to give it a shot for a few months and see how I get on. If it's a disaster i'll look into a 'proper' package. TBH, Wave seems like it will do what I want. And for now, no charges.

L.Jenkins

JohnCleary wrote: »

...Does anyone recommend any particular software, or would I be safe with Quickbooks Pro (Desktop version preferred)....

QuickBooks Online is a good option, which offers you a Windows 10 app you can use alongside QBO for free. So you get the best of both, Desktop and Web.

JohnCleary

L.Jenkins wrote: »

QuickBooks Online is a good option, which offers you a Windows 10 app you can use alongside QBO for free. So you get the best of both, Desktop and Web.

My accountant recommended not to use QB online, said it was a bit of a pain. I trust him, he's been doing my returns for the past few years.

L.Jenkins

What would your Accountant recommend? Besides QBO, I'd recommend Xero.

JohnCleary

L.Jenkins wrote: »

What would your Accountant recommend? Besides QBO, I'd recommend Xero.

He was to get back to me, but Xero was mentioned (IIRC).

In the meantime, I came across Wave and TBH I like it... i'm going to try it out for a month and see how I get on (Not going to use it until Jan 1 when I become VAT registered)

davindub

JohnCleary wrote: »

He was to get back to me, but Xero was mentioned (IIRC).

In the meantime, I came across Wave and TBH I like it... i'm going to try it out for a month and see how I get on (Not going to use it until Jan 1 when I become VAT registered)

I don't know wave, but let your accountant see it.

Some are quite painful when it comes to doing something more complex than entering information (try a daybook with vat into excel for example, etc). I would recommend Xero, it's not perfect but gets the job done.

PS I have migrated systems many times. Save yourself a lot of hassle and do it for the next financial year! You need to set up opening balances etc.