2020 Accounting Software suggestions and experience

alex_r

Hello all,

I know this topic appears over and over again on this forum. But the nature of this question is quite tricky... There is no 100% perfect accounting software for folks who want to manage taxes themselves and that works well in Ireland. However, I hope that every so often one or another product gets better hence I am wondering what do you gentlemen and ladies use in 2020 to manage company finances, taxes, invoicing, bank reconciliation, VAT return(VAT3, RTD, VIES & INTRASTAT) and payroll (PAYE, RTR; RPN, PSR) for micro and small companies?

Feel free to write about your favourite tool/s and their pros and cons.

I used and using Wave, Freshbooks and google spreadsheet for a number of businesses.
Freshbooks would be my fav. However, it's not friendly for local VAT, double-entry accounting and inventory. It's great for a small web agency or freelancers with a no-fuss accounting.
Wave, is, well, it's free, I can't complain. But you won't go too far with it. Invoicing and expense tracking that's all it's good for.
Spreadsheets are fun. But at some stage, you hit a wall and you can't scale or manage your monstrous sheets.

I am also aware of Sage, Xero and QuickBooks. But don't have much experience with them. Sage's product line is confusing. Xero I read isn't friendly to local accounting either even tho it has a huge list of addons. QuickBooks seems improved a lot since I used it 10 years ago. But still unsure what it is like.
And how do they handle Payroll? With Sage, it looks like Id have to pay for two product subscriptions every month

What about Surf?

Thanks lads in advance

A.

alex_r

anyone?

roots2branches

https://www.bullethq.ie/

Homer

I use sage one and find it very easy to use. Once you input all your sales and purchases it can calculate your vat returns etc for you and also gives some detailed sales analysis if you need that. Small monthly subscription but worth it I feel and it’s a deductable anyway.

duploelabs

Sage one won't import automatically if you bank with AIB, don't know if that applies to all banks

vintagecosmos

roots2branches wrote: »

https://www.bullethq.ie/

Would avoid this one entirely. Used it myself and had clients use it too. It was good for tracking mileage. But buggy otherwise and clients had issues undoing things they messed up. They wouldn't have the track record like some of the other providers.

Wave seems to be a winner for bookkeeping and invoicing. Surf accounts is what my accountant uses and finds it good. I think you need to schedule a demo. Sage one in use too for preparing accounts. Unfortunately no catch all solution.


With the best intentions you can do your own accounts to a certain extent but often it distracts from the business so of possible outsource this as much as you can.

They said Excel would eliminate accountants when it came out I'd say we are a few years off that yet

wobbie10

duploelabs wrote: »

Sage one won't import automatically if you bank with AIB, don't know if that applies to all banks

This is incorrect, I have been using sage one for last 3 years and very happy,
Direct link to your bank (AIB for me) and i can allocate the transactions easily

CiboC

Collsoft for payroll, relatively easy to use, simple pricing, very responsive to queries.

duploelabs

wobbie10 wrote: »

This is incorrect, I have been using sage one for last 3 years and very happy,
Direct link to your bank (AIB for me) and i can allocate the transactions easily

Like I said It won't pull in your transactions automatically as it used to. You have to go in to your banking online, export a csv of your transactions, edit said csv file to match the config given by sage, and then import it into sage manually

wobbie10

That issue has now been fixed:) No more csv bull****.
You need to set up your bank feed again which takes 2 minutes.