I am just looking for some advice, I started bookkeeping several months ago after completing my Level 2 ICB Manual and have been using excel to do this but it is sooooo long winded and everytime I finish with an account in the nominal / sales / purchase ledger I have to re-format it incorrectly posted or didn't! Also I can spend several hours looking for 1p that Has anyone got any time saving or accuracy checking tips? They would be very much appreciated.
It sounds like the template you are using doesn't accurately manage the double entry side for you, or contain much error checking functionality.
If you are going to stick with Excel, I'd either go for another template or develop the error checking in your existing template.
If you are open to alternatives, grab some software to do it. MS Office Accounting is free to accountants (unless it's changed since I last looked), E-conomic is quite good (and free for our members to use for themselves), and recently QuickBooks appears to be quite popular... there are plenty of packages around. I think VT Accounts is a spreadsheet type system, and there is a free version available too.