Wait a minute Shaun

Have I not convinced you to add cloud as an option to your services.  Now that Bribary Act is in place, I may have to back date that beer though.


here s a clue

A _ i _h _ o


for sneak preview of our new system, as yet to be rolled out (will need a magnifying glass though to look at the picture) click on

http://www.arithmo.co.uk/blog/

you even get a mini fixed asset register

Dalbir

Morning Shaun

I find that it is horses for courses, and will depend on the clientel you get.

I quite like working for smaller businesses, where Sage would be the proverbial sledge hammer cracking the nut (or keeping to a recent theme, using a Big 4 accountant to do the bookkeeping). It would simply be an over engineered solution, for most clients.

If you are going to pitch yourself at the larger businesses, then Sage will be a suitable solution. In those circumstance, I would add the cost for the licence in the first invoice as a set up charge, and add a renewall charge each year. At the moment I have one client that uses Sage 50 but it is a weekly, on site client, and they bare the cost of the annual licence anyway.

If like me you take what you can get, then you can't beat VT, and the cost is low enough to absorb into the hourly rate, or fixed price, with out a noticeable increase to the client. Don't know if you have actually played with the Final Accounts Excel add on but in my opinion it is a much tidier solution to produce a professional set of account, than Sage. There are some enhancements coming up in the future, like LLP accounts, also possibly a stand alone version, with out the need for Excel.

I don't know also, if you have ever tried a Quick Books product but if not you can get a feel for it by downloading Quick Books Simple Start from the Intuit UK site for free (make sure it is the UK site, US versions of QB files wont open in UK versions and visa versa) It is very dilute but gives you a feel of the way QB does things, bit like Sage Instant, the main prosesses are the same but not all the functions are present. Quick Start is also quite useable for small business accounts.

Happy Saturday

Bill

Hi Shaun

The Big 4 comment was just a follow on from the debate on bookkeepers vs accountants, that has been going on this week. Why would a window cleaner, earning a few hundred quid a week want to engage an accountant to do their bookkeeping. Same as why would he want to fork out on Sage, when there are simpler options available.

I am not aware of any further material other than the user guide (you've got enough books anyway!). VT does have it's quirks but it is aimed at those with a knowledge of double entry. Once you've used it a few times (I actually disliked it when I first started using it but it has grown on me to the point I would hate to be without it) it get intuative. With Final Accounts, it is also aimed at those with a reasonable understanding of Excel.

My only critisms of VT are that you can only have one input form open at any time. It is also quite easy, when doing a bank reconciliation to lose what you have done if you come out of the screen to check an entry, v annoying when you just spent half an hour on it.

What i would like to know more about, is how to customise the templates in VT Transaction. I am OK with basic format changes but I would like to change invoice formats haven't sussed it yet

Anyways, enjoy Transformers.

Me? I'll be stuck in front of VT Transactions for the rest of the day, trying to fill in the gaps for a client.

Bill

Hi Shaun

Glad you managed to make a decision, much better than prolonged procrastination.

As for the asset register, i have looked at a couple of standalone packages but they never seem to deal with them the way that I want (mainly in terms of depreciations, WDA's), so i have been tinkering with Access, and Excel to try and create a bespoke Register. Early days yet though.

Edit: Just to add, it is interesting that you chose Moneysoft Payroll, over 12Pay. I use 12Pay and love it, so am interested why you have decided to go the Moneysoft route (Admitedly I have only heard good things about Moneysoft)

How was Transformers?

Bill

Missed this thread as was in Snowdonia scaring myself rock climbing up the side of a jagged Welsh peak.

Good to be alive and back at my desk.....

Sounds like you have made a good decision Shaun, VT+ (useful tip about purchasing Accounts rather than VT+, going to do that myself), and Moneysoft payroll initially.

I use VT Cashbook (free) for very small clients to keep Sage client numbers down and Sage 50 for the rest. Using Sage Payroll for my first full year but may be moving away from that at Payroll Year End next year and transfer across to moneysoft then, will see how the numbers stack up.

On Sage pricing though I think there is some misconception from old pricing models - see this link http://www.sageadvanced.co.uk/new-professional-plus#costAns where you can play around with pricing.

If you use Moneysoft Payroll then you just need 'proffessional plus' which with 25 companies is £750+VAT. Increasing to 50 companies only adds £50. In due defference to our previous discussion I actually think the better value with Sage is found the more companies you have on the licence.

As Stuart said it suits us in this profession rather than business owners and as also said I guarantee once you start marketing for business you will find it an advantage to have biblical knowledge of the product. Well perhaps not biblical but an understanding definitely helps!

Have a good day.

Ken

I spoke to sage last week asking about the prices between 25-50 and to upgrade it is only 125+vat, this can be done at any time in the membership year, though it has to be paid either over the phone or 30 day invoice and not added to DD.

The only downside is payroll and sage line has to be increased at the same time, but I do not think the price is to bad.

I have to admit I am sage camp. I have been a member of the accountants club for a while before I even joined ICB so you do NOT have to be an accountant, I did not downgrade to bookkeepers club when they started that.

Hi Ken,

you can certainly import a CSV file from Sage but it's not something that I've tried myself. Maybe Bill has more information on that?

I think however the best description as to what you can import is taken from the horses mouth. Here's the help page for trial balance entry methods. :

Introduction

You can either enter a trial balance and/or journals directly into Excel (manual entry), or you can import a trial balance automatically from the VT Transaction+ or VT Cash Book bookkeeping packages (linked entry). There are different templates for each type of method.

The manual entry method

In the manual entry method, there is a TB sheet in the template with current year and comparative columns where the numbers can be entered. This simple TB can also be turned into an extended trial balance by clicking on the Insert Trial Balance Adjustment Column button on the VT toolbar. A new row in the printable part of the accounts can be created and connected to a new row in the trial balance by clicking on the Insert Financial Row button. Simple formulas link the printable part of the accounts to the trial balance.

In the templates supplied, there is usually a one to one correspondence between the lines in the printable parts of the accounts and the lines in the TB sheet.

Since the March 2009 edition of VT Final Accounts, there are also buttons at the right-hand end of the VT toolbar for the following:

· importing an opening trial balance from another accounts package via a CSV file

· entering an adjustment or journal into the extended trial balance using a journal dialog

· displaying and printing various reports derived from the extended trial balance

The dialogs and reports used for the above features are actually the same ones found in VT Transaction+. You can edit any journal or amount by clicking on it with the right mouse button in a report, just as you can in VT Transaction+.

Apart from these features being more convenient to use, it is now practical to have a far larger number of journals than was previously possible in a manual entry workbook. You can now do some quite serious bookkeeping in a manual entry workbook whereas before you would have to have used VT Transaction+. The total number of journals is limited by the number of columns available in an Excel spreadsheet (256 in Excel 2003 or earlier; 16,384 in Excel 2007 or later). However, the journal and report dialogs may load noticeably more slowly if you have more than say 500 hundred journals.

If you have done a lot of bookkeeping in a manual entry workbook and then realise you need to use the standalone version of VT Transaction+, there is an option on the VT Bookkeeping menu in Excel to convert the extended trial balance to a VT Transaction+ file.

For more information, see The manual entry trial balance.


The linked entry method

In the linked entry method, an opening trial balance and any number of day to day transactions, journals and adjustments are stored in a VT Transaction+ or VT Cash Book bookkeeping file. The name and location of the file are stored in the Excel workbook. A snapshot of the current closing trial balance is also stored in a hidden part of the workbook. The transactions may have been entered during the course of the year into the standalone versions of VT Transaction+ or VT Cash Book by yourself or a client, or entered using the buttons at the right-hand end of the VT toolbar. You can use a combination of the two processes if you like. The two processes have the same effect and the transactions are stored in the same place. It is just a matter of convenience.

You can display or print various reports produced by VT Transaction+ by using the buttons at the right-hand end of the VT toolbar. There is no need to leave Excel and open the file in VT Transaction+. You can edit any transaction or amount by clicking on it with the right mouse button in a report.

Each account in VT Transaction+ is assigned to a printable line (known as a heading) in the workbook in Excel. Several accounts can be assigned to one heading. Any type of linked entry template in Excel can be linked to any chart of accounts in VT Transaction+. A dialog called the Trial Balance Analyser determines which heading each account is included under.

For more information, see The linked entry trial balance.

Deciding which entry method to use

The manual entry method is simpler; the linked entry method has more features. You should therefore use a manual entry workbook unless:

· Your bookkeeping data is already in a VT Transaction+ or VT Cash Book file

· You want to record transactions on a day to day basis throughout the year

· You have more than say 500 hundred transactions (250 for Excel 2003 or earlier)

· You want to enter transaction types other than a journal

· You want to import journals other than the opening trial balance from another source

· You want several accounts to be included in a single line in the printable part of the accounts

· You want to use VT to reconcile bank accounts

· You want to use VT to prepare VAT returns

· You want to maintain sales and purchase ledgers

· You want to use VT to issue invoices

Hope that the above helps,

kind regards,

Shaun.

Shamus wrote:

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Darn it... Peasie's Twitter sized post beat me to it (lol).

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That wouldn't have fitted into a tweet. Too many characters. You're only allowed 140 - my post was about ~78 too many. I suppose I could have cheated and used something like "Twitlonger" but that defeats the purpose of Twitter.

Shamus wrote:

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Its not something that really bothers me but I'm thinking here about people taking ICB/IAB exams who need to print those out.

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I'm sure I read either on the ICB forum or on here that some folks were just posting off their exam using VT and putting in a note saying "VT cannae dae it". They still passed the exam. This will turn out to be quite embarassing for me if it was yourself that made that posting.