I don't use Quickbooks myself but I wouldn't have thought it was designed to produce final accounts. The Intuit website doesn't mention this feature on the Quickbooks Accountant Edition page.
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Pearce & Co - Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser
I don't use quickbooks either but went along to the roadshow and this was a point that I brought up.
Quickbooks produces the basics as standard and can be adapted by playing around with the report designer to produce something resembling a set of accounts. (Balance sheet and P&L are pretty standard but the bits around them are missing).
Where QB comes off the rails is that it has no iXBRL filing facility (and Intuit have no intention of adding one) so although you can with a bit of work produce accounts you cannot file them.
At the meeting I did ask how can they call the software an accountant edition if you cannot file accounts with it but the answer was that by accountants edition they meant that it was the version for the accountant to pull together the quickbooks files of the clients software no matter what the version.
If I wanted to file then I should also purchase some third party software such as VT or IRIS (not much difference in price there!).
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I think that accountant edition caught out a lot of us Steve.
I actually felt a bit of an idiot at the meeting asking the question about iXBRL as I expected everyone to laugh at such a silly question that it was not there. However, everywhere that I had looked the matter had been glossed over or avoided and I wanted to know the answer to it.
Instead of coming across as foolish it seemed that I was not alone in wondering that one and it appeared that it was the one thing that Intuit didn't want people to ask.
Kris uses VT and QB so he would be a better person to tell you how to import data from QB to VT. (not sure whether he imports or enters the data from the financial statements produced by QB directly into VT accounts?) As I say, better that he answers that one.
The real issue for me is that if VT can do everything that QB does then that makes QB redundant unless the client uses it and whilst I am coming across people who use Sage (and where appropriate converting them to use VT instead) I am yet to be approached by any client that uses Quickbooks.
Then again, chicken and egg methinks. Maybe if I were a Pro Advisor then QB users would come to me... That said, I'm not a Sage bod but they seem to be able to find my offices.
Anyway, sure that Kris and / or Amanda will be along imminently with much better QB advice than I am able to offer,
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Actually, when I asked an agent on the on-line chat, on the US Quick Books site (did not realise at first) She went away to "check" for me, and assured me that the UK Accountant Edition was suitable for both production and submission of statutory accounts, and this is not the case.
I am a little disheartened by your comment that you are yet to come across a Quick Books user, and I have paid for my ProAdvisor subscription now :( I enjoyed using the products and loved its style and layout, and felt that it was a stable intuitive product that suited my needs.
As soon as I am ready to start accepting clients, I will be working remotely, where they send their paperwork to me, so hopefully it should not matter that I choose to use Quick Books, and as an added bonus I will certify as a ProAdvisor (hopefully) and will be in a position to support clients that do use Quick Books, or who may be interested in starting to use it.
Of course maybe I am being to positive, and in reality should consider VT including Final Accounts, but then I would still need to purchase separate tax return submission software so still end up using a few different products.
Oh well, I think I will continue as I am and hope to seek out the clients that are not already fixed on Sage, or who want me to do the full bookkeeping for them. Hopefully these clients still exist :)
As part of the pro advisor program you are more likely to find existing QB users than myself. (I was tempted when the half price offer was on).
Also, with many businesses you may actively encourage the software that they adopt (the reason that Intuit are so eager to give us their software) plus with some clients where you do everything for them you dictate the software that you use which will be the one that you are most comfortable with.
On the lots of software front. Unfortunately if you want to offer a full sollution then yes. There are lots of options. I've put what I feel are the site favorites in brackets although from practice to practice this varies greatly with many now picking up cloud offerings such as Xero and Kashflow.
You need a bookkeeping package (VT Transaction+ / QB / Sage), Accounts production and filing (VT Accounts / Sage / Iris), Payroll Package (12pay / moneysoft), Tax package (Taxcalc).
The key is not in finding the best software but getting all of the best bits that work together.
The common link is invariably transfers via Excel.
HTH,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Shauns right, of course, about the creation and submission of returns with QuickBooks. Personally I don't really work with limited companies and thouse I do work with I dont do end of year stuff for.
While QuickBooks has great reports, I do prefer to take the information over to VT, for all my sole traders, to have the final accounts. I have just been doing this via the Trial Balance input screen. QB does output reports to excel, but to be honest I've not had the time to play with this much. Like you say, its playing with a few systems, but each has their own strengths and weaknesses. I use andica for self assessments which again wont talk to VT or QB, but its not that difficult to rekey all the data I need. I accept that this is where mistakes can be made and if you find a better way please let me know.
I will continue as I am until ready to accept clients.
I will also take a look at the other range of software, as I am currently messing around with:
1. Quick Books for bookkeeping 2. IRIS for Final Accounts and TAX 3. Haven't decided for payroll but as I am using QB, thought I should at least consider Intuit for Payroll as well.
However, I will be looking into 12Pay, Moneysoft and TaxCalc also.
Shaun will back me up on this, but I had the exact same rant when I signed up to the the QB PA scheme. Why call it 'Accountants edition' when you can't even file accounts from it (you can file VAT returns from it so why not tax returns...) OH and I'd like to add that our brethren over the pond CAN file their returns... Their 1040 individual tax returns can be filed through the software.... So why can't we?
However I have found a work around, visit http://www.sa2000.co.uk/ . As long as you have a full profit and loss account along with balance sheet you can download their spreadsheets and file individual/partnership/company tax returns for either a small one time fee or a unlimited one off fee. Partnerships cost 12.49 and ct600s cost 24.99.
They are fully iXRBL compliant and can submit accounts to both HMRC and companies house. For small timers like us it's VERY useful, ok it takes time to fill the damn things in but 24.99 compared to 150-200 for a new bit of software is better to stomach. I've used then to file a partnership return and its very seamless. Well worth a look!
Steve, could you keep us informed how you get on with the ProAdvisor scheme? I use QuickBooks, I find it the best package for laymen clients to work with. I work with Sage as well but have found the novice SME owner makes too many mistakes. The invoice and statement production works like a dream and the email facilities saves my clients a small fortune in time with their batch processing options.
My problem, and it is a real bone of contention with me, is with QBooks actively promoting the monthly sign-up options, ultimately taking business away from the resellers. They are erroneously telling people it is cheaper, which is really isn't. I was able to get a far better deal buying the CD off a local QBooks advisor than buying direct or paying their monthly fee. They do automatically send out free upgrades to the new versions, but to be honest, that is not necessary. I have clients happily working away with QBooks 2010 with no problems. I have Pro 2012 and 2013, but prefer the 2012.
I was actually ringing about the ProAdvisor programme at the time when the sales person tried to push me into buying a monthly subscription for my own Pro version, his telephone manner left a lot to be desired. I pointed out that he had just put me right off signing up for ProAdvisor services, what was the point if QBooks were taking all the sales by tying people into to monthly direct debits with the company? He said that 'QuickBooks don't encourage people to try to make money from reselling'. Huh? I thought that was the whole point! It's not often I lose my temper but this conversation ended up with my giving him a right verbal slapping.
Are you aware of the payroll sales drive? A client of mine recently received a telephone call from QB sales trying to get him to sign up to the payroll software. Apparently it is 'easy' for people to compile their own payroll runs and it is 'cheaper' than using a bureau like mine. I went onto the forum and put up a large rant about this, comparing costs and so on, and asking them why they were allowing their staff to blatantly mis-sell. Thankfully my client did the maths and told the sales person he would be paying £10 extra for the software than using my services, but I'm sure they managed to tie up a few novices who would later find they don't understand how it works. I'm changing to Moneysoft for the 13-14 year anyway, as much as I like their bookkeeping software their payroll is far too expensive for what you get.
