The main cloud providers are Xero, Kashflow, Freeagent and SAGEone.
It is a case of looking at each and seeing what one you think suits you best.
If offering it to clients the purpose should be for client to process the information with you dipping in as appropriate to review what they are doing, do the month end/quarter end adjustments, prepare management reports.
Personally I am going to go with Xero and hopefully will be a certified partner shortly.
So will promote SAGE for desktop and Xero for cloud.
I agree with MarkS: that the 4 providers he mentioned are a) the current market leaders for small business online and b) the most likely to be around for the long-term.
Of course, there is much to consider when evaluating each but a broad guide might be: FreeAgent for contractors/one-person companies, Xero and KashFlow for small businesses generally, and SageOne for those wanting a basic bookkeeping experience with integrated payroll. There are many other providers available but they, in my opinion, are either too US-flavoured or under-resourced compared to the services already mentioned.
When it comes to converting clients from Sage 50 to Xero, if you want to bring over data then look at www.movemybooks.com to get the job done quickly, easily and accurately. Life's too short to spend hours setting-up and importing data manually :)
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Adrian Pearson Blog: www.adrianpearson.com | Mobile: 07944 970997 | Email: adrianpearson@outlook.com Xero data conversion specialist. Founder of Movemybooks and Ledgerscope.
I use Sageone, Sage, Iris Openbooks/Freeagent, Clearbooks, Xero Depending on the functionality required by the client (management reports etc) I would NEVER suggest sageone - it's not robust enough to do journals unless you get the accountants version. It has no customer/purchase ledger per se and really is not good for bookkeepers. it's good for clients trying to do simple bookkeeping but when requirements get a little more demanding, it doesn't measure up. Openbooks and Xero are brilliant. I use Xero on two clients - one a design house and one a restaurant. good functionality for both. Clearbooks is not as good - I don't like nearly as much as irisopenbooks (which is powered by freeagent) or Xero. Most other clients are on iris openbooks and it's fantastic for everything. and loads up to Iris practice management, links to companies house etc etc. If they have a separate payroll provider, the integration from the payroll to the software makes journals easier to be imported on that function. BUT as good as Iris openbooks is, it does permit imbalanced journals to be created whereas Xero's journals have to balance before being posted. The other one e-conomic looks brilliant but I don't have any clients on it to know what the particular pitfalls are for their business requirements. Be wary though - when the client has access to their books, they tend to mess things up as they don't know what they're doing. give them view only access or you'll find they think they can do the books themselves...
love the profound line about not letting clients loose with the software.
That of course is the major issue in that software providers have realised that there are more businesses then accountancy service providers (not seemingly true in all area's!!!) so to maximise their profits the software is geared to the business owner as the end user with the results that you indicate.
On the back of your post combined with being quite impressed with the free Iris RTI sollution I may give Irisopenbooks a look to see whether it would be a useful addition to my business software arsenal.
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 use 'mypaye' for payroll on about 37 clients and it links into Xero nicely for posting payroll journals. it's a really really really simple bit of software and is RTI compliant.
I have spent many many hours re-reconciling bank data that was reconciled ready for me running a VAT rtn JUST because the client has put in a few entries ten months ago that have knocked the whole rec out. fun fun fun!
