After using Sage Accounts Production Advanced for many years, I am feeling like its too expensive to continue with. I just wondered what everyone else was using and how much it was costing them? Are there any bug bears with your software?
Pass then... lol. Was going to say QB, but that does NOTHING which is pointless as a bookkeeper! May move to TaxCalc as ive heard good things from that.
£199 plus VAT for first year. £150 plus VAT for subsequent years (you also get VT Transaction+ thrown in at that price).
Produces accounts directly from VT Transaction+ in all common formats (plus you can amend the templates if required (although to date I haven't)).
As a pointer I do not have current figures but as far back as 2002 16% of all UK accounts were filed using Sage and 14% were filed using VT. I don't have figures but I reccon VT is now in pole position even amongst Sage users.
Absolutely no issue's or bug bears with it at all.
... Well maybe the corporation tax bit could be a little more intuitive but not everyone uses that facility anyway.
For iXBRL translation is will leave anything else on the market for dead (pretty much instantaneous, no waiting around watching hour glasses rotating on your screen).
Personally I've so far only used it with VT Transaction+ but maybe others will comment about how they find using it where they have Sage or QB for their bookkeeping package.
I can definitely say that I would still pick VT accounts over alternatives even if they were giving the others away free. It really is that good but don't take my word for it. Wait for input from others who maybe less biased towards the software than myself.
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.
at the Intuit roadshow Alison advised users of quickbooks to also purchase either VT accounts or Iris in order to file accounts.... Well, not much difference in those prices!!! (a couple of hundred vs several thousand!!! (an accountant freind of mine has just paid £6k for her annual renewal.... Ouch.... Makes Sage seem cheao!).
I have accounts produced in Iris and accounts produced in VT and appart from some of the notes having slightly different breakdowns (but adding up to the same figures) I am seeing no difference in oputput from Iris and VT.
__________________
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.
Does VT allow for online filing direct from the program? Does it have a tax program that links with the Accounts software, transferring all the figures? Does the tax software allow for direct online filing also?
Is VT Transaction + like Sage 50 Accounts?
I'll take a look online and see if I can get a trial.
you can get a two month trial of the software that allows you to do everything appart from filing (pretty sure that it doesn't allow the iXBRL conversion either as you could then just file as an attachment).
The filing is not currently from within the software and the tax (CT600) side provides the calcvulations but is the weak link in the software and requires quite a bit of manual intervention which would explain why the software choice of many is to pair it with Taxcalc to handle the tax side of things.
In fact many practices seem to have adopted Sage for bookkeeping, VT for filing, Taxcalc for tax.
Mark (Marks) is experimenting with the new release from taxcalc that does accounts production. More expensive thatn VT but it will bring all of his filing together within one product.
Sure that we'll be getting an update imminently as to how he's getting on with that.
As you know I won't give Sage the time of day but appreciate that for some clients VT Transaction+ isn't sufficient (basically for clients requiring a stock control system) so I'm looking at QB to fill the vacuum for clients that transaction+ is insufficient.
For yourself I think that looking at the common settup of VT Accounts / Sage 50 / Taxcalc would still be a considerable saving on your current filing fee's.
HTH,
Shaun.
p.s. the two month trial of VT Accounts also comes with a two month trial of VT Transaction+. You should try it, espechially for clients such as consultants as it will save you a fortune on using up your Sage licence slots on clients that could be hived off to different software.
__________________
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.
Righto, I've got the VT trial.. It is very much like a workbook I designed 15 years ago, to do all my sole trader accounts! Not sure how I am going to feel about going back to using that sort of system, but I'll give it go for a saving of a few hundred pounds!
I don't see a sheet to post journals? Does this mean one would have to manually adjust a bookkeepers TB before posting it?
I link it into VT Transaction+ and push everything through from there rather than currently entering a trial balance directly into the accounts production (another thing on my to do list as I'll need to be doing that when pushing stuff through from QB).
Don't be fooled by the front end into thinking that its not a top notch bit of software every bit as good as the market leaders.
Its very much going back to software is supposed to be a tool for us not we are end users of a bit of software which is how a good many vendors seem to want to treat us.
If may be that you try it and hate it.
Quite a few over on Aweb started with the same thoughts about it but soon come to grips with the fact its like an old beemer E30 318is. Looks like a bog standard nothing special family car but with an M3 growling away under the surface.
Give it a good play. If you hate it you hate it and nobody can change that.
Just keep in mind. If this is so bad why do so many accountants use it?
Ooh, I've thought of a fault. there's no training materials out there for it. The manual is good but you will always be wondering that you are doing stuff one way but is that the way that everyone else does it? Is that how it was intentded to be used?
For that reason it makes me adverse to giving others advice on its use but just give the software a chance to grow on you and in a couple of weeks look back and decide then whether you would ever go back to anything else.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
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 may look at adapting the spreadsheet I made years ago.. its very very similar in its nature... right through to the tax calcs pages... mine even includes a cash book and journals page which link into an extended TB. It would just need the notes pages expanding and a directors report popping in.
I used VT last year for doing accounts and used taxcalc for doing tax returns. Worked ok but was a bit fiddly getting the notes and everything sorted but was ok.
Have now got taxcalc acccounts production and taxcalc tax, you also get the taxcalc hub which is where you keep all your client data as well as other things like practice management facilities and templates for letters (but not really looked at this yet).
I got the unlimited client verision of both which from memory is £500+VAT for accounts and £400 +VAT for tax. Therefore £900+VAT for both. The tax hub part is free this year as it is just introduced but will probably be about £200+VAT going forward i expect.
Can wholeheartedly recommend tax calc as a fully integrated accounts and tax package. The simplestep function to the tax return is great (and even easier to use that say IRIS which I had previously used for 15 years in practice). sole traders accounts/partnerships accounts can be directly linked to the tax returns. At the moment you cant do this for ltd cos but they expect to have this facilty by the end of the year. Can lodge ltd co accounts directly from taxcalc to companies house and really easy to prepare IXBRL accounts and submit with CT return.
You can trial taxcalc for free for 28 days (though there is some things you cant do in the trial which i think includes running of the accounts and looking at the reports). But other than that can do pretty much everything.
Would recommend you give it a try.
The support is really good and you usually can get through straight away to have any query anwered. If not you can email them and they get back to you same day.
Lot cheaper than IRIS and SAGE. More expensive than VT but from my viewpoint with now about 90 clients is worth paying £10+VAT per client to be able to quickly prepare accounts and tax returns.
Give me a call if you have any queries.
Mark
PS will probably still renew my VT licence as it is a good bit of software and have a few clients that use VT cashbook to maintain their records
I'm using TaxCalc for tax returns and accounts production. Loving the hub. Have had to call support a few times and they have been really good. It's really user friendly and I will definitely stick with it.
Not used it myself yet so cannot comment from practical experience.
Shaun.
__________________
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 got the unlimited client verision of both which from memory is £500+VAT for accounts and £400 +VAT for tax. Therefore £900+VAT for both. The tax hub part is free this year as it is just introduced but will probably be about £200+VAT going forward i expect.
Hi Mark
Thanks for your advice on this. Is the £900 a one off fee for the software, or is there a yearly subscription?
Sage want £600+VAT for SAPA, and £200+VAT for CT - every year - both 25 client. I file SA returns using my agent online services, so am not really bothered about personal tax sofware. CT600 is the main one for me.
I will download the trial. Not massively struck with VT Accounts, so far.
The fee is an annual fee so is £900+VAT each year.
There is a 50 client version of accounts prod which costs £249+VAT (the tax package is still £400+VAT) so would work out at £649+VAT if you only had up to 50 clients. If you are just wanting to have the CT module for tax you can get it for £150+VAT so if you had up to 50 clients you could get accounts prod and CT package for £399+VAT.
Give taxcalc a call and they should be able to confirm this. As I have just got a the figures from a quick check of their website.
Not used it myself yet so cannot comment from practical experience.
Shaun.
gosh that's helpful - gonna take a look, btw I love vt it's so brill!, i also use ftax ct600. That would be my recommendations. Also sage for bookkeeping and sage payroll and andica for self assessment.
-- Edited by lor on Friday 26th of July 2013 07:17:15 PM
I have just bought VT accounts (£150.00 inc vat) because I am taking on some work from an accountant as he was insistent that I use the same software as him. It's actually really quite easy to use, especially if you are used to using excel spreadsheets like me. I think it is the cheapest decent software you can get. You don't have to pay a subscription or anything, once you have bought it that's it. I think you can send it to other software that creates tax returns etc to load straight online.
think that you might have misread the small print.
for VT transaction+ once purchased its yours but for VT Accounts its an annual fee.
First year should be £199 +VAT
Second year onwards should be £150 +VAT
Comes with VT Trfansaction+ as part of the bundle.
VT Transaction+ on its own would be £150 inclusive of VAT to use forever but thats not the version for producing properly formatted accounts.
If you've bought the wrong licence give the guys a call, explain the mistake and sure that they would be happy to upgrade your account.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
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.
