I am intrigued by this post and hope it can generate a good debate??
Are people creating manual accounts in word / excel for their clients to accompany Tax returns as submitted to HMRC?
There is software these days that will do the submissions and generate accounts at the click of a button once all the appropriate data is entered - this must save a good amount of time???
Hopefully others here can mention the ones they use - Whilst I admit I use IRIS for the few I do and I know it is expensive, the time saved in the automation significantly out-ways the physical cost.
I have used the HMRC site direct in the past and found it cumbersome and not so user friendly. This was for a friend of mine who asked me to review their tax return they had spent about 5 hours on which I subsequently re-created in less than 10 minutes and highlighted a pension posting error (they had entered net payments) which had an impact of increasing their rebate by £190...(not much but it kept me in beer at the local for some time
I just think that sometimes we undervalue our time and don't utilise compliance based software designed to save us time to do the more important things with our clients.
Sorry to take over the post (it may warrant its own post later on) but I wanted to mention it.
As always please don't anyone take this personally, it is my opinion and I look forward to any responses to this.
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Well, I'm offended... lol. Actually, I think that you have a valid point.
I didn't reply to this one earlier as the posters are doing nothing wrong as such and I don't like to rain on anyone's parade but like yourself I believe that if you are going to produce accounts then it is worth investing in good quality accounts production software.
I use VT Accounts which gets updated regularly by VT in line with changing requirements so I for one am not a great believer in the viability of word / excel solutions where proper formatting is required as the lay user is unlikely to be abreast of all recent GAAP developemnts. (I'm lazy. VT says that its updated the templates. I trust them and don't go off doing line by line comparisons to find out whats different).
VT is much cheaper than IRIS (£199+VAT for unlimited accounts with very fast (instantaneous) iXBRL translation) and produces accounts in all of the standard formats including the options for ACCA and ICAEW accountants inserts.
The downside to VT from what I read on here is that it's a bit like marmite in that you either love it or hate it with little room for a grey area in between.
After saying all of the above though in Elains case the accounts are not really necessary and are more of a value added service so for such instances rather than investing in a proper sollution the old Robh "There or there abouts" (tm) approach would actually suffice... Although personally I couldn't bring myself to produce accounts in that way as I would always be feeling that just knocking out the financial statements rather than everything that goes around them does seem a little amateurish. (bit like giving someone the P&L and B/S from a bookkeeping package and calling it a set of accounts... It is, but only in the same way as a watertight shell of a house is a house but its not the finished product).
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.
Interesting conversation. As most know, I only work with sole traders now. This means, like Shaun says, final accounts are not really required, but an added bonus. I did look at a few packages to do this for me but ended up spending a bit of time making a spreadsheet for it instead. It's still quite automated in that I just need to enter the trial balance and everything is prepared. It also grabs the clients details from my CRM which an off-the-shelf package couldn't.
Would it surprise you if I said I worked for a £30m+ company and our accounts are done in excel? Obviously we have a computerised system where everything is entered in on a daily/monthly basis. At the month end we extract TB's etc and then the accounts are put together using excel.
I am only going to be catering for self employed/sole traders and this is only done evenings and weekends. Until my client base builds up I cannot afford to buy software but once it does then I will. I do want to give more of a service than just doing the books and self assessments. I want to be able to show the client a P & L and help them understand it.
If I am totally honest I much prefer to use computerised than spreadsheets. I like Sage instants as you automatically have a P & L and BS.
It will also help if they want to borrow money for the bank or get a mortgage etc.
Would it surprise you if I said I worked for a £30m+ company and our accounts are done in excel?
Yes.
Absolutely shocked by that.
Thats the properly formatted full accounts that are filed with companies house and HMRC?
Containing all of the notes to the accounts?
Containing all of the necessary accounting policy declarations?
Signed by directors?
I suppose that under the bonnet VT is Excel but it just seems an awful lot of reinventing the wheel for a firm, even a £30m turnover one in order to keep your accounts production in house.
Are you positiive thats not just the internal use accounts as that scenario seems a little like building your own car when you could just go out and buy one (probably (but not necessarily) cheaper and better).
Absolutely shocked at that revelation.
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.
Not sure about the accounts that are filed with companies house and HMRC as I don't get involved at that stage but I put all the sales, overheads, variable costs etc in to the spreadsheets. The balance sheet and cashflow are also part of the pack. It says Financial accounts on the front of the pack but maybe there is another pack that I don't see.
I'll investigate and come back to you. Why would we go to the trouble of all the work putting it in to excel and then use another system?
What Jeremy says is fantastic as this can be time saving.
I am quite junior but I will buy specific software just to get the hang of it.
I ve heard a lot of good things about Tax Calc.
Also could be a good point to consider that the more time you save by doing the job, the more time is available to call potential customers or other ways of marketing.
For Kris, please if you could tell me what is CRM.
Kind regards,
Adrian
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This is just my personal opinion. Advice should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
P.S. I only ride a motorbike because I want to dry my clothes faster
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.
Been using it fully now for a few months and it's brilliant.
They have also just this week introduced the facility to prepare CT returns directly from the accounts so is now a fully integrated system for both sole traders/partnerships and ltd companies.
Admittedly it more expensive than VT at £1080 for both the unlimited accounts and tax package but if you have sufficient numbers of clients it worth it from the time saving viewpoint and a lot cheaper than other alternatives such as digita, SAGE and IRIS.
At a nuts and bolts level yes but CRM actually all processes and procedures involved with Customer acquisition, retention and extension (selling them additional services / relationship enhancement).
CRM also covers such matters as ensuring that everything that needs to be filed is filed at the right time.
At its heart CRM is about managing the client to ensure a smooth and mutually beneficial relationship.
The above doesn't really seem to do CRM justice as whole books are written on the subject yet I skim over it in a paragraph.
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.
Seems to me that the more I know, the less I know.
Is it any ready made CRM system that can be used straight away ?
Or just start with an excel file that includes the clients basic data like name, address etc.
I think Mark has such a complex thing that shows even how did the client joined (e.g. referral, mailshots, ...)
Thank you Shaun !
Have a nice day,
Adrian
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This is just my personal opinion. Advice should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
P.S. I only ride a motorbike because I want to dry my clothes faster
might be best to take that question to a new thread Adrian as it could overrun this one.
Personally I just use Excel but there are many CRM packages out there (some of them quite expensive).
Remember that even your office wall planner is part of your businesses CRM system. The systems don't have to be all computerised, they just have to work efficiently as the better they work the more professional you appear to clients.
Actually, think that on a particularly wet Sunday afternoon I wrote something on here about CRM some time back... Let me have a look...
That didn't take too long. Not often that the combination of Acquisition, retention and extension comes up in site posts, lol.
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.
