Which Software to use? - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

wellbalanced · Member

Which Software to use?

wellbalanced · Member

Just realised that I've posted this in the wrong place! Any way i can move it to the software forum?

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

And as if by magic! :)

Personally I use VT Transaction+ and VT Accounts.

Download a two month trial and give it a road test to see what you think.

Its used by a lot of people both here and and on Accountingweb.

Even better than the ease of use is that it's a fraction of the cost of Sage, intuitve and there is no limit to the number of companies that you can process using it (non of Sages silly client tax).

If you try it and don't like it you haven't lost anything but conversely, if you do then the worst part about it is that you won't want to use Sage again.

Have fun,

HTH,

Shaun.

wellbalanced · Member

Thanks Shamus! :) I'll go and have a look!

Kundan Lal Rana · Veteran Member

wellbalanced wrote:
Hi! I'm just starting out on my own and I know it would be handy for me to have some software... but which one to choose?! I have used Sage before and it seems to be the go-to option for a lot of small businesses, but I've also heard good things about Quickbooks and Xero. Anyone have any good/bad experiences with any of these (or another I haven't heard of?) What criteria would you use to choose?

Each software has its pros and cons, the decision to choose a better accounting software for your business depends on your needs and budget. Personally, I recommend QuickBooks accounting software, it's quite easy to use and fully functional accounting software. However before going to finalize a software, you should consider the following -

- What are the exact requirements for the business now and if, after expansion.

- Discuss and make a list of these requirements with your accountant and staff.

- What budget do you have to spend on accounting software - monthly or annually.

- Compare different software such as QuickBooks, Xero, VT Transaction+, Sage etc. according to your need and decide.

Hope it would help you.

Kundan

TrevorD · Senior Member

Good Morning Shaun

I have been looking for accounting software for ages (whilst studying). All my studies used Sage 50 Accounts and it is great if you want to work for a company/practice that uses it. The exam bodies seem geared up to expect you to use it (and I do own a copy of Sage Accounts 2014 purchased very cheap of eBay).

However, Sage is a non starter due to cost. I have looked at numerous other products (Solar seems to have become Solar Online !!) - been up in the clouds and back down. Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?).

So back to the point - I have just downloaded VT Transaction and cantered through the manual !!

A couple of questions :-

Are there any COA for Not For Profit Orgs or Charities ?

Is the Trial Balance and Balance Sheet ok - or do you have to get VT Accounts (I know you need it for ixbl) ?

Are there any tutorials (have seen one on You tube) ?

Any advice you would give ?

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Hi Trevor
Just on the ''Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?)'' bit - I had a major row recently with a large provider of such an app because they do not provide a facility to record the reverse of receipts which HMRC say you have to do in the event that items are kept as scanned records rather than paper based. They did say they were making an upgrade to their software, but Ive seen nothing yet and it was months ago. Also - I slated them quite a bit for using a photo of a receipt for a coffee purchased from a coffee shop on all their advertising given what we all know about HMRCs views on that one.

I never did find out how the reports look so that someone can extract the rubbish that people pay for that is personal mixed in with business on such small receipts!

The only Cloud based software Ive used is Economic - didnt think anything of it.

Have you considered Quick books - I have it, only use it for my charities so far, but it was ultra cheap for 99 company version!

VinceH · Expert

"Just on the ''Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?)'' bit - I had a major row recently with a large provider of such an app because they do not provide a facility to record the reverse of receipts which HMRC say you have to do in the event that items are kept as scanned records rather than paper based."

I'm sure there must be a reason for that other than HMRC just being a little too far up their own backsides. Positive of it. There must be a good reason.

Mustn't there?

Answers on a postcard...

(Note: that some receipts may have key information on the reverse is not a sensible justification for insisting on it for all cases.)

One of my cloud-loving clients doesn't like the idea of keeping paperwork, and the cloudy accounts software he uses allows receipts and invoices to be uploaded to store alongside the transaction, so he habitually 'scans' receipts by taking a photograph of [the front of] them, sends me the photographs and throws the originals away. It annoys me, and I've pointed out the requirement to scan the reverse as well, but it still doesn't happen. :/

Personally, I prefer to keep paper copies than electronic copies - so for my own accounts, I print every invoice I receive electronically, though simply because I tend to have all my emails archived and backed up for the whole of eternity, I still have the electronic versions.

I guess in the instance of electronic invoices being printed, the reverse of HMRC's rule above is probably true - printed copies probably have to include every page...

So companies who number their pages "x of y" and stick a full page, full colour advertisement on page "y of y" are bloody annoying. Grr.

I don't print adverts - if it's a full page, I don't print that page; if it's part of a page that I need to print, I block out the advert before doing so. However, because of my archive and backups, I do still have the originals.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Cheshire wrote:
Hi Trevor
Just on the ''Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?)'' bit

Hi Jo, I looked at Receipt Bank several months ago and they did a webinar with me. Apart from the fact there was no integration with VT+ I couldn't see the point. One of my cafe clients gives me 150-180 receipts a month, and by no stretch of the imagination am I a fast inputter, but I still worked out that it would take me longer to scan in and filter than it would to input them directly.

VinceH · Expert

I'm not going to name names, but one of my clients is a marketing company who themselves has a client who is gearing up to launch a receipt scanning service.

He first brought it to my attention when he was asking about how long it takes to input a supplier invoice, and what the cost of doing so therefore worked out to be - not knowing why he was asking (or that he was specifically meaning Sage) I assumed he wanted to know how long it takes to input such data into the cloudy system used for his accounts - which is a slower process than inputting in Sage because of the crappy web-based user interface, not to mention that it's built around a one screen/one invoice paradigm for inputting. So I estimated based on that. I'm a hell of a lot faster in Sage!

He then fed that info back to his client, and between them they've used it to produce a cost calculator for when their system goes live - potential customer inputs roughly how many invoices they input into Sage, and it works out what the time cost of that is versus the cost of their invoice scanning service.

Except, when the site and that calculator does go live, the time calculation is based on a slower system (for me) than Sage.

I wish he'd told me why he was asking beforehand.

MarkS · Expert

Leger wrote:
Cheshire wrote:
Hi Trevor
Just on the ''Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?)'' bit
Hi Jo, I looked at Receipt Bank several months ago and they did a webinar with me. Apart from the fact there was no integration with VT+ I couldn't see the point. One of my cafe clients gives me 150-180 receipts a month, and by no stretch of the imagination am I a fast inputter, but I still worked out that it would take me longer to scan in and filter than it would to input them directly.

Why scan and filter. Just post it away to them.

For 150-180 receipts would cost £39+VAT. On the basis would take a couple of hours at least to input (plus avoiding the tedium of actually doing it) worth the cost from my viewpoint to send away. Better still get the client to pay for it.

We use receipt bank for a few clients and integrate with either Xero or Freeagent.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

How do you disallow the personal stuff etc Mark?

Leger · Master Book-keeper

MarkS wrote:
Leger wrote:
Cheshire wrote:
Hi Trevor
Just on the ''Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?)'' bit
Hi Jo, I looked at Receipt Bank several months ago and they did a webinar with me. Apart from the fact there was no integration with VT+ I couldn't see the point. One of my cafe clients gives me 150-180 receipts a month, and by no stretch of the imagination am I a fast inputter, but I still worked out that it would take me longer to scan in and filter than it would to input them directly.
Why scan and filter. Just post it away to them.
For 150-180 receipts would cost £39+VAT. On the basis would take a couple of hours at least to input (plus avoiding the tedium of actually doing it) worth the cost from my viewpoint to send away. Better still get the client to pay for it.
We use receipt bank for a few clients and integrate with either Xero or Freeagent.

I already charge my client for the service I provide. A couple of hours inputting and I'm paid for it, or I give it to them and it costs me £47? I know which one I'd rather opt for.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

I'm with you John as I like to know my clients and I find there's no better way to do that than understanding their spending habits which one is somewhat divorced from if you allow a third party to do the bulk of it for you (reading through other peoples input is not the same).

BUT...

The one thing that I will say though is in relation to the money aspect if that is the driving consideration.

There is something called opportunity cost. That is if you are saving £39 of expenditure in one place (I would assume that someone like Mark would be VAT registered so capitalising VAT doesnt come into the equation) in exchange for your time then your time cannot be used elsewhere.

Someone with several hundred clients would be abandoning the opportunity of additional earned income for the time spent on the data input.

It is all very much a matter of horses for courses.

On the one hand, if one has the time and really wants to get inside the heads of clients then do it oneself and save the additional expenditure.

On the other hand if one has many, many clients and is permanently inundated then either outsource or hire a data entry clerk on minimum wage... Or preferably hire a temp to avoid Payroll, Pension, sickness, maternity, etc. costs. (£12 - £15 an hour to hire a newstart bookkeeper as a data input clerk can be an awful lot cheaper than employing one at a lower cost... Provided one keeps them temp and not on regular hours and you as their only client!).

Just my two peneth in the debate over to outsourcing work.

kind regard's,

Shaun.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Shamus wrote:

The one thing that I will say though is in relation to the money aspect if that is the driving consideration.

There is something called opportunity cost. That is if you are saving £39 of expenditure in one place (I would assume that someone like Mark would be VAT registered so capitalising VAT doesnt come into the equation) in exchange for your time then your time cannot be used elsewhere.

Someone with several hundred clients would be abandoning the opportunity of additional earned income for the time spent on the data input.

It is all very much a matter of horses for courses.

On the one hand, if one has the time and really wants to get inside the heads of clients then do it oneself and save the additional expenditure.

On the other hand if one has many, many clients and is permanently inundated then either outsource or hire a data entry clerk on minimum wage... Or preferably hire a temp to avoid Payroll, Pension, sickness, maternity, etc. costs. (£12 - £15 an hour to hire a newstart bookkeeper as a data input clerk can be an awful lot cheaper than employing one at a lower cost... Provided one keeps them temp and not on regular hours and you as their only client!).

Just my two peneth in the debate over to outsourcing work.

kind regard's,

Shaun.

Hi Shaun, I saw the comments as addressed to me and I'm not VAT registered, but yes, for Mark it would be £39

I am very much inclined to agree with you. At the moment I can handle the workload I have, although I am looking at freeing up some time and steps are already in place to use a freelance person to do some data entry. That will effectively cost me £9 an hour and I will be paying her through paye on an as and when basis. That's still £30 cheaper (for me any road) than sending it away and I'm directly putting an income in someones pocket.

Obviously someone in Mark's position will be looking to maximise his income and I too would be looking to delegate the mundane jobs to someone else, but being the tight Yorkshire b*gger that I am, I would still outsource the work locally, whether employed directly or not, over paying nearly £20 an hour for a machine to do it. It's not just the money side though, I would actually prefer to help someone locally earn some dosh.

MarkS · Expert

As assumed above I am VAT registered.

As said if client has sufficient number of invoices each month then we are happy to use Receipt Bank and integrate with Xero or Freeagent.

It can save use a few days per job. Enabling us to complete the job quicker and therefore take on more clients over the year (though probably at busting point with about 170-180 clients between myself and one employee so looking to switch to IRIS from taxcalc as although I like taxcalc from an accounts and tax viewpoint, IRIS wins hands down from a fully integrated viewpoint, hence why over half the accountants in the UK use it).

We have clients who are happy to pay for receipt bank as rather than filing everything in order, which takes them time, they can just stick everything in a receipt bank bag and let them sort it out.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

MarkS wrote:
We have clients who are happy to pay for receipt bank as rather than filing everything in order, which takes them time, they can just stick everything in a receipt bank bag and let them sort it out.

I think this is where the difference lies Mark, and I apologise because I was forgetting you're an accountant whereas I'm a bookkeeper. None of my clients (apart from one) do their own bookkeeping, I do it all for them and charge accordingly (sometimes anyway I understand now that for the majority of your own clients they will do their own bookkeeping and then you do the important bit. Sending it off to Receipt Bank or similar makes perfect sense in that situation.

My reply was too terse, so once again, sorry.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Im still wondering how you exclude the rubbish - I have a client who sends loads of personal receipts mingled in with the others. Some have genuine business spend on them but then also personal items on the same receipt. Some are paid by cash, some from his personal Bank account, some on his business credit card and some through the Bank. There is no way this guy would be organised to only send the correct stuff, so how would something like receipt Bank in those circumstances.

MarkS · Expert

Leger wrote:
MarkS wrote:
We have clients who are happy to pay for receipt bank as rather than filing everything in order, which takes them time, they can just stick everything in a receipt bank bag and let them sort it out.
I think this is where the difference lies Mark, and I apologise because I was forgetting you're an accountant whereas I'm a bookkeeper. None of my clients (apart from one) do their own bookkeeping, I do it all for them and charge accordingly (sometimes anyway I understand now that for the majority of your own clients they will do their own bookkeeping and then you do the important bit. Sending it off to Receipt Bank or similar makes perfect sense in that situation.
My reply was too terse, so once again, sorry.

No probs, happy to do my own bookkeeping try to avoid doing any clients bookkeeping as it is mind numbing and a low rate of return on it.

MarkS · Expert

Cheshire wrote:
Im still wondering how you exclude the rubbish - I have a client who sends loads of personal receipts mingled in with the others. Some have genuine business spend on them but then also personal items on the same receipt. Some are paid by cash, some from his personal Bank account, some on his business credit card and some through the Bank. There is no way this guy would be organised to only send the correct stuff, so how would something like receipt Bank in those circumstances.

You get to see the scanned receipt when you post across to Xero so if it is all personal you just dont post it. If you have one receipt with loads of different things you can split the posting accordingly eg fuel, telephone topup and personal if they bought a few different things from the petrol station. When posted across to xero you match the ones that go through the business bank and business credit card as you can set up a feed to pull the bank account and credit card transactions into Xero. What you are left with is the outstanding receipts/invoices which arent paid through the bank or credit card and would just be a case of asking the client how they paid for them like you would if you were using VT, SAGE or any other bookkeeping package.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

MarkS wrote:
Cheshire wrote:
Im still wondering how you exclude the rubbish - I have a client who sends loads of personal receipts mingled in with the others. Some have genuine business spend on them but then also personal items on the same receipt. Some are paid by cash, some from his personal Bank account, some on his business credit card and some through the Bank. There is no way this guy would be organised to only send the correct stuff, so how would something like receipt Bank in those circumstances.
You get to see the scanned receipt when you post across to Xero so if it is all personal you just dont post it. If you have one receipt with loads of different things you can split the posting accordingly eg fuel, telephone topup and personal if they bought a few different things from the petrol station. When posted across to xero you match the ones that go through the business bank and business credit card as you can set up a feed to pull the bank account and credit card transactions into Xero. What you are left with is the outstanding receipts/invoices which arent paid through the bank or credit card and would just be a case of asking the client how they paid for them like you would if you were using VT, SAGE or any other bookkeeping package.

Thanks Mark - its the availability to actually see the receipts if I need them, that I was missing in my knowledge bank - mostly because Ive not had a trawl round their site. With a client I had in mind it would be fabulous as there are quite a lot and the sorting and keying side of it would save me time to do other more important things although this client is so bad, there is no way he would upload them and I would still be required to check every individual receipt (he honestly is that bad, no matter what I say!)

Might be good for another one though, who uses an iphone a lot, like an extension of his hand, but who manages to lose the receipts from the car to the house!

Thanks for the update. Might have to look into it further, although I have Sage. Need to find out if I can do the data upload without forking out the £350 +VAT from their sage partner for an appropriate import tool (am sure I can!)

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

MarkS wrote:
No probs, happy to do my own bookkeeping try to avoid doing any clients bookkeeping as it is mind numbing and a low rate of return on it.

Data entry is mind numbing and gives a low rate of return, but quite a few of my bookkeeping clients earn me more than accountancy rates. Maybe thats the Cheshire factor. biggrin

HendyPhilhendy · Guru

I use Receipt Bank as well and integrate is with KAshFlow. If used correctly it can be a huge timesaver. It needs a bit of tweaking to start with; however, we had a job that took approximately 15 hours per quarter and have halved that now by using receiptbank. We scan it ourselves and use the phone app.

I even use if for my own bookkeeping. For my own receipts it has been excellent. I don't need to clog up my wallet anymore and all my electronic invoices get allocated straight away.

HendyPhilhendy · Guru

Cheshire wrote:
MarkS wrote:
Cheshire wrote:
Im still wondering how you exclude the rubbish - I have a client who sends loads of personal receipts mingled in with the others. Some have genuine business spend on them but then also personal items on the same receipt. Some are paid by cash, some from his personal Bank account, some on his business credit card and some through the Bank. There is no way this guy would be organised to only send the correct stuff, so how would something like receipt Bank in those circumstances.
You get to see the scanned receipt when you post across to Xero so if it is all personal you just dont post it. If you have one receipt with loads of different things you can split the posting accordingly eg fuel, telephone topup and personal if they bought a few different things from the petrol station. When posted across to xero you match the ones that go through the business bank and business credit card as you can set up a feed to pull the bank account and credit card transactions into Xero. What you are left with is the outstanding receipts/invoices which arent paid through the bank or credit card and would just be a case of asking the client how they paid for them like you would if you were using VT, SAGE or any other bookkeeping package.
Thanks Mark - its the availability to actually see the receipts if I need them, that I was missing in my knowledge bank - mostly because Ive not had a trawl round their site. With a client I had in mind it would be fabulous as there are quite a lot and the sorting and keying side of it would save me time to do other more important things although this client is so bad, there is no way he would upload them and I would still be required to check every individual receipt (he honestly is that bad, no matter what I say!)
Might be good for another one though, who uses an iphone a lot, like an extension of his hand, but who manages to lose the receipts from the car to the house!
Thanks for the update. Might have to look into it further, although I have Sage. Need to find out if I can do the data upload without forking out the £350 +VAT from their sage partner for an appropriate import tool (am sure I can!)

The receipt is their on screen and you can see it. The software will pick up details such as last four credit card digits so it will say how it was paid. It picks up the supplier and you can set default actions for that supplier (which can of course be overridden).

Therefore your client who just dumps everything would actually benefit more!

Only downside is the Sage integration, not sure how good it is for that. I am seeing much more of a shift away from Sage these days.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Thanks Phil
My client won't pay for it unfortunately and even if he did he just wouldn't scan the items as that's an extra process for him. Daft I know, but you just can't help some people. Certainly going to suggest it to two others, just as a way to get hold of their bits of paper if nothing else, so thanks for your help.

Eilef · Senior Member

I was going to ask this same question tonight, after i got a quote for sage of;

1 user/ 1 company £880 for the year or £75 a month

Not a chance....

Shamus,

With VT+ do you get all the reports you need?

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Eilef,

I've never had a problem. Has all of the usual suspects in there P&L, Balance sheet, trial balance, extended trail balance, transaction reports, client and supplier reports, aged debtors, etc.

HTH,

Shaun.

TrevorD · Senior Member

Any ideas ?

TrevorD · Senior Member

Good Morning Shaun

I have been looking for accounting software for ages (whilst studying). All my studies used Sage 50 Accounts and it is great if you want to work for a company/practice that uses it. The exam bodies seem geared up to expect you to use it (and I do own a copy of Sage Accounts 2014 purchased very cheap of eBay).

However, Sage is a non starter due to cost. I have looked at numerous other products (Solar seems to have become Solar Online !!) - been up in the clouds and back down. Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?).

So back to the point - I have just downloaded VT Transaction and cantered through the manual !!

A couple of questions :-

Are there any COA for Not For Profit Orgs or Charities ?

Is the Trial Balance and Balance Sheet ok - or do you have to get VT Accounts (I know you need it for ixbl) ?

Are there any tutorials (have seen one on You tube) ?

Any advice you would give ?

Previous post not working -

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

TrevorD wrote:
Any ideas ?

About what?

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

TrevorD wrote:
Good Morning Shaun
I have been looking for accounting software for ages (whilst studying). All my studies used Sage 50 Accounts and it is great if you want to work for a company/practice that uses it. The exam bodies seem geared up to expect you to use it (and I do own a copy of Sage Accounts 2014 purchased very cheap of eBay).
However, Sage is a non starter due to cost. I have looked at numerous other products (Solar seems to have become Solar Online !!) - been up in the clouds and back down. Looked at apps that photo receipts and upload (is this the future - anybody have clients that do this ?).
So back to the point - I have just downloaded VT Transaction and cantered through the manual !!
A couple of questions :-
Are there any COA for Not For Profit Orgs or Charities ?
If a COA doesn't suit your needs you can change them, however, Charities are quite a specialist and potentially complex area so you may want to opt for a third part built templates. Try this link http://www.shop.sorpaid.com/producttype.php?id=11 or as I say, build them yourself.
I don't have any charities so can't help with that.
Is the Trial Balance and Balance Sheet ok - or do you have to get VT Accounts (I know you need it for ixbl) ?
the TB, B/S & P&L are all fine but I tend to always push everything through to VT accounts as I want to see the notes to the accounts rather than everything being on the face of them.
Are there any tutorials (have seen one on You tube) ?
Try starting here :
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/group/vt-software-discussion-group
The Ray Stewart video's which were pretty good seem to be broken which is a shame but with Youtube there are lots of video's. try starting here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obdbRGzj8wU
Loads more links down the right hand side of the page.
You don't really need instructions as it's very intuitive but doesn't hurt to look at how other people do things (especially as VT tends to have two or three ways of achieving the same goal)
Any advice you would give ?
Take a set of accounts that you have produced from your own bookkeeping in Sage and then do the same full years bookkeeping in VT through to a set of accounts ensuring that the resultant P&L and B/S match the Sage produced accounts.
First set that I did took me a week to get perfect (including one hissy fit that I was out by £14 which saw me scrap everything and start again from scratch as I couldn't find it.
Turned out eventually that the VT balance sheet was correct and it was the Sage one that had been wrong... Doh!
You may find entering opening balances a little strange for starters. Same with not closing off periods to move forwards.
Once you get used to the software though you will find it a lot faster to use than Sage and much, much more forgiving of minor mistakes.
There are quite a few how to's on here that you may find useful... Can't remember the thread but there was a bookkeeper in Asia running a dive school. Sure that there was a lot of detail in that post that you would find useful.... Hang on a sec...
Yep, here you go (search was dive school vt and found it straight off)
http://www.book-keepers.org.uk/t56120086/start-up-business-in-indoneisa-quickbooks-or-vt-or-something/
Might help you set up a set of journals for opening balances.
Previous post not working -

kind regards,

Shaun.

TrevorD · Senior Member

Thanks Shaun

Eilef · Senior Member

i have used VT Cashbook and its very simple, I did have the free trial of VT transactio but I hadnt started an bookkeeping then so it expired and I never used it.

whats the difference in VT Final Accounts and VT transaction?

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

VT final accounts is an Excel add on rather than a stand alone peice of software that produces professional looking accounts complete with the notes (looks very similar to accounts produced using IRIS).

There is an excellent iXBRL tagger facility enabling filing of accounts.

You can either enter data directly into VT Accounts which is how many Sage and Quickbooks users use it, or you can set up a feed to auto populate the accounts from VT Transaction+ which is my preferred method.

HTH,

Shaun.

HendyPhilhendy · Guru

When it comes to software Sage do have it sussed by getting the exam boards to include it as a topic; however, really all software is a tool to assisting the accounts preparation.

Data is input and reports are output. All of the main software work on the same general basis with the main difference being how it looks and how easy it is to input.

The key outputs are P&L, Balance Sheet, Debtors, Creditors, Nominal ledger reports. Almost all of the packages will have these in place.

Being able to understand different types of software is essential. Clients may well do part of the work themselves and so you need a package that suits THEM, not you as the bookkeeper.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Phil,

your right, it is a neat trick that Sage have managed to play that their product is synonymous with keeping a businesses books and records where there is actually a lot more choice in the market than they would care to admit.

I think that many smaller businesses pay too much for their software and not enough on understanding what the software is supposed to be doing for them. Never mind trainig for bookkeepers it would be good to see professional bodies training business owners about matters such as accruals, opportunity costs, sunk costs, redistribution of general overheads and profit margins.

For us as bookkeepers and accountants of course with many clients we do get to dictate what software they use. I've used the line on here before that I'm making the world a better place one ex Sage user at a time... But thats not completely true...

I can see no reason for any service industry to be on Sage software but similarly if a business required stock control then I would advise that they look at Sage or Quickbooks rather than VT.

Of course, from our side of the fence we can also decide which clients we take and have the option to (say) specialise in service providers if we so wish (for example freelance teachers, Therapists, IT workers, etc.).

And of course, when you move up to larger businesses which is the arena I have traditionally played n the most they don't use Sage at all (they either use SAP or bespoke accounting sollutions).

For the bulk of the people here though I think to understand Sage is great but try and get as many clients as possible (where it fits their business model) onto something like VT where you are not hit with ridiculously high initial cost plus a client tax if god forbid one has more than one client.

Att the end of the day if a client needs to pay for software they have two considerations. (1) Cost, (2) Ease of use. For many businesses I don't think that Sage does particularly well on either of those.

kind regards,

Shaun.

VinceH · Expert

Returning to the subject of receipt scanning services for the moment... or slightly related, storing those receipts in the cloud.

As I've probably made quite obvious, I'm not a big fan of cloud-based accounts for lots of reasons that I won't go into yet again (who just said "That's a relief!" - Grr!) but I do have a small number of clients using such systems; although I'm not keen, I am pragmatic in that if it's what the client wants, it's what the client gets.

I was with one such client yesterday (client A), and the subject of another company (client B) came up (there is a connection, which is why client A knows I handle client B's records). It's not unusual for this topic to come up, in fact - but this time it set me to thinking.

Client A is fully embracing the cloud where he can. The accounts package he uses allows supplier invoices and receipts to be uploaded to be stored alongside the transactions - and this is what he wants; if they aren't digital to start with, they get scanned and sent to me and I am expected to input them in the system and upload the scan.

Client B's accounts are in Sage. They receive most of their invoices as hardcopies in the post, which are filed traditionally, in lever arch files. Even invoices received electronically are printed, and similarly filed.

Client A thinks this is crazy and feels it would be better if they scanned the invoices, and stored them in a cloudy accounts package.

As I said, this time, it made me think.

Not in terms of "hmm, perhaps he's right..." but in terms of "OMFG! Think of the cost!"

As I said, the cloud software used by client A allows invoices etc to be uploaded - and you get 1GB free with the package.

Looking at my own archive of client A's invoices, it looks as though over the last 12 months the total file sizes come in at about 100MB. Keeping the mandatory six years worth of paperwork, based on the last 12 months, would therefore weigh in at around 600MB.

I scanned a few typical invoices at client B today, and came up with an average file size of around 300KB for a single page invoice - probably 80-90% of their invoices are single page ones, with the rest being two or more, but for the purposes of this I'll ignore those.

Then I looked at the last few month's records on Sage, to get some average monthly numbers.
Invoices per month: 370Credit card and cash receipts: 100Items paid immediately and not posted as invoices: 20So that's 490 pieces of paper per month.

Over the course of a year, that's 5,880.

Over the course of the mandatory six years, that's 35,280

Multiplying that by the average scan size, we get: 10,584,00KB - or 10,336MB or 10GB.

That's at today's level - if the company grows, that could increase still further.

I then looked at the package used by client A with those numbers in mind.

£5 per extra GB per month - so that's £45 per month; £540 per year - to store digitally what currently costs eff all to store in lever arch files (on top of the cost of the accounts package, which is £20 per month) - and that's not allowing for growth.

(Pedants might wish to point out that the cost won't be that at first, because it would be silly to upload existing paper records. Pedants might also wish to stick their opinions where the sun doesn't shine - they might find the point they missed there.)

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

I'm a pedant and proud of it... But no complaints about your logic from this quarter :)

VinceH · Expert

I'm also a terrible pedant myself about some things, and our opinions on the cloud are similar anyway - so perhaps I should have referred not to pedants, but "pedants who have drunk all of the cloud-flavoured Kool-Aid" ;)

As a slight aside, every one of those transactions is keyed into Sage by me - another thing I've said before is the difference between a line-per-transaction user interface versus a screen-per-transaction user interface. I wouldn't want to enter that sort of level of transactions in the latter, and especially not one which needs me to keep switching from keyboard to mouse.

VinceH · Expert

It just occurred to me that I haven't looked at the cost of scanning if I was to use a service for that.

Receipt Bank: £190/month for 675 monthly transactions on the multi-user plan (the next level below isn't enough) or £120 for a single user.

£2,280 or £1,440 per year.

Ouch.

Equivalent cost of my time?

For simple invoices with no problem, one of a batch (in a line per transaction UI)? Maybe 15 seconds. 490/month -> 5,880 per year (as already stated) gives 24.5 hours over the course of the year. If we randomly double that to allow for problem invoices, and/or setting up new supplier records as necessary (which is probably an overestimate), that's 49 hours. At £18/hour, that's £882.

Remind me again. Which is better?

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Ditto what Shaun said! You had me actually laughing but loud Vince, but all in seriousness.....I agree and you have to look to the future and consider potential costs rather than living in the moment! Scary numbers!