"the big brother VT+ doesn't need Excel, only VT Accounts does."

D'oh. I must have known that at some point, then forgot! I should probably switch to that, then.

[...]

"Like many other bits of kit the software learns the more that you use it."

s/learns/looks through the transaction history and offers up the first few matches/

(Sorry, but the programmer in me just wants to projectile vomit at the idea of a simple historical look-up being described as learning! It's nice that the look up, and therefore suggestions, span multiple fields - but it's still only a bloody look up!)

[...]

"For standing order you can set up repeating payments rather than entering them manually each time."

I didn't look (the job I was using it for was just so small it wasn't worth the effort) but I guessed there would be a recurring transaction system somewhere. Any accounting/bookkeeping software that lacks one should be taken out and shot.

"Of the things that you list, Direct debits are just payments. Do you really need to record how the payment was made provided that you know that it has gone out of the bank."

My preferred approach is to use a reference type field to record either one of:

• cheque number
• PIS number
• Payee name if an electronic payment
• 'DC' for debit card
• 'CC' for credit card
• 'DD' for direct debit
• 'SO' for standing order
• and so on

Ideally, the software's reconciliation tool will allow me to sort the unreconciled transactions according to that reference field - thus giving me all the cheques grouped together in cheque number order, all the paying in slips (which might be several different items) in serial number order (though I recognise your comment, now snipped, about entering data from a single serialised slip), and so on.

When doing a large bank rec, I find that helps me do the job incredifast.

It also helps satisfy the OCD element in me, that likes to see matching information... match.

VT cashbook uses a reference field - but auto-increments it according to the transaction types as above (and doesn't allow sorting anyway in the bank rec screen AFAICS). I did, before I realised about the lack of sorting, try to cheat by entering 'DD' 'SO' etc as the first couple of characters in the details field.

Incidentally, that auto-numbering could in some cases be annoying. You have a new business, your first cheque is number 000001, it is for £10 for Joe Bloggs. You also enter a SO, using the other payment type, it is for John Smith for £10 - and being the first transaction of this type, it is numbered 000001.

You come to reconcile your bank.

The first transaction is a cheque, 000001, £10.

The first two transactions in VT Cashbook are both numbered 000001, and both for £10.

I can't remember now - and can't be arsed to load it and check - does it differentiate between those two transactions, so you know which one is 'cheque' 000001, and which one is 'payment' 000001? (I know the detail will be different, but you don't see the name associated with a cheque on the bank statement!)

(I also know it's an unlikely scenario, but it's what we like to call an 'edge case' when testing software - an unlikely situation that could conceivably occur, and could break things or show up UI flaws, etc).

Another afterthought: If I enter a DD as a cheque, will it let me put DD as the reference and not complain that it's not numeric? That would be a simple solution.

Anyway, I won't have to touch this client again for another few months. I'll make a point of using VT Transaction for it next time, rather than VT Cashbook.

Or maybe a miracle will happen, and I'll suddenly have enough cash in the bank that I don't need to do any paid work, and have no client based work to do, and thus be able to start rolling my own (aka something decent, that works the way I want it to!)