For one of my clients I won't have the 64-8 back in time by the looks of it.
I understand that it's possible to use tax return software instead. Had a look around and tax filer looks as if it will do what I need. Am I ok to submit with that if the 64-8 doesn't come back in time?
__________________
John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I had the same problem last year and ended up using Andica to file one.
Don't know if I'm the odd one out but I actually prefer HMRC's software to many of the other options out there.
That said, Andica worked so not complaining.
__________________
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 HMRC software too but did a few on Taxfiler (you need third party software for partnerships). I will do all on Taxfiler next year since I decided to sign up as will also need it for CT returns.
I have,been using Taxfiler for the past 18 months for self assessments, partnership returns and Corp Tax. I find it really easy to use, very quick to complete and a really good price. It also stores all of you past returns and populates all details into any new returns making it really user friendly. Would definitely recommend to anyone. Easiest I've come across so far.
My Iris subscription is up for renewal soon, every year I consider ditching them but the thought of setting everyone up again on a new system sends shivers down my spine!
I moved to Taxfiler this year and love it. It's the easiest software I've used and Rob, setting up clients is a doddle. It even has the facility to input/import a TB to generate a set of accounts that can then feed in the tax return. At £12 a month it is a no-brainier for me.
I feel your pain Mark, my renewal is going to cost over £5k plus vat next month and that's after I cancelled 'company secretarial'....
Velbee (or others who have used taxfiler), what's the accounts production like. A few years ago I checked out 'Absolute' but I hated the look of the accounts it churned out!
I've worked with a few accountants now who take the trial balance from various software (Sage, Xero, etc.) and plug it into VT Accounts for a pretty nice looking set of books.
Worth noting that you do not need to use VT Transaction+ to use VT accounts.
I would not however dream to suggets that it is an integrated package like Iris. Then again, £225 a year vs £5k! Just a thought.
__________________
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 review all my software options Shaun. Sage is wanting £300 per month now and Iris is crazy money. Switching to Moneysoft for payroll, Taxfiler and VT could save the best part of £10k. I have the time to action it nowadays, just need the confidence in the products in terms of quality and efficiency...
When you are able to set a few days aside VT accounts comes with a 60 day free trial. Its pretty much fully functional apart from the iXBRL filing. You will find it well worth a play and as I say, amongst accountants although you don't see much eviddence of VT Transaction+ for bookkeeping (which is a tragedy, the bulk of accountants still seem to use Sage), VT Accounts seems to be in quite common useage for accounts production.
On the efficiency front, if you don't use VT Transaction+ it does of course require the manual entry of the trial balance into an Excel overlay where I appreciate that many other packages are more integrated. Then again how long does it take to copy and pastea couple of dozen fields into Excel (plus copy and paste the prior periods balances accross one column for comparatives).
On the quality front I did a look and feel test with another accountant who swore by the top end solution but from a printed output perspective they found very little difference between the two and would have had no issue presenting the VT output to a client... Maybe thats why VT always have the best ads in the front cover of ACCA's monthly AB magazine but they are only ever pushing the accounts production software, not the bookkeeping software (VT Transaction+) that we often chat about on here.
If you need further proof go and see how they rave about VT accounts over on Aweb.
Even if you do not eventually adopt it, it woulkd I feel be a crime to not at least evaluate it whilst comparing it to the other offerings in the market.
HTH,
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.
Thanks everyone for your help, I went with taxfiler in the end, and although not having all the questions you get on HMRC in order to determine what they present you to input (you have to manually add the pages you need (employment, self employment etc) I didn't find it to bad at all. Going to attempt to do a CT600 on it in a couple of weeks, see how I get on.
Beauty of this is I can see my clients at a glance and know what stage I'm at, (panicked a bit last night on HMRC (have I done that one, check, this one check) so I will probably end up doing all the filing on Tax Filer from now on. As Velbee says, at £12 a month inc VAT, it's a no brainer.
__________________
John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I feel your pain Mark, my renewal is going to cost over £5k plus vat next month and that's after I cancelled 'company secretarial'....
Hey I would be happy if my IRIS fee was £5k + VAT a year.
Rob if your renewal is due next month you might now be too late as IRIS has a 90 day notice period. If not given then you are stuck for another year.
Although expensive in £ terms in % terms of my business it is only about 5-6% of turnover which I am happy to pay as it saves times in other areas.
Though if taxcalc got some proper practice management and mail merge functionality I would go back to them as the only other thing I need is timesheet software that something like TBooker is more than adequate for.
Hi Mark, from previous posts I seem to recall you use Iris quite extensively. I ditched Co Sec recently and so only use it for accounts production and tax. Like you in terms of percentage of turnover it is very small and I wonder if saving a few thousand would be worth it, I just dislike the feeling of being taken advantage of, even if it is largely down to my own complacency...
When you are able to set a few days aside VT accounts comes with a 60 day free trial. Its pretty much fully functional apart from the iXBRL filing.
It does produce an iXBRL file, both for the accounts and the computations, but you need something like Andica or Tax Filer to file with HMRC, simply by attached the file to the submission. And something else, which I didn't realise until now, is that you can submit abbreviated accounts direct to Co House if you have a presenter ID.
__________________
John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
no, I think that you misunderstood what I was saying there.
I wasn't saying that VT doesn't have iXBRL functionality, I was saying that the trial version was pretty much fully functional apart from the ability to file.
Once you pay them your pennies the iXBRL functionality becomes fully functional.
__________________
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.
Hi Mark, from previous posts I seem to recall you use Iris quite extensively.
Not really just use the following
1. Accounts Production
2. Business Tax
3. Personal Tax
4. Time and Fees
5. Automail
6. Practice Management
Though we do have 3 licences with the exception of Acc Prod and PM which we have 4.
However the Time and Fees and Automail modules havent been used since I started using IRIS and will be spending the next couple of months looking at how they work so can get set up before the start of April. This should save us time at job completion plus let us see at the click of a button the time spent on each job.
Have my IRIS account manager coming up in March to see me about various things. They are also bringing one of the Kashflow manager as would make sense to start using that more for bookkeeping clients so can seamlessly link with accounts production.
Looking possibly at starting to use the following
1. Openspace - currently use Hellosign which like but would be more efficient to use Openspace.
2. Openaudit - looking to move to paperless working papers.
3. Docs - currently use Docusoft for document management which like but would be more effiicient to use IRIS docs.
4. Company Secretarial - currently use Inform Direct which like but would be more effiicient to use IRIS Co Sec.
