I've just had a new client who is starting up as a Limited Company, with a possibility of becoming VAT registered (he is b2b and all client are VAT, his turnover will be close to threshold). He was looking at Wave as its free. He wants a software he can look at the figures online easily.
My concern is that it is a US based software, would this be set up for VAT returns/ making tax digital etc? I've never used it, does anyone have any experience.
I was going to suggest Quickbooks (there appears to be an offer for 10 clients for £1 at the minute) or Xero and include it in my monthly fees.
There is also a possibility of having his wife on payroll as admin. I presume the Wave doesn't offer payroll for UK.
US based - no data protection. Would his clients be told about that?
Mind you - you also have the same issue with other cloudy stuff (small print T&Cs! More than documented on here!!!!!)
From what Ive seen its ok as a cashbook (like VT cashbook - he could have access to that without all the data protection issues and lert you have a backup as and when!). Ive heard it doesnt support standard VAT so you would just end up doing workarounds all the time. Plus Ive heard its slow. Although for small company, very few transactions (other than the first line of my post) Ive heard its good for a freebie.
Payroll, recommend just using moneysoft. Assuming he will need to be on it as well.
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Thanks, I may try and divert him away. He is a electronic engineer so I am guessing quite techy. He wants to have instant access to figures to evaluate his business.
What accounting software would you go with though? I normally use VT+ with Quickbooks desktop for my other halfs business. I like VT as I can streamline quite a lot, I find Quickbooks very err clunky and impossible to use for most of my clients (I csv in data quite a bit!)
I keep looking at Xero as loads of people are saying good things, that you can just automatically feed from bank statements etc, but how does that work with VAT? As the statement will only show the gross paid and the pay date and not tax point. I'm not sure if I am missing something though!
If he's hell bent on using a Cloud package, either steer him towards a psychiatrists office or, at least, towards one of the bigger names who cater for the UK market - such as Xero. He'll lose the 'free' which is obviously one of the attractions of Wave judging by your initial post.
If you already have VT+, then the cost to him of you using that is also zero. The obvious 'con' from what you said is that he wants access to the figures - but you could establish precisely what information he wants to look at, and export/produce the relevant reports from VT+ whenever you do any work and send them to him. That way he always has the most up to date information that it's possible to have, and isn't using cloudy crap.
You also have the possibility (if you have a tame web developer handy) of setting up a client section of your website, whereby any given client (starting with this one) is able to log-in and see the latest reports at any time. Same as above: produce the reports whenever you do any work on his figures, but instead of sending them to him, you put them behind his log-in.
__________________
Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Instant access is all well and good, but who is inputting the information in the said software? If you are and he only supplies it once a month then its not going to be up to date anyway. I find with these types that it is also worth drilling down as to exactly what information he wants - some just want to know the sales super quickly. Others get the whole shooting match but have no clue how to read and evaluate the info anyway.
Other than that - what Vince said.
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
"Instant access is all well and good, but who is inputting the information in the said software? If you are and he only supplies it once a month then its not going to be up to date anyway."
Exactly my point, really - I just didn't spell it out.
Sometimes a client might "want cloud" because they've heard/been told about the benefits of 'being able to access the accounts any where, any time' - but the truth is that more often than not they don't really need that access for exactly the reason you give: It's only updated by one person, once or twice per month. In some cases, I've found that the only real use the client makes of cloud software is to do their invoicing. In these cases, they could use something on their own computers for invoicing, and just provide data from that for importing into the accounts software.
By providing them with the latest reports (once you've drilled down into what they think they want) whenever you update [something non-cloudy] they're getting what they thought they wanted, without the cloud rubbish.
__________________
Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
The invoicing options on these cloud packages are expenssssiiivvve.
I still don't see the benefit, I must be thick.
I've been trying for the past 12 months to figure it out.
......
Please correct me if wrong.
1) The point of the cloud is to enable the owner to input all their own sales, invoices, etc...why pay for a bookkeeper?
2) bookkeeper enters closing year adjustments - hardly make any bacon there.
3) Bank reconciliations I like the sound of bank feeds, is that the only real benefit?
4) Client takes over all bookkeeping, bank recs and VAT - come year end nothing balances, who sorts out? Your letter of engagement states client is responsible for bookkeeping and VAT - it would be beyond unethical to draw up a tax return with mangled figures. What now? Major headache, major cost
5) All that even after said client has paid >£20 per month for unlimited invoices and bank feeds - add in your figures and well, show me the benefit!
__________________
Johnny - Owner of an overly-active keyboard.
A man who can read, yet doesn't, is in no way wiser than a man who can't.
The invoicing options on these cloud packages are expenssssiiivvve.
I still don't see the benefit, I must be thick.
I've been trying for the past 12 months to figure it out.
......
Please correct me if wrong.
1) The point of the cloud is to enable the owner to input all their own sales, invoices, etc...why pay for a bookkeeper? No the point of the cloud is to screw as much income out of unsuspecting owners making them think that they want everything at their fingertips in an instant, keep up with the Jones' type fashion, my mate down the put has it so why dont you kind of view. Call me a cynic. Yup. Anyway - you will find that unless they are really teeny tiny businesses then most of the owners get really bored really quickly of entering the data and pass it on to a bookkeeper who then has to grapple with said sh*te software until they eventually persaude the owner that its costing them loads of wonga in their time to key everything in the slow slow slow software. Or as you say, they mess it so royally that you often have to start again.
2) bookkeeper enters closing year adjustments - hardly make any bacon there. Surely an Accountant would finish this off and charge for their expertise. If you are a bookkeeper/Accountant then you charge the Accountancy rates?
3) Bank reconciliations I like the sound of bank feeds, is that the only real benefit? Bank feeds can be and are available for other forms of software. (NatWst Bankline for Sage, being one!) 4) Client takes over all bookkeeping, bank recs and VAT - come year end nothing balances, who sorts out? Your letter of engagement states client is responsible for bookkeeping and VAT - it would be beyond unethical to draw up a tax return with mangled figures. What now? Major headache, major cost
5) All that even after said client has paid >£20 per month for unlimited invoices and bank feeds - add in your figures and well, show me the benefit!
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
You also have the possibility (if you have a tame web developer handy) of setting up a client section of your website, whereby any given client (starting with this one) is able to log-in and see the latest reports at any time. Same as above: produce the reports whenever you do any work on his figures, but instead of sending them to him, you put them behind his log-in.
Thanks, I think I missed the later replies.
This sounds like a great idea, I haven't got a website yet. Was planning on investing in that later this year. Would it be difficult/costly to have a client log on area? I've only ever had a really simple site before.
I think it is a thing that people want instant reports/pretty pie charts etc, all the banking apps are doing it too! I've not really covered management accounts yet (coming soon as I'm working through AAT), not sure how useful some of these reports are.
I've not had a proper sit down chat with him yet to see what he needs, he sounded like he wanted me to do all the bookkeeping (inputting) and VAT returns and payroll. He seems quite switched on an had thought about everything I asked him, but I know what its like with these software's looking all pretty, but maybe not actually meeting the expectations, and a bit of know how and an excel spreadsheet can do more!
It will also be my first limited company, eek, will have to pass onto accountant for YE and filing, but its another area covered.
I can only reply quickly because I'm in a bit of a rush today (heading off for the weekend later for an event)
I can't say whether it'll be expensive to set up a client/log-in area - because some of it depends on your hosting, who does your website and their abilities, what software they use (if any) for the site, and so on.
But if you do go down this route, you will need to ensure the log-in is on a part of your site only accessible over HTTPS (so you need a certificate for the site).
Whoever sets it up for you, they absolutely MUST salt and hash the clients' passwords. Any web developer worthy of more than being shown the door should know what that means - but in a (possibly oversimplified) nutshell:
Salting involves adding an extra fixed string to the password - not so much to make it longer, but to try to make it more unique (in case people use the same passwords across different sites, which far too many people still do).
Hashing is a one way process that turns the (salted) password into what (to humans) is a meaningless string of gibberish. Being one-way, you can't take the hash and turn it back into the password.
Whenever the client logs in, the process should add the salt to what he/she enters, then hash it again: If the resulting hash matches the stored hash, they've entered the password correctly, and the log-in can proceed.
The other thing to consider is how to approach the job: Let's assume your site is at www.example.com.
One option is a single log-in page that all your clients can access, with the code behind it determining what they can access based on who they are. This would be the 'proper' way to go about things, and it therefore seems more professional, because it's presenting a single log-in page. Your clients might all go to www.example.com, and click on the 'Client Log-in' link, to go to www.example.com/clients/login.php and enter their user name/password.
The other option (and this is where I'm cheating at the moment - it's what I'm doing because I haven't had time to do anything else) is to give each client a separate, non-published address to log in. So Joe Bloggs and Co might be given www.example.com/clients/joebloggs/login.php and John Smith Trading might be given www.example.com/clients/johnsmithtrading/login.php - each log-in is then entirely separate from any other, and the log-in details can therefore be stored only in that clients' section. One of the downsides with this, though - as well as not 'looking' as professional - is that whenever you add a new client, you have to set it all up; copy the code from one of the others or your templates for it, set up their log-in details, etc.
__________________
Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
