I use 12pay and QuickBooks, but I'm not sure I like the software in QuickBooks and to up-grade the payroll for the next financial year I have to upgrade the accounts desktop software to 2017.
As yet I'm waiting a call from Intuit to give me a price which I believe I can only buy from them as a monthly subscription; I prefer 12pay and suspect it would be much cheaper to go with them and stick with the 2016 accounts software which we're completely happy with, although my client likes the idea of the software all being integrated.
The other thing he wants to look at is giving his lads time-sheets, so I'm wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with mobile apps and how they have worked with importing the time to 12Pay or Quickbooks?
Is your client willing too pay to have it integrated? If he is I would go for it, but if not, then stick with 12pay.
Quickbooks offer a timesheet option with their top end cloud version, but that would mean switching to online at £25 + VAT a month (£10 for first 6 months) plus £1 per employee
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
As yet I don't know what the extra cost would be to have it all integrated, so I'm not sure if the client would be willing to pay to have it integrated.
I have just now received a quote from QuickBooks to up-grade the software and I'm shocked at how much they are asking for. Basically they have told me that it's more cost effective to change to the on-line version, but I don't like the on-line version, I don't think it's as good as the desktop version and the internet isn't always brilliant from the office and we'll only be able to work on it when we have internet !!!
I really don't understand why these companies seem to be forcing us onto the cloud !!! oh well, I think the decision may be made, because I'm now of the mind to pay 1/5th of the cost to 12pay and not up-grade QuickBooks at all and stick with what we have already for now as we don't really have many employee, although they have just informed me that they won't add another user to our current version as they are now supporting it any longer.
They've stopped supporting the 2016 version? Oh dear, I think the writings on the wall for desktop and I doubt we'll see a 2018 version, especially considering it will need to be MTD compliant.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I hope they don't get rid of the desktop version. I have rubbish internet speeds and the online version isn't an option. It does make me wonder what HMRC expect people in such areas to do for MTD. Not everyone has fibre. My village gets 0.5 - 2mbps. How can anyone work effectively online with those speeds?
Regarding the original post. I didn't get on with QuickBooks payroll at all. I switched to Moneysoft. Great product, easy to use. Good helpdesk.
What happens if (far fetched but) I am an avid, active user of Xero, Sage or other cloud based software and for whatever reason I start having issues, my attitude and opinions start turning sour -
Could my whole account be locked, all my data gone If customers services decided they didn't like my views?
Not really a conversation I'd want to be having with a client. Even if the client was just released from my accounting portal.
Same goes with this forum - if I were to start insulting people I'd be barred (rightly so) no leg to stand on and chances are it would take weeks to appeal against a decision.
So I'm of the view with the cloud that you should remain anonymous and tow the line, together with remaining opinion neutral.
Scary! (Or I'm paranoid!)
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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.
While I'm cynical (and critical) of cloud rubbish, I think in the situation you describe you'd have some legal recourse - you'd be a paying customer, after all, and the data stored on their systems would be vital to your business and its legal requirements. As such, I doubt that situation would ever occur, because the cloud company concerned would get some major bad press from it.
One of my clients is moving from their current cloud accounts provider to Xero in the near future. I've never used Xero, despite it being one of the big players in our field - so I looked in more detail at their site, and in particular their Ts&Cs etc - there was nothing especially surprising (to me) there, but I'm sure there are a few points that customers have simply not registered.
For example, that they can't guarantee access because (duh!) your internet connection - or anything between you and them - can go wrong. Or that they can't guarantee the integrity of your data, so you should maintain backups.
There was nothing about smiling and saying nice things about them, though. However, if you sign up to their partner programme, you have to actively promote them. That kind of precludes being negative, I suppose :)
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
"I wonder if HMRC will except, as a valid excuse, the cloud being down for reason for not being able to submit returns!"
I'd be doubtful. The bottom line is that it's the end user's choice as to what record keeping tools to use, be that a manual cash book, desktop software, or cloud - and it's their responsibility to ensure the tools they use are up to the job required of it. While an outage may be beyond the user's control, the risk of that outage was their choice.
Otherwise we could all submit everything late and blame our internet connections, using that as a get out of jail free card.
Case in point: I am reminded (and I think I've mentioned it here before) that in the early days of online VAT submissions, I had an issue submitting one client's return online: HMRC's own servers weren't coping with demand. This was on a Friday, and the actual deadline was the next day. I took the return home to submit from there later in the day, and got home to discover my internet connection was down, so I couldn't do it. I went out, and checked my connection when I got home - it was working again, so I figured I'd be okay to sort the return out in the morning. The next day, I discovered my connection was down again, and it stayed down - iirc, for the rest of the weekend.
HMRC treated it just like any other late VAT return and issued a fine.
In this case, we did fight it - and the tribunal found in our favour. The crucial point was that I'd tried several times to submit it on the Friday (the last working day before the deadline), and this was reflected in HMRC's own logs (and I'd had the good sense to print the error reports from their website in case they were needed). If that wasn't the case, and it was just down to my internet connection being down, that wouldn't have happened - and rightly so.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
In response to the original question, 12Pay has strong facilities for importing text files (eg csv) of timesheet information from 3rd party applications.
In response to the original question, 12Pay has strong facilities for importing text files (eg csv) of timesheet information from 3rd party applications.
Thanks Tom, that's useful to know.
I personally feel you should buy payroll software to do payroll and accounts software to do accounts, maybe an old fashioned opinion, but you wouldn't use excel to write a letter; plus I feel that the options for obtaining compatible software probably give a greater choice if you don't put all your eggs in one basket and at a cheaper cost.
Interesting points regarding the internet and cloud based software. Yes, it is obvious that ££££ is the driving force that did tickle me lol
But not all sizes fit all; surely bigger companies do not wish to be replying solely on internet connections to prepare their accounts and payroll, or people in areas where internet is slow or not supplied at all; without internet then deadlines can not be met and also members of staff can not work with a loss in a productiveness to that business with staff sitting idle whilst being paid.
A lot of bigger companies already have the option to work on-line on their accounts/payroll through a third party or by purchasing a server, and therefore they have the best of both worlds, and very often don't actually need to work on-line, this is just supplied as an added extra if needs be, therefore in withdrawing desktop based software's or introducing expensive monthly subscriptions then these suppliers are possibly shooting themselves in the foot by forcing customers look to other options, such as packages that are bespoke and which doesn't have the restrictions of QuickBooks or Sage etc, or maybe very small business will revert back to manual accounts/spreadsheets, god forbid.
