***SPAM ALERT***

And that's apart from stealing my username (well sort of) 

morning John,

I would claim damages, lol.

Ledgersync is yet another solution without a problem, much like Hubdoc, Filethis and receiptbank. All of them are aimed at eradicating the shoebox client issue but all of them ignore the fact that any client who is not going to keep their documentation properly is also not going to scan it into a computer to send to you so the reality is that instead of having a pile of receipts to collate and enter, you have a pile of recipts to collate, scan and then check that the OCR software has recognised them properly.

If it gives someone an extra two hours then I'm thinking that they're not counting the time scanning and checking.

If they're assuming that everything is recognised correctly by the software then that seems a bit slap dash.

There is no time saving with this sort of software unless the client scans everything themselves and if they do you can bet your bottom dollar that they will have missed something.

Much better to ensure that they actually throw everything in a show box and then you wallpaper your front room floor with it once a year.

To me seems like $80 a month to increase your workload. (yep, $, it's American software).

Never underestimate the ability of the software industry to find ever more ingenious ways of emptying your pockets whilst giving no actual benefit in return.

Morning Joanne

Wow, was that on the same website visit?  

I had a brief look at the webby, but at Approx £45 its even dearer than Xero.  Given that this software is a feed in to other (presumably) cloud systems, why bother?  I assume that most cloud software have their own feeds.

Oh, and sorry to spoil your Saturday fun     I was an unusual early bird this morning

Morning Shaun

Very true, and this software is only for idiots imo. I just imported my own bank statements into VT+ in a fraction of the time it would have taken to do them manually, and it never cost me a penny!

On a slightly different note, now that MTD isn't imminent for those below the VAT threshold, the cloudy software boys have quietened down a tad.

However I had intended to buy that scanner this year, but have had to put it on hold for a while.  Coupled with the built in receipt software, I reckon that'll save me a fair bit of input time from the shoebox clients, but I will be ensuring that the info it gives me still matches the receipt inputted.

Hello John and everyone else on the forum..

I thought I would respond as adequately and detailed as I can.

1) Ledgersync is not another "dumb American software".  I think you should consider the enormous complexity of connecting to a bank or credit card and extracting all the essential information that YOU need in order to do your bookkeeping. For someone who uses Xero you would know that Xero outsources their data aggregation to a third party company and there are failures all the time.

2) The US market is NOT LIKE THE UK. The US has over 6,000 Banks + a  few thousand more Credit Unions and therefore connecting to all these bank web sites is extremely hard. Dissmissing Ledgersync clearly highlights and shows that you don't appreciate and value the work that Xero and others are doing behind the scenes to get your data. 

3) Ledgersync pulls in Check images in addition to statements. Yes you can connect to your client's bank and pull in the data yourself, but as I understand there are no "checks/cheques" in the UK. In the US still very popular and therefore the ONLY WAY to view checks is to click and view each check one at a time. Imagine the immense costs of doing so.

4)Because there are so many bank options and bank programs, many consumers have multiple bank sub-accounts and credit cards. Our fee is~ $2.00 per linked account, by far cheaper then paying someone to log into the bank and pull in the bank info.

5) Have you considered the liability that you incur by holding your client's username/password? 

6) advertising removed

7) The spelling mistake was noted and will be fixed. 

I bet you others can say that your job is irrelevant and paying someone to do bookkeeping is old school, but that would be a lie because you are offering a service that can't be so easily replicated. Ledgersync is all about accessing hard to get data because many times client's DON'T WANT to pass along their bank info to their BK's + username and passwords are changing all the time + Banks hold the data on their web site for a very "limited amount of time"... To the many that use Ledgersync paying $2 to provide them their data seems like a good deal, especially if you are trying to automate the entire on boarding process.

Remember the US is a different Beast then the UK. In total we are looking at over 10,000 connections in the UK it's maybe 20-30? 

Maurice

CEO of Ledgersync

Frankly Maurice we dont give a damn.

This is a UK site for UK bookkeepers, not for freelancers to dump their dumb 'recommendations' nor for business owners to dump their adverts.

Firstly your little pal who started this - making claims about such a product when she hasnt signed up for it yet, never mind tested it, isnt too bright. Nor accurate - 2 hours saving, I dont think so!

Secondly you have made some sweeping comments in your own arguments back to us, but as we are in the UK and cannot use your product (and nor would we want to) we really just arent that bothered.

There is absolutely no complexity of connecting to a bank or credit card company in the UK, because we dont have the dumb American banking system that you guys have, we left all that behind in the 1800s.

Why on earth would you make the assumption that we use that zero smerro rubbish (point one of your argument). Most of us dont for many many many reasons already given on this forum before, so quite frankly we dont care about what they do so its just another irrelevance in your argument.

$2 per linked account, yet the pricing structure on your website starts at $25 and goes to an eye watering $79. Dont try to say its only $2 per account when you have to pay a minimum even if you only have one account. You marketers think your audiences are thick and thats a bloody cheek!

If anyone on this site has not considered the liability of holding their clients user name and password then frankly they are acting against the individual bank regulations and the terms and conditions their client signed up to, so are open to claims against fraud, more so when the banks refuse to refund the client against fraud due to them breaching such terms. So that would be dumb. Never mind it is against our professional bodies code of ethics and can mean sanctions/being struck off their books if anything goes wrong. Never mind that being morally wrong. So that is a non argument. Clients should NOT pass their user name and passwords on, each professional will have their own.

It takes seconds to extract the Bank data from 95% of banking institutions in the UK and not much longer to update the data into the software as John has shown and as, indeed, many of us do on a regular basis. All for free!! So $0 is a better deal for us!

Oh and the Bank's do not keep their information for a limited amount of time, if they do then I suggest moving banks! They have to retain the data for a minimum of 7 years and indeed this is available via online banking, in line with, in fact in excess of, our tax authorities deadlines for retaining such data. Another reason why your arguments do not wash and are not appropriate for this market.

Oh and we really should not need to point out your spelling mistakes. Do we get a longer freebie go for doing so? A thank you for spotting such a show of unprofessionalism wouldnt have gone amiss. Oh noooooo. Does make you wonder though if you can get that wrong........

Still we can 'rely' on the site recommends hey! Of course we can!

Remember this is a UK site and one that doesnt want your US product, nor your spam, nor your half baked arguments back to our comments. You are still producing a so called solution to a problem that does not exist, rather like a lot of so called accounting software companies who try to make out the wonderful time saving opportunites to the mass one man band/small type businesses, who generally manage to mess up their books more than they did when it was just a pile of manky receipits in a plastic bag!

Edited to add a $ sign

Cheska wrote:

---

Anyone here using Ledgersync? I am thinking of using it since they offer 15% off for the first 3 months (if you guys are also interested, the promo code is "LS4ME"). It's basically a software that eliminates data entry since you can directly import your client's bank transactions and statements through their bank feed. The extra 2 hours for doing other tasks is really beneficial, especially for freelancers like me.

---

Hi John

The part in red is the part that leaves me a wee bit incredulous. She is stating as fact that the software will save her 2 hours, yet the part in blue shows she has never used their product. 

Ledgersync wrote:

---

Hello John and everyone else on the forum..

 

I thought I would respond as adequately and detailed as I can.

 

1) Ledgersync is not another "dumb American software".  

Your right, It's unfair to pick on it's origin. Lets not be cruel to Americans people. So scratch the middle word.

I think you should consider the enormous complexity of connecting to a bank or credit card and extracting all the essential information that YOU need in order to do your bookkeeping.

Why do we need software for that?

For someone who uses Xero you would know that Xero outsources their data aggregation to a third party company and there are failures all the time.

Thanks, another reason for people not to use Xero besides the long list of other reasons that Vince and myself have come up with over the past few years.

 

2) The US market is NOT LIKE THE UK.

But bless, you do try.

The US has over 6,000 Banks

I think that you use the term bank very loosely.

+ a  few thousand more Credit Unions

Yep, we have building societies. They think that they're banks as well

and therefore connecting to all these bank web sites is extremely hard.

I would give up. seems way too much effort to make something that we don't want.

Dissmissing Ledgersync clearly highlights and shows that you don't appreciate and value the work that Xero and others are doing behind the scenes to get your data.

Xero and others can go take a long walk off a short pier

3) Ledgersync pulls in Check (Cheque) images in addition to statements.Yes you can connect to your client's bank and pull in the data yourself

Or just grab their statements and extract the info into Excel using any old OCR software.

, but as I understand there are no "checks/cheques" in the UK.

You understand incorrectly. In mainland Europe cheques are being phased out but in the UK they are alive and kicking.

In the US still very popular and therefore the ONLY WAY to view checks is to click and view each check one at a time.

Why not look at the bank statement that will have all of the cheques on it lionked to the description in the bookkeeping of what constituted each cheque?

Imagine the immense costs of doing so.

Minimal

4)Because there are so many bank options and bank programs,

Yep, I wrote some of them!

many consumers have multiple bank sub-accounts and credit cards.

Yep.

Our fee is~ $2.00 per linked account, by far cheaper then paying someone to log into the bank and pull in the bank info.

The clients get statements anyway and if we want to look on line there's no additional expense involved.

5) Have you considered the liability that you incur by holding your client's username/password? 

Two words... Engagement Letter.... Two more... Professional Indemnity...

6) Advertising removed

7) The spelling mistake was noted and will be fixed. 

 

I bet you others can say that your job is irrelevant

Nope, never had that.

and paying someone to do bookkeeping is old school,

Whats the alternative? Do it yourself? Any company small enough to do it themselves I'm not really interested in.

but that would be a lie because you are offering a service that can't be so easily replicated.

I think that it's more about clients transfering time that they don't have to do their own books in exchange for money that they do. If they have the time then they are perhaps not fully engaged in building their business.

 

Ledgersync is all about accessing hard to get data because many times client's DON'T WANT to pass along their bank info to their BK's

Clients have no choice in the matter. They pass us their original bank information in verifiable form or we don't represent them as it would be tantamount to permitting opportunity for fraud. That will also be the same on your side of the pond.

+ username and passwords are changing all the time

And thats our problem how?

+Banks hold the data on their web site for a very "limited amount of time".

 

Not on this side of the atlantic they don't.

To the many that use Ledgersync paying $2 to provide them their data seems like a good deal,especially if you are trying to automate the entire on boarding process.

Is that not attempting to automate out the bookkeeper? Are not these new products such as Xero aimed at end users rather than financial professionals in an attempt to replace rather than enhance the service we offer?

Remember the US is a different Beast then the UK. In total we are looking at over 10,000 connections in the UK it's maybe 20-30? 

But I'm sure that eventually someone will manage to fix your financial system (Joke!... Although, of those twenty of thirty you mention a couple at least have been around for a couple of hundred years more than your country has). 

Maurice

CEO of Ledgersync

 Shaun

---

It seems obvious that you are making assumptions about the market on this side of the Atlantic, and also making assumptions about marketing via social media.

I'm sure that stateside this sort of approach goes down fine but in the UK it's a bit down market and I cannot see how it would work. A better bet would be to have a stall amongst all of the other software pushers at accounting Expo to see if you get any bites from accountants who have already got clients to adopt cloudy sollutions.

More seriously, good luck with your product in the states, but I really can't see it getting many sales over here.

Shaun.