# Accounting Software



## Jonmurgie (Feb 11, 2007)

Thought I'd ask a slightly random question seeing as there's a wide variety of folk on here perhaps someone will have some advice...

Basically, I've been doing the accounts for my Ltd. company in very basic Excel format and all my invoicing in plain Word documents for the past 6+ years but my accountant has been nagging me to move over to using Sage for a while now. I DO see the advantage of moving over to a proper accounts/invoice package but have read some scary opinions on Sage about how antiquated it is and seriously hard to get used to...

SO, do any of you use accounting software and have any recommendation's? If it helps, my business is quite small with only a few invoices a month and no need for Payroll (accountant does do that for me).

Cheers

Jon


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## Running_man (Dec 2, 2005)

Jonmurgie said:


> Thought I'd ask a slightly random question seeing as there's a wide variety of folk on here perhaps someone will have some advice...
> 
> Basically, I've been doing the accounts for my Ltd. company in very basic Excel format and all my invoicing in plain Word documents for the past 6+ years but my accountant has been nagging me to move over to using Sage for a while now. I DO see the advantage of moving over to a proper accounts/invoice package but have read some scary opinions on Sage about how antiquated it is and seriously hard to get used to...
> 
> ...


The only other one I've heard of apart from Sage is Quicken. My Mum and Dad used it years ago but I don't know if there's an up to date version that's good enough for business use.

Andrew.


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

Jon to be honest if you are only have a few invoices a month then even getting the basic Sage modeule is overkill, I am guessing your accountant uses Sage and it will save him some time if you do as well!

A mate of mine uses KashFlow and swears by it, files can also be exported in Sage format.


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## colinryan (Jul 8, 2007)

Excel is all you need. Tell your accountant to shove his Sage up his arse.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

Why is your accountant nagging you? I'll bet it's because he uses Sage and wants you to supply data in a format that makes life easier for him.

If you really have to process only a few invoices per month then I'd suggest that your current system is perfectly fine and you don't need to change. You get on with running your business and let your accountant earn his money doing his job processing your accounts in the format that you provide.

If you decide that you do want to change to a "proper" accounts package, the three simplest SOHO type packages that spring to my mind are Quicken, MS Money and Sage, in that order, although I'm not familiar with the latest versions.

[EDIT]JoT and colinryan took the words right out of my mouth







[/EDIT]


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## jaslfc5 (Jan 2, 2007)

i agree tell youre accountant to get lost - sage is too involved its taken me ages to find the right accountant i can phone through my payroll, my vat returns are usually written out in pencil and they dont complain they are the best in the area ,not cheap but piece of mind is all important - ive just talked them into taking monthly payments instead of one big nasty bill every year .

otherwise quickbooks is very easy to use and a fraction of the price of sage.

hope this helps .


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## Mutley (Apr 17, 2007)

I agree with the previous replies regarding Sage, all you need is excel. You don't even need word for the invoicing as there are invoice templates included with excel or can be downloaded

Andrew


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## Robert (Jul 26, 2006)

JoT said:


> Jon to be honest if you are only have a few invoices a month then even getting the basic Sage modeule is overkill, I am guessing your accountant uses Sage and it will save him some time if you do as well!


Sounds about right. If it saves him time ask him how much his bill will reduce by. That may pay for the software.

My only recollection of Sage was on the payroll side and having to buy blank P60's in packs of something like 50 but only needing 10. The software itself was fine.


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## Jonmurgie (Feb 11, 2007)

Cheers guys... I totally agree that my accountant is only suggesting that I use Sage to make HIS life easier!!

I guess that I would like a little more organisation for my clients invoicing and general income/expenditure and that's why I was thinking that a proper package may be worth trying, I'd actually got as far as installing Sage this evening before I posted this thread but quickly deleted it after coming to my senses!!

So although I COULD continue with Excel I will look at some of those other suggested packages









Cheers

Jon


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## Xantiagib (Apr 22, 2005)

I always recommend - Tas Books... but then Sage bought them.

Its the only program that we've been able to restore, copy, migrate, push around and still come out working as it did before.

Sage line 50 - different story

How about Microsoft Money ?


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## James (Jul 17, 2006)

Peachtree

Quicken stuff

Clarysis

MYOB

Sage stuff

Simply Accounting

Small Business Accounting

Which I happen to have all of them


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## Jonmurgie (Feb 11, 2007)

Thanks James, is that the order in which you like/recommend them?


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## Griff (Feb 23, 2003)

Hyperdata.................bloody excellent


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## James (Jul 17, 2006)

Jonmurgie said:


> Thanks James, is that the order in which you like/recommend them?


nope not really! most of these are large appz, Clarysis appz have a smaller footprint though. should not matter which country there are for since you are not doing payroll, charging taxes though may make the need for country specific appz a need though, but most allow you to adjust the tax rates


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## philjopa (May 18, 2005)

Just to give you an accountants view on it, if your company is that small then Excel and Word is probably all you need.

I recon that about a third of our clients use sage. Overall I'd say that it does make their life easier, especially if you do your own VAT. It also makes it easier for us too though it doesn't automatically guarantee you a reduction in fees. The main advantage of sage is that information is presented in a standardised way.

Many people take sage on board but get into an absolute buggers muddle with it that can sometimes take longer to sort than a carrier bag full of invoices and bank statements. If we think that it can genuinely make a clients life easier we recommend it to them. If not we can always suggest suitable alternatives and can even bespoke Excel spreadsheets to specific clients needs.

Sage is a giant entity and is slowly cornering the market. However there are few other products out there that can compete and so ultimately you probably have little choice. Mind you watch out for Microsoft as they're already looking to take over this market.....


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## chris l (Aug 5, 2005)

Whatever you use... BACK IT UP!

Sorry, a touchy subject with IT people, like me, who only get consulted when the worst has already happened....

I'm sure that I'm preaching to the converted, but there are lots of sole traders/small businesses without a proper plan for what to do when Mr. Gate's finest, fails... which it will, sooner or later...

Make backups regularly and store them elsewhere.

I'd get me coat but it's sunny...


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## r1ch (Feb 2, 2004)

Absolutely what Chris said!









I do "Disaster Tolerant" and "Highly Available" IT design/strategy for a living and wince at some of the tales I hear from Sole Trader/Small Business acquaintances I have. If all else fails use an external Hard Drive and set up off line folders or even My Briefcase, (assuming an MS O/S), and make sure the thing is backed up every day. Laptop drives and caddies are peanuts these days and itâ€™ll give you so much peace of mind to know if the machine goes t*ts up, youâ€™ve got your data protected. Donâ€™t forget your Outlook files as well, theyâ€™re buried in the Microsoft directory on the system partition and not usually to be found in your â€œMy Documentsâ€ area unless youâ€™ve moved them there.

I know a chap who is a sole trader and he burns and encrypts his mission critical data to DVD and posts a copy of it to himself second class once a week. That way thereâ€™s always a copy â€œoff siteâ€ if his gaf burns down! Not sure that Iâ€™d recommend that, but if its possible to do some sort of safe off site storage itâ€™s a very smart move.

Iâ€™ve got a â€œdeadâ€ laptop drive on my desk at the moment that has got masses of pictures on it that arenâ€™t backed up anywhere. Iâ€™ve said Iâ€™ll have a go at getting the data off â€" but itâ€™s always a worse position than having a decent backup. Anyone know of some decent shareware or licence free data recovery software that I can have a crack with??

Rich


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## sssammm (Oct 7, 2003)

Ive been using sage line 50 for my business for 7 years, the latest version is the nuts......ive got a copy with passwords if you want it free..... line 50 v12.. i also backup to a usb key drive every day, use it as a keyring

sam


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## USMike (Mar 16, 2003)

Just remember, Sage now also owns Peachtree.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

Just for info if anyone's still looking at this 

MS Press Release - Microsoft Money Plus


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

Oh come on! If the NSA (or any other shadowy govt. organisation you care to mention) wants to get hold of your financial information they have numerous overt and covert ways of doing it. Having their "suspects" install MS Money is hardly their number one avenue of investigation.

And why so many people are quite so paranoid about MS is something of a mystery to me. I'm paid to be paranoid and I'm not particularly scared of them. I'm much more frightened of Google!

But that's a whole other thread for another forum


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

You divulged quite a lot of information in that last post


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

As you clearly enjoy a good conspiracy theory:

Facebook - The CIA Conspiracy - from yesterday's NZ Herald.

Quick, get those tin-foil hats on


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