I'm just setting up my own practice and am working to a fairly tight budget. Does anybody know of good cheaper alternatives to Sage when it comes to Final Accounts Production packages and also Payroll Packages. I'm not so bothered about alternatives to Line 50 as my clients use this so I will need it.
Richard Handley
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Replies (11)
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Intiga Accounts Production
I've just started working from home doing bookkeeping and accounts and am after low cost final accounts production software. The only one I've come across so far that's within my budget is Intiga. Does anybody know of another program under £100?
Value for Money Packages
If you want ease of use, value for money and capability, visit Moneysoft's site, http://www.moneysoft.co.uk where you will find Money Manager/Final Accounts/ Office manager and Payroll Pro - all very competitively priced and a doddle to use. If you find that the Final a/cs prog does not give you what you want in terms of Final Accounts ie a posh Balance Sheet, you can copy the file to Excel and dress it up to your heart's content. I run a small practice too and have used the above without any problems. The payroll is the real plus as far as I am concerned and if you need support that is not in the manual for any reason, phone them up and speak to the authors of the software. They are very helpful. Updates can be d/loaded on line in less than 5 mins and they are regularly updated. Just because it is a whole lot cheaper than other software does not mean it is rubbish, but why buy a Rolls Royce when all the travel you do is to visit your nearest neighbour at the end of the drive?
Cheaper alternative ?
We should count ourselves lucky that Black Cab Man's suggestion includes one of those new-fangled calculator things !
With several thousand final accounts under my belt - probably around half from manual ETB's(with and without calculators!) and the other half with final accounts software - I know which helps keep my blood pressure down. A good, well thought out final accounts package such as INTIGA produces quality reports and accounts in less than half the time on many jobs. And the huge savings on erasers and tippex comes as a bonus !
Pen, Paper & Calculator
Its amazing how much people think every job is suitable for computer, when it is just as quick to use the above.
Quickbooks is OK.
Try VT and Datalink
VT Final accounts and VT Transaction works fine for accounting,bookkeeping and final accounts - easy to learn and uses familiar excel skills - all you data is easily accessed in Excel or easily transported into excel. VTT exports to most tax packages too.
Datalink is a package from Exfile Limited which extracts sage line 50 data for sampling and interrogation purposes. It also maps and write's the trial balance from sage in VTT.
The above packages are inexpensive and intergrate with other packages and office without the continual upgrade paths, redundancy, costs and reliance on big company's with their own agenda's.
If you want more info contact me.
Access Accounts Partner Program
Access Accounts runs a Partner Program, for the annual license of £150 you get a full suite of software to use in house, including Payroll, fully integrated project costing, Excel Addins, etc etc.
As for final accounts software we link to just about anything, especially Iris, which is quite inexpensive i think.
If you are really nice I can probably also sort it out for free....although dont hold me to that one.
Please drop me an e mail and i would be happy to send through brochures etc.
Regards
Richard Aldridge
Partner Manager, Asyst.
[email protected]
Intiga Accounts Production at only £75
You might take a look at Intiga Accounts Production - just released. Its a richly featured package highly suitable for small/medium practices and is easy to use. The normal entry price is £150 but up until 31st March its only £75. You can download a fully working 21 day evaluation copy from www.hmyers.btinternet.co.uk/ or obtain an installation CD (details on website).
payroll
if you read these pages you will probably know that I am an unpaid Digita fan!
but on the matter of payroll we have used moneysoft, sage , freeway recently; they all have their good and bad points; my advice is not to scrimp too much on the cost unless absolutely necessary as good software saves time and money in the long run; for all round good cheap payroll software my vote would probably go to moneysoft
Suggestions
VT software for accounts and then seamlessly in PTP www.ptpgroup.co.uk for returns production. Very inexpensive (cheap, very practical solution. Both packages score very highly in tests and are affordable. Yours Viv Burrows [email protected]