Fees for iXBRL
There is definitely a cost incurred in implementing iXBRL. There is the cost of installing the software (several hours for a network of 40 PCs because of CCH’s initial release together with their new iXBRL tool, then service pack, then another service pack to both accounting software and the iXBRL tool), then the hours spent having to fathom hour HMRC’s rejection messages, then onto CCH’s helpline to try and identify the problem etc. For a straightforward case with no errors the extra time is preparing the HTML file is perhaps less than 5 minutes. But some cases have involved over an hour on the phone to the helpdesk, and even emailing the data to CCH to try and locate the problem – over 2 hours spent on some clients trawling through numerous issues. So total extra time taken for iXBRL per client on average is about 20 minutes. And this is when HMRC are adopting a light touch for tagging. When full tagging comes in then lost time is only going to increase. And at the moment many software houses absorbed the cost of iXBRL – but with the increased level of support necessary, there’s going to be a point when they will have to charge. So we will be faced with real cost increases in addition to increased time. I’m aware that some accountants are charging clients for iXBRL – I’ve heard of fees of up to £100 per CT Return. What policy have you adopted?
No either - what extra time?
VT - yep, i just click the iXBRl button and there it is. Quicker than printing to PDF! Everything else works identically, no learning curve at all.
FTax, maybe an hour to work out how to use the new form plus iXBRL tax comp, after which point, easy.
And the best bit? No price change for either software. Bargain.
So, at the moment? No extra charge to the client.
Saved time!
I press the button with VT, maybe 30 seconds saving the file where I want (I'm rounding up!). No extra time with Taxcalc as I'd be attaching a pdf file otherwise. So that's a half a minute tops extra. BUT...... having swapped from PTP to VT I'm actually now saving time as when I input the TB I've got comparatives on the screen in front of me and don't have to prat about afterwards swapping postings about. And that saves me move than my extra half a minute. So I'm better off (though admittedly that's thanks to VT).
But rest assured I won't be passing on any time savings to my clients :)
perhaps the poster is a digita user?
I take on board all that they say, I think that it will not be a simple press the button change for us digita users.....I have seven webinars to sit through and a helpline that is permantly clogged up...
.
I share your pain.
As a cch user, I am in charge of rolling the ixbrl out to the staff (about 70 staff).
I have many phone calls with cch and the first few I tried to lodge all have really silly things that needed tagging adjustments. I have sent about 2 full days in total working out how to do this.
It does however prove one thing that cch is really poor. Although I knew that already.
You don't get what you pay for
What a difference in experience - VT users press a button and bingo – in contrast us CCH users require counselling! I’ve found CCH support to be very good – when you can get through to them. But the fact that I’ve needed to contact them so often says it all. Our biggest source of rejections is Viztopia’s inability to round reserves b/f the same way that it rounded reserves c/f last year. This doesn’t get picked up by CCH’s iXBRL error checkers so if we don’t spot it when reviewing the accounts then the first we know about it is when HMRC reject the figures. Trouble is the correction affects the balance sheet and/or P&L – which has already been signed by the client and filed at CH!
And checkout the websites. VT is open and even includes a page of known issues about filing VT accounts using other CT software – in contrast CCH requires user log-in.
VT is a mere £150+v (for years 2+) and £75+v for each additional user – CCH is POA.
It appears the smaller software houses not only produce cheaper software, but they’re quicker to kill bugs and react to new requirements. I’m coming to the opinion that as far as software is concerned, you don’t always get what you pay for.
I’m coming to the opinion that as far as software is concerned,
That is very, very true.
I, in common with a lot of firms, use VT, Moneysoft and QMS for tax. In all cases they are small suppliers and if you need to contact them you often actually speak to the person who is developing/writing the software. These smaller firms know that their software has to shine to attract buyers, in contrast to Sage, Iris etc who seem to just coast along because they know that larger firms will always buy their software and do not seem to be half as cost conscious.
My constant fear though is that these smaller suplliers will be made an offer by Sage etc that they cannot refuse....................... and then it will be time to jump ship smartish.
I could not go back to Word and Excel
I used to use Word and Excel to produce accounts but it took ages. I saw people using Word exclusively and it seemed incredibly inefficient. Once I switched to Digita Accounts Production I could prepare accounts in a fraction of the time.
I would recommend you consider accounts production software.
@JamesAtkinson
I suggest you consider VT.
The cost is minimal and the time it would save you is vast. In fact, taking into account the time taken to tag up Word/Excel, it may well save you time in the first year of changeover.
Seems to me ...
... that whether you pass on the additional cost to your clients has less to do with the amount or cause of the additional cost than it has to do with whether your clients will get a better combination of service and fees from the accountant next door. How much you charge is market-driven, not cost-driven. How you cope with the costs within that framework is up to you.
With kind regards
Clint Westwood
@ Mrs Hamilton
VT forces a template for related party and transactions with directors notes i.e.
Who
How much
Description
If you can fit your situation in to that template (I can for 99% of clients) then it tags automatically.
RE Word documents .... why would clients want a Word document back to them unless they are going to make changes to it? Is that something to encourage?! VT (for example) will output in to PDF and you can then use a PDF editor to add notes etc to help your client review.
iXBRL
James,
I think there may be 3rd party products that literally will enable you to manually tag.
With all due respect, I have a feeling you are going to have to take this opportunity to 'move with the times' though. I appreciate that you've got a good system that it set up how you like it, but I can't see how it's feasible in terms of the time it's going to take. It might be a good time to switch to something like VT which will do all the accounts production for you and iXBRL at the touch of a button. The time saving should outweigh any frustration at having to move from Word.
I don't know what you send to your clients in Word, but if you still want to do it, I am sure doing it the opposite way round e.g. copying from VT over to Word will still be quicker than trying to tag up a Word doc manually!
If you install a PDF printer like CUTEpdf, it will print anything to a flat PDF file which we use to email over to our clients.
Word or PDF
"My Clients also like top get the Word document back."
Do they really care as long as they can read it?
Looks like it depends on the firm & clients
Whilst most of our clients are relatively straight forward we do have some weird ones, plus we have started giving consideration to the full taxonomy that will be required in a couple of years (Iris complies with the MTL at the moment).
All in all therefore it's been the case of a learning curve, training and more work to make sure that each set of accounts is assessed for current and future iXBRL tagging requirements. The other aspect, picked up by many, is that, whilst it's the client's responsibility to make sure accounts are tagged correctly it's not the sort of think you can put in your letter of rep or engagement letter and thus let them carry the can if you get it wrong, so you have to be pretty water-tight over understanding how it works and what is likely to be missed in the software's automatic tagging.
The latter bit is not that easy to confirm at the moment because HMRC will let through accounts with only a very small number of items tagged, so just because they are not rejected doesn't mean the tagging is complete, even to the MTL.
We have therefore added a nominal £85 + VAT to all Ltd Cos this year and all have been OKd by the clients.
By the way, on the question of "Wording" accounts, I tend to agree that it seems weird that anyone would still do this however many larger firms still generate accounts from scratch producing them in Word thus the need for decent word tagging tools such as Iris OpenIXBRL. As it happens we too use Word on our Iris accounts but only to add our logo and other client cosmetics but this can now be done within Iris.
Logo in Iris
Hi L - in 10.5 there's a new facility in Accs Production "Administration" menu called "IXBRL Editor". It has the same look & feel as being in Word, ie with the ribbon at the top, enabling you to change fonts, paragraphs etc etc and insert images, but what it is doing is editing the ixbrl version of the accounts thus avoiding the need for an ixbrl version for HMRC and a Word version (with logos, signatures & colour) for the client.
Have only seen it in Demo at the moment, yet to use it but should make it far easier to use.
Think they have stuff in the What's new notes in Help.
Bryan
I am a long time Iris user and am the last to smooth over it's dark corners, poor "Help" sections and pricing policies but, in the case of iXBRL it has been excellent not only in having the various products out well in advance but also in being at the forefront in working with HMRC to make sure the whole thing was workable.
We spent a long time in general research on iXBRL, attended Iris Webinars, worked though their help sheets as well as making several test submissions before the deadline to make sure we were up to speed. Our first set of accounts took me 45 minutes to do, the next 20 minutes and since then they have averaged 10 minutes. In my experience that's the nature of changes to legislation and software.
We did have recourse to Iris support on maybe 3 occasions and they were excellent but, as I say, that was a couple of months ago. People complain when Iris support is not up to scratch but one of the key factors is that people use their support for training, which is not what they are there for.
Our 3 support calls will have taken up 5 minutes each, whereas if we'd not done any preparation and training and called them the moment we hit a screen we didn't understand we could easily have taken up an hour of their time thus hacking off other users who just needed 2 minutes of their time but had to wait 10 minutes for them to answer the phone, which has been the case recently.
With regard to the government forcing iXBRL on everyone, the theory is that with the huge numbers of Ltd Companies now they just don't have the humans necessary to open PDFs and ananyse the figures and so it makes perfect sense to require machine readable documents, the technologies there so use it. Over the years I have had some daft enquiries from HMRC on client accounts whereas the hope is that, in the future, they will actually be able to better target accounts that are worth of query.
Time will tell whether it works but the other aspect is that if we get used to machine readable documents the day will come when much of the basic boring bookeeping stuff can take place between computers rather than the current paper/pdf orders, GDN's, invoices, cheques etc etc.
@Robert
The initial problem was getting the upgrade towards the end of April, so unable to file anything (and this took some nagging). The problem now is that support is permanetly busy and email telephone messages have a two day delay.....so overall a bit of a pain...also the current problem I have is a Digita one, (not me being too thick to work it out) and without their input i cant proceed....
Digita
Two Sheds
I agree with you but I know Digita are considering every possibility to improve things. Their technical support is excellent once you get through. They are considering extending their technical support hours, more videos, and a greatly expanded and more useful userarea on their website.
Digita has had a difficult time with lately (now because of the lateness of Accounts Production with iXBRL you have highlighted and earlier due to expansion and technical support not keeping up) but I think they have the right attitude and I would still recommend them to anybody who wants an integrated package - their standalone programs are good, too, but integration really saves time.
Sage works just fine
Straight in, no problems, quicker then printing and putting in post.
Post v online; Sage v Digita
I didn't used to put accounts and tax returns in the post anyway.
Maybe Sage didn't have any non-iXBRL improvements so I wouldn't have thought that there would be problems. Digita has really improved their Accounts Production program so the problem is releasing to customers within days of deadlines. NB. With me these are new clients so I couldn't have chased them earlier!
Short answer - No.
Why should we charge our clients for the deficiencies in our suppliers' software - in your case CCH? It would make more sense to charge CCH.
Once this all beds down, it will save us all time and effort so why should we be charging our clients?
You state that "For a straightforward case with no errors the extra time is preparing the HTML file is perhaps less than 5 minutes". I use VT and the extra time is about half a second - the time taken to click the mouse. Perhaps CCH is more involved.