Feedback on Iris accounting and tax software would be appreciated. I have heard that there may be a problem with a recent update involving Pervasive SQL. How have users found the programs and support - good/bad/OK or what?
Martin Daye
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No hesitation - go for it.
Martin
We have used the complete IRIS suite and have no hesitation in recommending it.
As with any software bits are in need of updating (eg automail) but what impresses me most with the company is that they listen to users, encourage us to feedback suggestions and act on them. This is particularly true of their Practice Management suite which, in a few moths of use, has now become the hub of information flow within our offices. It enables anyone within the firm to know exactly what the state of play is on any client work and is a Godsend for planning and "knowing the client".
SQL pervasive software is, I think, only applicable to networked IRIS. The difficulty we have faced is also running TAS which uses an older version of the software. IRIS have the answers to this and will help to implement them (TAS just sent us a passworded Word doc!).
If you have any specific queries over how IRIS works then feel free to email me direct [email protected].
Good value for money
I have used many systems and found Iris to be the best. It is not perfect, but this is simply because it is not written by people with 20 years' experience of doing personal tax. However it is better than anything else I have seen and I wouldn't want to use anything else.
The helpdesk is fine if you phone, less good if you email your problem.
IRIS
I am the IT manager of a practice that uses IRIS (Time & Fees. Accounts Production, Personal Tax, Business Tax and Global Practice Management)
I would recommend this product to anyone. It is robust and the helpdesk team are great in any eventuality.
We did have one MAJOR problem with Time and Fees. One of the usernames became corrupt and everytime this user logged in the whole of the Time data became corrupt. As this user was entering timesheets and printing cost reports this was frequent and also not obvious that her log in was the cause. Took a long time to find the problem but fixed now and no problems since.
I love IRIS
I used to work for a firm which used IRIS extensively.
The only major problems I experienced were that it is nigh on impossible to extract management information (e.g. how many tax returns have we done)and also that the mail merge facility was somewhat limited.
That said, I've used several other systems and I would heartily recommend it.
Sorry to throw in a contrary view on this IRIS "love in". I have to ask are all you writers paid by IRIS?
We've just taken IRIS on and to date my opinion is this package is not fit for purpose.
Data transfer faulty. Its telling me today that we have no registered offices for our clients despite having them on their self designed input spreadsheet.
The software is clunky and slow to use. A set of accounts from ETB to final set ready for client has taken 2 days and the draft accounts produced I have sent back to my manger to redraft to take layout and spelling errors out of their pre prepared accounts layout. This would have taken an hour at most on VT.
A personal tax return (which also took 10 times as long to produce as the TaxCalc equivalent) just tried to file to get the message "internet returns cannot yet be filed for tax years after 201
8" - Really - taxcalc has already filed - so why can't IRIS?
The SA navigation is appalling.
I've been advised that I have to set up one of my client's employments as one of my clients - He is employed by Royal London! They are not a client!
Its all very well saying the integration is great but if the set up of each clients is so slow that deadlines are missed what's the point of swift integration?
How the hell has this appeared on the "Recent answers" list (and my, how opinions seem to have changed).