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Accounting software
Most accounting software is poor, and once the clients have used it, its a real mess.
I hate cloud ...
... it is VHS and BetaMax all over again.
Can't wait until it shakes down and there are just a couple of worthwhile options, there are just too many offerings to deal with at the moment, I don't have the time or inclination to learn myriads of different packages but am being forced to.
Worst thing is banks pushing producst on to clients, this will be the new PPI scandal, as you pick up clients with totally inappropriate software just because the bank get a nice back-hander.
Worst offenders are Barclays with FreeAgent, because Ii find more and more FreeAgent is too limiting for anything other than what it was designed for - computer consultants (or very similar), but for general "proper" trading companies it is entirely too limiting.
Poor service from the start oh dear
Capium Registered for trial
Called go Vodafone answering machine
Not a good start then
Not sure you would want your practice dependent on someone who was un-contactable
Capium
I am surprised,I have emailed them at night (working late) and had a rely back the same night. They have also phoned me quite promptly after leaving messags. The software package looks very promising.
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@OGA wasnt long ago and Barclays used to push high end versions of SAGE which you had to unmuddle, at least now its a bit easier with Freeagent.
I am glad to see the new entrants but I remain "eyebrows raised" that a small team can deliver "the lot" in terms of all the taxes plus the accounts prep plus the underlying accounting software. Its a huge and ambitious reach even the larger players don't do well. They tend to do one or two things well then something else really badly.
more competition the better however as the current big players must be raking it in and there must be a huge gap there in terms of price if you can get some volume going.
If your going to leave yourself feedback then you should do it form a Ghost account !!!Capium!!
It might be easier ...
... but not when you have to move to a new package that can do what you need, complex things like reportng for a given period.
It is fine for tracking debtors and creditor and bank balance, and for year end figures, but very limited for anything else
In defence of FreeAgent again
OGA, we have been around this block 2-3 times now. Not one of the 2 dozen offerings will ever be a perfect fit for every business so you pick 1-3 that you think will be the best fit for your clients and mix & match accordingly.
The situation you describe therefore is almost entirely the fault of Barclays and an ignorant customer, not FreeAgent's. It is no different to the new Barclays customers who used to turn up to my door clutching their Saga CDs.
My first FreeAgent client was a £1M turnover consultancy with a dozen staff and it suited them down to the ground, saving them £12K pa in bookkeeping fees because, being so straight forward, they found it easy to maintain their own books, with us monitoring. None of my current 5 FA clients are computer consultants but they are in the service sector and FA make no secret about what their system can & can't do and so it's been easy for us to match it to the clients it will suit.
So, if your client is such a poor match to FA why prolong the agony, either tell them to switch to something you feel will do the job better or lose the client, that's what I've always done with Sage users.
I for one welcome the innovation that we see in the online accounting space at the moment - it's a very exciting and fast moving space.
I too have "eyebrows raised" that these new entrants will be able to deliver all the functionality promised, let alone compete with the 4 Big Boys - Intuit, IRIS Kashflow, Sage and Xero.
I also have to agree with Paul Scholes - why do you think that any of the products will be able to cope with all of your clients. FreeAgent have a very clear definition of their target clients and are very clear about communicating that to the market.
@ Paul ...
... I wasn't blaming Freeagent, if you read my post I was blaming Barclays, although IRIS have mis-sold it too. Freeagent's blame is in selling out and allowing their product to be mis-represented, and my feeling is they are regreting this and are not playing ball with IRIS, hence the KashFlow acquisition and IRIS not really pushing FreeAgent anymore, or at least anything near as hard.
Of all the ones I have looked at apart from the hosted benefits none are any better than tried and tested desk-top packages - in fact are still a way behind in many areas. I know a part of it is learning curve but ironically I find cloud applications very slow and cumbersome on teh data entry side, even with bank feeds.
I think Tim is on the Money and there will be no great leap forwards until the banks co-operate fully, ideally the BBA need to get on board, agree an industry standard template so that a client can "code up" their transactions at source, and even put in the suppliers choice of code if required. Then all software houses can design round an industry standard.
But it is hassle moving from a mis-sold program to a more suitable one, the clients don't have the ability and I don't have the time at a price they can afford!
I also don't have the time to destruction test every piece of cloud software at the moment, it takes time to learn new software, to try out all the scenarios you need, and my practice, as I am sure many others, doesn't have the luxury of so doing, or the inclination as frankly I find it tedious beta testing half baked software that has been brought to market to soon.