Software

 Hi Emma

I chose Iris for accounts preparation and tax because they offer a facility for 10 clients only. I like the fact that it is all interlinked so providing you set it up properly if you revise the accounts the tax will also be revised.

I have come across situations where you enter up all the figures to prepare the accounts and then have to re-enter many to do the tax.

Iris is probably not the cheapest on the market but they do have a good helpline.

Go for IRIS

This is a popular combination on AWeb. Good value for money and integrates well. Works well for me. I changed from Digita and never regretted it. Buy TaxCalc on May 1st because the CT subscription expires on April 30th regardless of when you buy it.

IRIS does not get great write-ups here, possibly because of the price.

Try searching AWeb for mentions of all the packages mentioned here and see what people say.

VT + VTT+ for accounts & bookkeeping.
Tax Calc for tax
Moneysoft for payroll.

You will find the above combination very highly recommended on Aweb. And I find it works very well.
They all offer unlimited number of clients included in their price, so there isn't a massive cost increase like with the other packages when you need to increase your number of clients. The only downside with VT is that they don't yet have a template for LLP's.

Iris is a great piece of software, but the cost is really not worth it, coupled with above inflation cost increases year on year and declining levels of support. They are a very arrogant and nasty company to deal with when things do go wrong. That is besides the numerous bugs that seem to crop up with the software every time there is an update.

Yes, I forgot Moneysoft Payroll Manager. I love it, and it seems to be far and away the most popular piece of payroll software on AWeb.

Is there anyone could tell me how about sage year end account and CT software? Are they good  for use in  small practice? Taxcal software and VT year end software, are they ok for IXBRL??

Used them myself and they worked fine. Filing accepted by HMRC. 

Everyone will recommend VT for accounts. Lots on here recommend taxcalc for tax, however I prefer BTC. I downloaded a Tax Calc Trial on two occassions and couldn't see what the fuss was about. Moneysoft for payroll.

Thanks!!!how much cost for VT bookkeeping + year end + Tax calcu+ money soft payroll?? Is there anyone use Sage year end and CT return software befor???

Check out their websites, all the prices are on there.

I use VT, moneysoft and drummohr tax assistant which I find a lot easier to navigate than Taxcalc and BTC (but thats personal preference)

Is it sage really not a good choice for small practice???please, if anyone here know anything about SAGE  year end account and CT software, add some common. I am about to buy it, is it really a mistake?

If its as bad as Sage Line 50 then give it a miss!  The majority of small practices dont use it so that tells you something.

Hi

I'm also about to purchase accountancy software.  I was leaning towards VT+ but I've been recommended Xero.  Are there any problems with Xero worth knowing about.  I think it compares favourably to VT on price, and is more flexible as VT is based on an old Excel format.

This is what I've been told and I'm not doubting the person I spoke with.  However, I've not got any experience of using either so would be happy to hear what forum members think of Xero.

I think it's important to focus on ease of use as well as flexibility and adaptability but I'm not a techie person so could be talking total rubbish!  Moneysoft and TaxCalc - everyone seems to recommend these also.

Cheers

Eve

Xero is essentially bookkeeping software, and at present doesn't produce final accounts.

VT consists of 2 pieces of software VTT+ which is the bookkeeping module + VT accounts which is the final accounts production module.

Xero is £228 pa for up to 5 Accounts Receivable and 5 Accounts Payable invoices per month and up to 20 reconciled bank statement lines per month

The VT bookkeeping and final accounts suite is £199 in the first year and £150pa thereafter for an unlimited number of clients, accounts and entries, or after one year you can just carry on using VT Transaction for free, but not VT Final Accounts.

Xero and VT software are completely different animals for different type of accountancy practises. If you want to be proactive and work with your clients get them to use Xero. Xero also integrates and is quite intelligent in many ways so that you reduce the amount of data entry. Agree with others I would not use the annual reporting functionality for now. Will probably come shortly.

VT is good for year end accounts production. Have no experience in maintaining the bookkeeping in VT, but you can't really interact with your clients. Will suit the type of practice that just prepares accounts, does bookkeeping 

Perhaps logically I use both.

Our members tend to use a combination of VT, Sage and Iris. VT is very popular for all the reasons already mentioned. The more establsihed and client rich practice tend to use IRIS. Some use all because the clients that they have taken on were using that particular system so if you want to capture a wider audience than you have a wider variety of software. I guess it all depends on how varied your cleint base is going to be. But I would suggest starting off with VT. Although if you decide to go ahead with Sage we have a Sage partner reseller who can offer exclusive service and discount to our club members, This is the intelligent club for accountants in practice. www.Help4accountants.co.uk. Also have you considered cloud accounting? Unless you are likley to do a lot of payroll from start, my advice would be to use the HMRC software for your payroll and use our template/download to produce payslips, initially and then depending on your client requirements and demands choose an appropriate payroll package. This is because some clients may require computerised payslips and not all payroll package will have this facility as some of the cheaper ones only provide payslip on ordinary plain paper. 

Hi

I thought I'd got it sussed, but now I'm back to the decision making. Person I spoke with said Xero does do year-end accounts and fantastic PDFs and management accounts.  I don't think I've been mislead, but could it be that it's a nightmare to use?  It sounds like that is what's being hinted at for the accounts part?

Is there a package out there that interacts with clients, does the bookkeeping and the final accounts?  I believe VT does this but the client bit is expensive, but could be recouped I guess.

Sorry if I've hijacked Emma's thread, don't mean to - but as the discussion was underway, it seemed a good time to ask the questions.

thanks

Eve

I have looked at Xero's website and they do not mention that it does accounts for year-end.  That's worrying.

I didn't realise that I would potentially need to purchase more than one business system, but it's looking that way.  I'm probably going for VT, play it safe for now until I make some money.

Clients can download VT Cashbook for free if they want to do their own bookkeeping. They can just send you the file when you need to work on it. Or better still, you can share the file with your client, using www.Dropbox.com, so you don't have to keep sending it backwards and forwards. 

Hi Emma,

We offer an online, cloud based practice management program.

You can look at it at www.hq4a.co.uk

Let me know if you want more information.

Oliver

From all the comments i think VT+ sounds like a good package for my new sole practice. Can I work out how to use it myself or would I need to attend a training course?