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So a smartphone camera and the ability to record simple transactions will give us the data to prepare accounts for HMRC?
The monkeys have the keys to the zoo.
@John "The program will automate the collection and processing of client bookkeeping data..."
From what sources and to what level of detail?
Thanks John, but no real detail there then. Surely some bookkeeping solutions other than their own will need to be integrated?
Also no detail of likely pricing to accountants. Will OnBalance also be offered as a retail product to small business owners direct?
This is good advertising/PR for the vendor but not that informative for AWeb readers. Come on John, ask 'em some questions!
(Also, that screenshot looks like a web app, rather than a phone app?)
i am just imagining scanning 14 receipts for the day...then having to split some receipts as it includes non business expenditure....and then reallocating some as they are capital not revenue...
Next someone will suggest something ground breaking like using a bookkeeper to record the entries...
I hope those who suggested this utter sham remember what they originally said about it....(easy to use/simple quick for clients/reduce tax difference etc) because as with many things they will be long forgotten and they will in time sell a different message to suggest its a success.
On that point John, this site is still a shambles...albeit with a lot fewer stupid questions as there seems to be a drop in people posting them. Indeed all of those strong technical members have gone too....did you achieve the goal....(whatever that was...)
White van man/lady just back from buying some supplies probably parked on double yellow lines no parking available so he/she is stressed as hell. His mobile won't shut up - he's got clients waiting. So he looks at his new supplies and checks they are what he wanted and starts prioritising the rest of the day. He leaves as quickly as possible and just avoids a ticket. Stress. Mobile still bleating. He tells clients he is really sorry and is on his way - delay caused by hiccup in supply chain. Now at which point did he stop and record the receipt between the purchase and him getting home knackered at 7pm. HMRC are really the most out of touch people I have ever encountered.
This seems to be an early bird product targeting pretty much the last group of taxpayers who'll switch over to MTD in three years time - or maybe never if there are more changes and/or delays.
But good luck to them.
John was any pricing available for these apps are they chargeable on the accountant as part of deal with Digita, and free to clients. Do you have to buy banded licences like you do with other Digita products in blocks of 25 or whatever.
Wake me up when there is a add-in to excel that files my client's 2 lines a quarter to HMRC.
That's all I want to shove the data down the pipe.
Preferably with a bulk send option.
Please listen developers, we dont want a new accounting system, just a way of throwing data to HMRC from existing systems. You will clean up.
Dont link it to mobile phones, image capture or anything like that, just basic "enter 2 lines of data, press button, file"
This would ideally be embedded in excel on the desktop, or could be via an import script from excel into a cloud system.
Oh you talk such sense - if only HMRC understood what happens 'our side of the fence' and came up with a system which helped not hindered all concerned!
So instead of my VT Transaction for around £150 a year and tax filer for £180 a year how much am I supposed to pay.
And then tell the clients, it's only £30 a month plus VAT, which you aren't registered to claim back for and it's easier, and they say what was wrong with writing it in a book. As shambolic as Brexit!
On the basis that we are trying to use their Accounts Production Advance, which is a disgrace in terms of functionality & glitches, I don't hold out much hope for this!
When, exactly, did some moron think that taking crappy out-of-focus photos of receipts would become a substitute for book-keeping ?
But wait, I've just had a better idea !
Instead of waving a faded, crumpled, thermal-printed receipt for some diesel, a packet of Marlboro Gold, a Costa coffee and a bottle of Chardonnay around in the cab of your white van while wafting around a smartphone in the other hand (cigarette would obviously be in mouth at this point but give us another million years and evolution might whip up a third hand) in the vain hope that in the second you press the shutter button, both items are roughly lined up, imagine if only you could look after that receipt safely for just a few hours, take it back to the office/home/spare bedroom/shed, and there put it on some sort of special machine or device which avoids the wafting palaver, and then somehow, oh I can't think of a word for it, maybe "scans" it ? Possibly ? And then it could even, (imagine this !), "save" an "image" of this to your computer ? And then, maybe in a couple of decades or so, when technology has caught up, you might even be able to "email" this image to someone who actually knows what to do with it ? And maybe in another couple of decades after that, there would be people you could employ who might actually be able to look at this receipt and just enter the actual numbers that matter into some sort of device which could add up and even summarise all those numbers into some sort of useful format. Now that's what I would call progress !
A good rule I learned over 30 years' ago - never write a program without a specification - and similarly never ask someone to write a program for you without giving them a specification.
Good luck with the App.