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Sage says accountants are keeping up with Carter; but Pegasus says SMEs still struggle with red tape

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19th Aug 2008
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August has become a battleground for software market research, with Sage and Pegasus going head-to-head with major user surveys. John Stokdyk reports.

Sage has built its marketing strategy on copious user research and this year published the results of its second Pulse survey of accountants in practice. The study, condutced on Sage's behalf by Redshift Research among 263 practitioners, explored the respondents' attitudes to the e-filing regime championed by Lord Carter.

The finding highlights included:

  • 94% have filed online in some form
  • 37% believed they get more support from software vendors than from the government
  • 28% said they rely more on HMRC for e-filing advice and support
  • Speed (35%) and ease of use (15%) were cited by most accountants as the advantages of e-filing.

"When e-filing becomes the de facto working standard across all areas in 2011, the industry will be well prepared," the report concluded.

As with last year's Pulse report, Sage is keen to document the emergence of a new breed of accountant that is comfortable with modern technology and working methods. Calling the Carter Report a "catalyst for change", that accelerated the move towards online filing, Sage's Accountants' Division managing director Greg Ford commented, "Accountants didn’t actually need a lot of persuasion as most practitioners are comfortable with digital working practices already."

The survey also identified a shift away from the profession's favourite tool, Microsoft Excel. The study found:

  • Only 11% of accountants have clients that solely rely on spreadsheets
  • Only 2% of accountants have clients that totally favour spreadsheets over accounting software
  • 65% of accountants admit to having made mistakes using spreadsheets.

The 11-page Pulse Survey(175kb PDF) can be downloaded from the Sage Accountants' Division website.

The view from Pegasus

Over at Pegasus HQ in Kettering, the team has been studying findings from a survey of 450 small businesses that focused on the impact of regulation and red tape. The key findings here were:

  • 92% said that excessive red tape harms entrepreneurialism
  • 93% said the regulatory burden has worsened in the past year
  • 92% expected it to get worse in the next year
  • 40% said government targets to lessen the burden were "not enough"
  • 30% described these commitments as "lip service"
  • 25% said they spent the equivalent of two months researching and dealing with legislation
  • Just under half the respondents said the biggest pressure they faced was the economic slowdown, while one in three said they struggled to cope with too many job roles.

While such studies help big software companies track changes in the market, they also help them to market their products. Pegasus commercial director Kevin McCallum, for example, commented : "Technology has a significant role to play in alleviating the regulatory burden. And with economic slowdown the top pressure point in 2008, it is integral that SMEs utilise the tools available to them to enable them to focus on running their business profitably."

More information on the Pegasus SME research can be found on the company's AccountingWEB partner page.

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