Tax Software for sole practitioner

Tax Software for sole practitioner

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I've been happily using Ftax for years now - but the new pricing structure shows that for very small practices you're going to have to pay a disproportionate price this year. For Ftax Pratice 100 you get a licence for up to 20 users on 20 computers for 1,000 personal tax returns, 200 company tax returns and 500 partnership returns for £300 + VAT.

There's a £50 discount before VAT if you get half those returns and users. Any lower than that and there's no corporation tax returns as part of the packages (you can buy separately at 100+VAT for 100 returns and 5 users or 50 + VAT for 5 returns and 2 users) and the SA packages start at 10 for £50+VAT, 50 for £100+VAT and 200 for £150 +VAT) This means that for 50 self assessments and 10 corporation tax returns for a single user you're paying £240 whereas a much larger firm with 1,000 returns etc which is probably VAT registered is paying £300 (but if you renew before the end of this month that's £204 compared to £255).

I realise there's a cost to the software but there's no facility for buying extra credits if you want just over a band usage and it's a disproportionate amount to sole practitioners who have been supporting this company for years.

Does anyone know of any other software firms for small users this year which have a bit fairer pricing structure and reasonable costs?

Replies (12)

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By The Iceni Warrior
15th Apr 2011 10:06

Should I start?

Anything but SAGE

-- Iceni

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Image is of a pin up style woman in a red dress with some of her skirt caught in the filing cabinet. She looks surprised.
By Monsoon
15th Apr 2011 10:35

Ftax

As a user of Ftax for about 4 years, I think the new pricing is just fine. I'm paying about the same this year than I was last year - buying the Practice version last year at £250ish (actually I think it was £275) and buying the first level practice version this year at £250. In fact I think it's pretty generous, the first level of practice package gives loads and loads of returns - it's not really fair to look at the price jump for higher volumes (as this makes little difference to them, the bulk of the price is in the software itself which doesn't change with the number of credits)

I don't think there is anything cheaper out there, but you might look at TaxCalc which I think is a bit more expensive but gets good reviews.

And as Iceni says, don't touch Sage. Personally I wouldn't recommend Digita either (bought it last year, not nearly as user friendly as Ftax and VT).

 

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By BigBadWolf
15th Apr 2011 10:52

FTax, Tax Calc or BTC

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By geethaa
15th Apr 2011 11:46

Try Numia Online Accounting Software

"Does anyone know of any other software firms for small users this year which have a bit fairer pricing structure and reasonable costs?"

I would like to recommend you with Numia Online Accounting Software. Free Online Service for small business soultions.

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PAH Accounting Devizes Wiltshire
By Phil Hendy
15th Apr 2011 12:58

That is bookkeeping

 Gheeta - that is bookkeeping software not the same thing!

An online accounts production suite at a good rate would get my vote though! I am a big fan of the cloud and related products.

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By Frustrated Accountant
15th Apr 2011 14:08

Its' up a lot from previous years as well.

The all singing all dancing version has gone up £75 + VAT over the last two years - which is a rise of 1/3 of the previous cost. I know the new iXBRL has cost money to develop - but I wish I could get my income up by that sort of amount from my clients.

And it is fair to compare the cost to a 20 person tax deparment to a 1 person tax department. It's a lot harder to make a living as a sole practitioner - and we can't afford to pay much more for everything we have to do. Should I be happy being asked to pay only 20% less for 1/20 th of the number of people able to use the product and about a quarter of the number of returns being provided? It's not like I don't have increased costs for the accounts production software and payroll software costs as well.

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By Richard FTAX
15th Apr 2011 14:20

Ftax pricing

Hello, Richard from Ftax here :-)

In reply to 'frustrated acco': If you have 50 SA clients and 10 CT clients, then the combination of Ftax Agent 50 and Ftax Agent Company 100 should meet your needs and only cost you £170 (+vat) if you use your loyalty discount.

Ftax have introduced a credit system so that we can offer low usage lower price products, e.g. Ftax Agent 10 for £50. The new Ftax Client Manager will prepopulate tax returns, but if you are not comfortable in moving to 'the cloud' then you can download Ftax to your computer as use as before. We like to keep everyone happy :-)

 

 

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By gebro
15th Apr 2011 14:27

BTC
I used ftax for 2009-10, but a look at their new pricing structure prompted me to look around for other options. I settled on BTC. It's more expensive than ftax, but they do let you pay by monthly direct debit. So for around 60 pounds a month I get individual, partnership and company returns, as well as what appears at first sight (I've only had the system a couple of days) to be a very good practice management system.

I did have a problem or two initially - nothing wrong with the software, just me being dense - and their technical support people couldn't have been more helpful. I've also been able to submit my first XBRL filing.

Highly recommended

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By Frustrated Accountant
15th Apr 2011 15:37

As I said

Richard, as a small practitioner I have to pay the VAT - so that's £204 out of my pocket as I said and you agree, you've just quoted that before the VAT. A 20 man tax practice (which in reality is likely to be much bigger as few practices don't differentiate into accounts and tax specialists at this size) gets the VAT back and therefore pays £255 for up to 1,000 personal tax returns as opposed to my 50. It's a great deal for the larger practice - until you decide you want to cater for the next size of market and the pricing structure changes again. Maybe us sole practitioners ought to band together to get reductions in the cost of these things if this is how the market's going to operate? If I find a "partner" then I can get 500 self assessments, 100 company returns and 250 partnership returns for £180 including the VAT rather than pay out £204 for a "loyalty discounted" renewal for just 50 self assessment returns, 25 partnership returns and 100 corporation tax returns. That's quite a difference.

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Image is of a pin up style woman in a red dress with some of her skirt caught in the filing cabinet. She looks surprised.
By Monsoon
15th Apr 2011 16:05

Pricing

Frustrated,

1. That you aren't VAT registered is not a software house's fault. You will have to pay VAT on any software you buy, so it's not really relevant. (And, if it helps, I registered for VAT voluntarily - my non-VAT reg clients didn't so much as whimper, they accept that most accountancy fees will have VAT on them, so maybe it's worth just registering?)

2. The majority of really large practices are more likely to use a larger integrated package like IRIS, so I would expect that the majority of FTax's sales are going to be to smaller sole practitioners like you and me.

3. Their profit comes from the software itself, not the number of times it is used. I really can't see how a base price can be reduced much more than it is currently. Comparing the price jump from what you needed last year to what you need this year is logical. Comparing the stepped fixed cost for the next volume level compared to the smallest package is not. If you're suggesting buying a bigger package and sharing the credits between another sole practitioner, that's likely breaching the software licence conditions.

I really don't understand your issue with this. It's one of the cheapest tax packages out there.

Ignoring the price jump before last year (it really was very cheap before so it's not surprising) the price has barely moved on last year and they've had to introduce all that iXBRL malarkey. It's a bargain. If you want cheap, use HMRC's free product (and then remember why we all love to pay 3rd parties for software that's far more user friendly!).

 

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By Frustrated Accountant
15th Apr 2011 17:10

Monsoon

You're free to pay any high price any software company wants to charge. The options fasttax are offering this year clearly aren't anywhere near as  good for the smaller users and they're SO much better for the larger ones. Fasttax was always the champion of the small user and this is how it's built it's profits up. It's a shame this sort of client is no longer really important to them for them to consider other pricing options. I'm not asking them to give it away for free - I'm asking for a pricing structure that doesn't mean larger firms pay a tiny part of the price per return/user than sole practitioners do. If you are happy with being charged 1/3 rd more over two years then please go ahead.

I can understand them having a base cost of £50 + VAT minimum for 10 personal tax returns. What I don't get is the tier structure that charges another £50 for a further 40 returns, another £50 on top for an extra 100 returns and an extra £50 on top of that for an extra 300 returns. They've only done that because other products are out there for the top end of the market. What they could have done is said it's £200 for 400 £50 for 10 so £100 for 200 £75 for 50 and you can top up to the next level for the difference in package costs plus say a £10 admin fee at any time if you estimate wrongly. But they didn't choose to do that although it was well within their power to do so. I'm sick of these firms thinking they can charge the small user a fortune compared to the larger ones.

And I'm glad to say that Moneysoft have remained fair with their payroll software which offers a clear progressive pricing policy despite having to cope with doing 12 updates a year. If only they'd get into the agent accounts and other tax return filing market.

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By Crouchy
18th Apr 2011 14:24

molehills and Mountains!

your missing the point that there is a trade off between price and useability - if the software does what you need it to then I don't think the price differential is really much of an issue!

is £50 - £60 really going to make that much of a difference to your bottom line? you could also take advantage of the increased licencising and get some more clients in!!!

I use FTax myself and think that the pricing is fair....your really going to struggle to get something as good for a better price.

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