Have you tried getting through to the Agent Dedicated Line recently? We have been trying every week since 1/2/2024 and are just told they are very busy so hang up and try again. It is getting beyond a joke now. Remember the days we would ring the local office and things would be sorted in 10 minutes?
I have just had a call with Receipt bank, it looks like 1tap will only be available to practices with 30+RB customers. So thousands of small practices will be excluded from using this app. We will have clients saying, look at this, isn't it great, can I share it with you? Looks like the answer will be no!
I would be interested to know how many practices have more than 30 receipt bank clients on their books. We have plenty of QuickBooks Online clients but no Receipt Bank clients. Clients so far don't see the advantage and don't want to pay the subscription.
So presumably there would be a cost for many of us?
Some of these cloud products do have a place in our world, but we have to be careful, my experience is that many software companies over sell their product and promise too much. My fear is that accountants will be left to pick up the pieces and we will struggle to recover our costs.
We have to look at these products or we will be left behind, but it all takes time.
No one has mentioned Entryless yet, Receipt Bank are not the only ones in this market. I will be looking at this very soon.
Not all clients want it and there are other options
I looked at this a few years ago. I rang around some clients, about 10 to get opinions. Nobody wanted it. The overwhelming response was "Oh no, not another password to remember" and "to many clicks". Even my big IT client grumbled and said "just deliver stuff to me on a plate, in an e mail, I am too busy for anything else"
I use the cloud a lot, I use electronic signing ( Adobe), so I feel I am up there with tech, but this is one area where I will use good old fashioned customer service to give clients what they want. I cant see my practice failing because I don't use a portal.
Adobe Send Now is excellent for confidential material. Logged, tracked, about £12 per year.....
Dropbox etc are all halfway houses, I use this a lot for some clients, much more effective than being tied into a software provider.
Or make your own portal using a NAS drive....perhaps not
I run a small practice, just myself, my wife and father in law. Probably not as big as you, but I would suggest you look at the following:
VT final accounts is without doubt the final accounts software to go for.
Digita for Personal Tax and Company tax. These products are so much better than others in my opinion. They cost more, but every year I look around, do some testing of other products and always return to Digita.
If you use Outlook then have a look at Credenza. It is an outlook add in and costs around £17 per month. It automatically files e mails, ant creates a costing ledger for each client. I stumbled on it from an accounting web post and it works a treat. Gives you a prompt to record your time after constructing an e mail, will also record your time when composing an e mail. It is free to use if you don't use the costing and billing option. I did this first to get the hang of it.
Brightpay for payroll. No question here either. Have used it for many years now and not found anything better or a nicer company to deal with. Clients like this also.
Live drive for back up. A must given the recent cryptolocker virus. Live Drive is cloud based and is not a mapped drive so cryptolocker can't get to it (well, according to my it chap).
To be honest I don't know how long I will keep this set up. More and more clients are wanting cloud options for bookkeeping and payroll or options that work on apple, so I am looking at cloud suppliers but nothing has caught my eye yet.
Brightpay offer free payroll software for up to 3 employees. It is the full version of the product and the free helpline is included. An unlimited employees license is also available free to charities. So sometimes you can get something for nothing and in this case it is an excellent product from a company with a social conscience.
I have used this software house for many years now, about 10 I think, they are a delight to work with.
I recommended Brightpay to a friend who has a medium sized practice and he has now moved all his clients over to them and operates the software in house as well.
My answers
Have you tried getting through to the Agent Dedicated Line recently? We have been trying every week since 1/2/2024 and are just told they are very busy so hang up and try again. It is getting beyond a joke now. Remember the days we would ring the local office and things would be sorted in 10 minutes?
I have just had a call with Receipt bank, it looks like 1tap will only be available to practices with 30+RB customers. So thousands of small practices will be excluded from using this app. We will have clients saying, look at this, isn't it great, can I share it with you? Looks like the answer will be no!
I would be interested to know how many practices have more than 30 receipt bank clients on their books. We have plenty of QuickBooks Online clients but no Receipt Bank clients. Clients so far don't see the advantage and don't want to pay the subscription.
So presumably there would be a cost for many of us?
Some of these cloud products do have a place in our world, but we have to be careful, my experience is that many software companies over sell their product and promise too much. My fear is that accountants will be left to pick up the pieces and we will struggle to recover our costs.
We have to look at these products or we will be left behind, but it all takes time.
No one has mentioned Entryless yet, Receipt Bank are not the only ones in this market. I will be looking at this very soon.
Not all clients want it and there are other options
I looked at this a few years ago. I rang around some clients, about 10 to get opinions. Nobody wanted it. The overwhelming response was "Oh no, not another password to remember" and "to many clicks". Even my big IT client grumbled and said "just deliver stuff to me on a plate, in an e mail, I am too busy for anything else"
I use the cloud a lot, I use electronic signing ( Adobe), so I feel I am up there with tech, but this is one area where I will use good old fashioned customer service to give clients what they want. I cant see my practice failing because I don't use a portal.
Adobe Send Now is excellent for confidential material. Logged, tracked, about £12 per year.....
Dropbox etc are all halfway houses, I use this a lot for some clients, much more effective than being tied into a software provider.
Or make your own portal using a NAS drive....perhaps not
Small practice software reply reply to white suit
Hi
I run a small practice, just myself, my wife and father in law. Probably not as big as you, but I would suggest you look at the following:
VT final accounts is without doubt the final accounts software to go for.
Digita for Personal Tax and Company tax. These products are so much better than others in my opinion. They cost more, but every year I look around, do some testing of other products and always return to Digita.
If you use Outlook then have a look at Credenza. It is an outlook add in and costs around £17 per month. It automatically files e mails, ant creates a costing ledger for each client. I stumbled on it from an accounting web post and it works a treat. Gives you a prompt to record your time after constructing an e mail, will also record your time when composing an e mail. It is free to use if you don't use the costing and billing option. I did this first to get the hang of it.
Brightpay for payroll. No question here either. Have used it for many years now and not found anything better or a nicer company to deal with. Clients like this also.
Live drive for back up. A must given the recent cryptolocker virus. Live Drive is cloud based and is not a mapped drive so cryptolocker can't get to it (well, according to my it chap).
To be honest I don't know how long I will keep this set up. More and more clients are wanting cloud options for bookkeeping and payroll or options that work on apple, so I am looking at cloud suppliers but nothing has caught my eye yet.
Hope that helps
you pay for what you get - not always
Brightpay offer free payroll software for up to 3 employees. It is the full version of the product and the free helpline is included. An unlimited employees license is also available free to charities. So sometimes you can get something for nothing and in this case it is an excellent product from a company with a social conscience.
I have used this software house for many years now, about 10 I think, they are a delight to work with.
I recommended Brightpay to a friend who has a medium sized practice and he has now moved all his clients over to them and operates the software in house as well.
http://www.brightpay.co.uk/