After more than 15,000 completed surveys from 6,000 participating firms, the winners for the AccountingWEB Software Satisfaction Awards 2013 can now be revealed.
The awards were spread out over nine software categories including small business accounts, payroll, ERP, BI, expenses, tax, accounts production, practice management and document management.
Small business accounting and bookkeeping
FreeAgent Central beat the opposition in the small business accounting and bookkeeping category with an overall satisfaction score of 90%. FreeAgent came out on top despite it being a close call between other leading firms Kashflow and Big Red Book.
Expenses management
FreeAgent was also victorious in expenses management category over stiff competition from WebExpenses and ReceiptBank. The software rated scored nearly full marks from voters on its ease of use, functionality, support and value for money.
Tax software
BTC dominated the Tax shortlist and made a significant dent on IRIS and Sage’s market share compared to previous years. With an overall score of 83%, BTC swept past larger rivals to claim the 2013 tax software award.
Practice management
BTC was also the winner in the practice management software award, despite IRIS’ across-the-board pre-eminence by claiming a quarter of the sample of PM users.
Payroll
For the third year running The Payroll Site has won the payroll award with an impressive overall score of 95%. At the forefront of a coming wave of cloud-based payroll providers, The Payroll Site just edged over the 2.5% ‘share of the vote’ threshold, but scored very highly when it came to customer advocacy.
ERP
NetSuite was the clear winner in the ERP software category, but its victory is as much for cloud as it is for the solution itself. While it didn’t score the best in value for money, this demonstrated that cost of solution is not the biggest consideration when it comes to ERP.
Business Intelligence
Pegasus XRL walked away with the Business Intelligence award, where users were particularly appreciative of the solution’s ease of use. Despite BI continuing to be a minority interest among AccountingWEB members, Pegasus was way out in front of the competition in terms of functionality, support and value for money.
Document management
Spindle Professional was the winner in the document management category. While most of the other contenders came from the practice side of the profession, Spindle Professional was originally designed as an add-on for accounting systems such as Sage 50 Accounts, but now supports a whole range of financial and ERP systems.
Accounts production
VT Accounts ended up taking the accounts production award, proving its popularity once again among AccountingWEB members. VT is highly rated as a convenient tool for compiling simple company accounts quickly and can work well in tandem with best of breed tax programs such as BTC or TaxCalc.
Replies (10)
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Congratulations to the winners
Congratulations to all of the winners of these awards, but I'd like to particularly thank the two winners of products that I use within my own practice.
Philip Hodgson and his team at VT provide a wonderful product with superb service. I have been using VT for a few years and can't praise it highly enough.
I'm also delighted to see that Steven Tucker and his team at The Payroll Site have won the payroll award. I've only been using TPS since April, but I've been impressed with its ease of use and its simple integration with both QuickBooks Online and Xero.
Thanks (1)Intergrated
I love the idea that there's software available today that really knocks the socks off
our expensive Iris. However - integration is a key factor for us. I wondered whether success in one area (accounts production) is balanced by a poor effort in another (say tax module).
But, well done the winners.
Thanks (0)Integration: price does not automatically equal quality.
It's key for me too. Forbes is nowhere near the price of Iris, but has an integrated suite. And VT Transaction integrates seamlessly with VT Final Accounts, which in turn integrates seamlessly with BTC tax software. Price does not automatically equal quality.
Thanks (0)Integration
There is certainly no integration issues between BTC and VT Accounts as has already been stated. They interact seamlessly. With Iris, you're paying an awful lot for a product that isn't as good as BTC or VT. I can only think that most of the money is spent on the bloatware section and on the advertising budget.
I'm a little bit bemused that Brightpay didn't win the payroll section. It received the highest customer vote, and from personal experience its as good at its job as the two programmes above. Sage have been rubbishing it to some of my clients, so they must be worried,
Thanks (0)Brightpay
Having used four payroll packages in the past 8 months I can say that, from my viewpoint, Brightpay was the easiest and most intuitive - extremely user friendly.
Sage was NOT one of the four that I've used so I can't comment on it's useablility, but if it's anything to go by my experience with several other Sage products it will be a really horrible user experience by being very untintuitive requiring lots of trial and error. Having said this a colleague has used Sage Payroll and he says it's OK and no issues for him (but he hasn't used Brightpay or other payroll software to compare it with).
Thanks (0)Charity accounting software
I wonder if next year you can include a section in the survey to include accounting software for charities. Would love to know the results for that.
Thanks (0)Congrats to all the winners and
commiserations to those who came close. I think it's an achievement simply to get dozens of clients to vote for you in the first place. Shows a degree of loyalty of which you can be proud.
Mark
Thanks (0)Taxcalc knocked off top place
No surprise that taxcalc didn't win this year - they've lost contact with their core customer base and have alienated a lot of their previous loyal customers with their "hub" database fiasco. They didn't attend the "business 1" lesson - "don't mess about with something that works!"
Thanks (0)TaxCalc Hub
@Ken Howard - you have echoed a point made by a number of TaxCalc users, but I don't understand the objection to the new Hub. I'd be interested to hear your reasons.
I have used TaxCalc for many years and I much prefer the Hub. I find it so much easier to track my clients' tax files when they are all retained within a single database in one program, which is updated each year, rather than requiring me to open a new application for each tax year. The old process required users to manually import each client's file for the prior year into the new year's application; what a waste of time and prone to error.
I realise that every user has his/her own opinion on what they prefer, but are you aware that TaxCalc offers the option to keep each client's tax files outside the database, each in its own unique file, as was the case prior to the launch of the Hub? Surely this gives you the same process as you are used to, so what is the objection to the Hub?
If you use it that way, it is the same as you are used to, with the one exception that TaxCalc 2013 and TaxCalc 2014 (etc, ad infinitum) will be run from a single program. Surely you don't object to TaxCalc running from a single program instead of one program for each tax year? Imagine having to open Sage 2000, Sage 2001, Sage 2002....Sage 2013 to review historical accounting records?
Thanks (4)The Payroll Site - Winner
I use the Payroll site as it proved the best cost/useable option for the small payrolls that my clients needed to be ready for RTI and computerisation full stop. I like the regular newsletters and payment reminders- They do think of everything.
Thanks (0)