Sole Trader business software . anyone?

[Mike P the 1st]

Can anyone reccomend a business software package to keep simple accounts on, to enable me to be a bit more organised at the end of the financial year ?

Mike P the 1st

[Bruce]

I have never tried this, but there's a free trial:

do all my own accounts on spreadsheets that I created myself in Excel. I now use them in OpenOffice which is free: I use TaxCalc (£25 to £47 per year) to calculate my tax liability and submit my tax return online:

[Peter Crosland]

"Mike P the 1st" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

Ask your accountant what he recommends.

Peter Crosland

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Mike P the 1st writes

Quick Books do a free download as a trial. You only get 10 customer/purchase accounts and have to pay for the full package but it gives you a flavour of how such systems work.

regards

[tony sayer]

In article , Tim Lamb scribeth thus

Quickbooks here too. Quite OK once you've like all software packs got the hang of it;!..

[Mike P the 1st]

On Fri, 7 May 2010 20:05:23 +0100, "Peter Crosland" gently dipped his quill in the best Quink that money could buy:

My accountant is a technophobic ... she does not even have a ccomputer ... I will be changing quite soon.

Mike P the 1st

[The Medway Handyman]

I tried a few and none of them really suited what I do. Now I just use an Excel spreadsheet. It will do pretty much anything custom sodtware will do and is flexible.

[JimK]

As seems to becoming apparent- the overhead in learning any software's way of doing your accounts (and thus un-learning how you currently do and understand it) may result in you being no nearer your objective and possibly further away...

Years ago I spent a while looking for an accounts package for our import & export business (multi-currency support the main problem). There were lots of basic packages but ISTR they all did it in some counterintuitive "different" way, trying to be all things to all men and not really managing it very well.

Back then Quicken (I think) was one that "felt" most OK (lots of tutorials, documentation, examples, proper GUI etc).but was fairly basic for us - may do what you want tho?

I'd used Sage before so I looked there too - they did a small intro package but it felt like a large old package with most of the bits chopped off and was quirky as hell...

(In the end I developed our own using interlinked Excel spreadsheets - took some time to evolve but (IISSM) pretty good in the end - more of a MIS).

Cheers JimK

[Mike P the 1st]

On Sat, 8 May 2010 09:33:29 +0100, "The Medway Handyman" gently dipped his quill in the best Quink that money could buy:

I am slowly coming to that conclusion, as I do all my estmates and invoices on Excel already. I have the free simple quickbooks package, but I cannot see me using all the features. and I would have to upgrade it I imagine.

Where can I get all those snippets of info as to what I can claim tax relief on ?

Mike P the 1st

[Bruce]

notice for Quicken Users:

Intuit UK has made a difficult business decision to discontinue future development of Quicken products for the UK market. To help customers affected by this decision, we will continue providing access to Quicken customer support and online services through to the end of January 2006.

Key Dates

Quicken withdrawn from sale: 31, January 2005 Phone support (Quicken XG, 2004) until: 31, January 2006 Email support (Quicken XG, 2004) until: 31, January 2006 Online support until: 31, January, 2006

[Andy Burns]

They certainly know how to charge for support and upgrades, and tempt you to higher functionality that then has even higher support and update charges.

[Bruce]

[Mike P the 1st]

On Sat, 08 May 2010 10:49:05 +0100, Bruce gently dipped his quill in the best Quink that money could buy:

Mike P the 1st

[tony sayer]

Publish invoices, ledgers, do VAT returns for you, keep track of repetitive invoices etc etc ?..

Reports of customer turnover reports of aged balances bank reconcile???.

[The Medway Handyman]

I use it for estimates as well. Spent ages developing a decking calculator which is incredibly accurate even down to weed control fabric & screws.

For accounts I have coluums for materials, tools, vech expenses, phone, stationary etc as basic management tools, then rows for suppliers. In a few mins I can see fuel costs or phone expenses for a period, or tell how much I spend with a particular supplier.

I used Cash is King for a while, but what I found was that, if you were in the 'screen' for entering purchases and made a mistake e.g. entering £19.57 instead of £19.75, you then had to completely come out of that 'screen' into another to change it. That and similar things made it a PITA.

I supply my accountant with purchases & sales by month & she does it.

[tony sayer]

In article , Mike P the 1st scribeth thus

Haven't you got an accountant anywhere?, thats what there're normally good at...

[BodgeIt]

How many invoices are you going to be doing per year?

[Nightjar]

Having taken the decision to retire, but keep on a small bit of the business as a sole trader, I have chosen what most accountants dealing with small UK businesses are likely to suggest: Sage. In my case, Sage Instant Plus, as I needed stock control. Quickbooks, recommended elsewhere is essentially the same software, but aimed at the US market, while Sage is aimed at the UK market.

I did consider doing everything in Excel, which I use extensively for management information. However, that would mean a lot of work reinventing the wheel and it does not give audit trails. Also using Sage, come year end, all I have to do is to drop the data onto a memory stick and give it to my accountant, who can simply drop it into his Sage package. If I gave him data in an Excel spreadsheet, he would need to work out what I had done and whether anything was missing, for which I would expect him to change extra.

I cannot comment on how easy it is to learn, as I have decades of experience with much more comprehensive accounting software, so my experiences are mainly finding out what it does not do - like component / assembly stock control. However, my accountant tells me he can tweak it to do that once I have created all the necessary data. He tells me it is quite simple to customise for individual clients.

The main challenge is probably setting it up in the first place, to ensure that it does everything you need, but that will apply whatever you choose. If you select the default settings, it is mostly taking out the bits that don't apply and changing things like 'Sales Type A' to whatever suits your business.

Colin Bignell

[The Medway Handyman]

Should have said "It will do 'for me' pretty much anything custom software will do and is flexible. My business model is KISS.

I don't run credit acounts, I give the client a bill when the job is finished, they pay me there & then. On odd occassions I will send a bill to a landlord or a company. I just leave a copy on my desk until the cheque arrives.

I'm not VAT registered, never will be. I only have a trade accounts with one supplier (decking timber) who I pay as soon as I get paid, always before the 30 days I'm allowed.

I can search by customer if I want to, I don't have any aged balances.

Thats why I found none of the custome software suited me - over complicated.

[Andy Burns]

What if they (whoever "they" turn out to be) halve the turnover threshold to rake income from smaller traders?