The list of possible suppliers is now huge, below is
a list of those the we have experience with and have found to be reliable and functional.
VT Cash Book
- FREE
VT software is not well known to the general public but has a huge following in the accountancy
profession. VT Cash Book is a cut down version of VT Transaction, a fully functional bookkeeping system. Cash Book is FREE
and available for download from the VT Software web site. Not as pretty as Sage or Quickbooks but much easier to use and much
quicker data entry.
VT Transaction+ £125.00
This is the full version of the
above. It creates sales invoices and will deal with complex VAT situations. We use this software in house and have done for
many years now. The cost is £125.00 and this is a one off fee. There is no need to pay a support charge each year. It
is simple to use and very easy to correct mistakes. We particularly like the way you can create a sales invoice or customer
statement and e mail it to the customer with hardly any effort at all. As with VT Cash Book it is not pretty to look at but
it does its job well.
Sage
We have used Sage for over 25 years now. It is an acceptable
piece of software but no more than that. It looks good and the sales department will promise the earth but it can often disappoint.
It will produce nice graphs and import & export data (which VT will not do) so this could be important. Certain versions
have additional modules like stock control and this may sway your decision. As more functions are added the price of the software
increases. Support is in our opinion expensive and the waiting time on the helpline increases significantly around April and
May during the payroll year end season. The automated link with SagePay is oversold, so if you are a web trader & use
SagePay be aware that the information transferred is limited and this function should not really be a consideration in choosing
a package.
Kashflow
This is an on-line accounting package. It costs around £15
per month. The advantage is that multiple users can enter data or access the data from any site with broadband. It
is very easy to use and has links with PayPal. As with Sage be aware of the limitations. We don't actually have any clients
using this, but on-line or cloud accounting does seem to be the way the industry is moving. Obviously you can buy VT for £125.00
and that is it. With Kashflow it is about £15 per month for ever.
