upgrade quickbooks v excel

nickj_2

i've just replaced my pc and have gone from running vista to win7 , for my accounting i have been using quickbooks simple start 2008 which now won't run with windows 7 , is it worth replacing or should i just record everything on excel or find and excel accounts template .
i've already had to upgrade qb2004 which would work on winxp but wouldn't work with vista and annoyingly the qb08 wouldn't import all my data:mad::mad::mad::mad: unless i upgraded to a more expensive version :mad::mad::mad:
so i guess i'm just fed up with having to fork out money and the inconvenience , at least with excel you know it's going to be compatible with future upgrades

Pennywise

I'd strongly advise against excel - as an accountant, I see all sorts of horrors purporting to be book-keeping on a spreadsheet - nearly always there are errors and nearly always it takes a lot of time and extra cost to the client.

There are plenty of cheap/fee decent software packages out there.

If your books really are simple, then you can get a free "cash book" style of software from https://www.vtsoftware.co.uk which will simply record in's and out's, facilitate bank reconciliations and also deals with VAT.

If you needs sales and purchase ledgers (i.e. you need to track monies owed and oweing as well as in's and out's) then VT do a full ledger based package https://www.vtsoftware.co.uk for a one off payment of about £125.

Plenty of others out there for around £100 or less, and generally they don't trap you in and then charge for upgrades like Sage and Quickbooks.

Why not ask your accountant what they recommend?

GilbertGradgrind

Use excel as a modelling tool and as a reporting tool. Accountants like it for working ideas out but they never use it to do book keeping. It is too easy to hit the "what if" button and think you are still working with all of those invoices over in the corner. In that respect it fails to do accounting as understood by the taxman.

There is a package called TAS. Free. There is an upgrade path to Sage as it is owned by Sage. It is available as a free download and they will telephone to try to convert to a sale. But, TAS is effective for a wide range of smaller traders and well worth the effort. So a phone call is not to much to ask. TAS Firstbooks is a possible upgrade path which is free for the first 100 days. I would recommend against that: locking yourself into a product by using it for 100 days and then discovering it is unsuitable is not that prudent.

TAS Basics can also export to CSV files which Excel can import. So it remains possible to carry out reporting. I have used TAS and have no commercial interest in TAS or Sage. (http://www.tassoftware.co.uk/site/tas_software)

antrobus

Pennywise wrote: »

as an accountant, I see all sorts of horrors purporting to be book-keeping on a spreadsheet - nearly always there are errors and nearly always it takes a lot of time and extra cost to the client.

And as an accountant, I've seen all sorts of horrors purporting to be book-keeping on accounting packages - there are always errors, and it always takes a lot of time and extra cost to the client to sort it out. (All of which is undertaken whilst muttering, 'why didn't the bleeps just put it all on Excel'.)

GilbertGradgrind wrote: »

Accountants like it for working ideas out but they never use it to do book keeping.

Completely and utterly untrue. I know of entire accounting practices that prepare their client accounts on Excel. I've been doing book keeping on Excel ever since they invented it. (And before that Lotus 1-2-3, and before that .... but let's not go there.)


Real answer. It depends on your accounting requirements. What size of business are you talking about? (Assuming it is a business.) What kind of transactions? How many? Do you have an accountant that prepares your tax returnd , and what do they think?

GilbertGradgrind

antrobus wrote: »

And as an accountant, I've seen all sorts of horrors purporting to be book-keeping on accounting packages - there are always errors, and it always takes a lot of time and extra cost to the client to sort it out. (All of which is undertaken whilst muttering, 'why didn't the bleeps just put it all on Excel'.)



Completely and utterly untrue. I know of entire accounting practices that prepare their client accounts on Excel. I've been doing book keeping on Excel ever since they invented it. (And before that Lotus 1-2-3, and before that .... but let's not go there.)


Real answer. It depends on your accounting requirements. What size of business are you talking about? (Assuming it is a business.) What kind of transactions? How many? Do you have an accountant that prepares your tax returnd , and what do they think?

I have seen accountants prefer pencil and T accounts to Excel.
Particularly since it has evolved away from being like Lotus 1-2-3 and a genuine financial tool into some overblown graphics package with number input. Excel can obfusticate any accounts, no matter how simple, Which results in any Accountant having to reconsider the whole financial statement over again in order to achieve clarity and transparency.

I have can understand that for simple accounts Excel is a perfectly adequate tool for an Accountant to develop a spreadsheet covering the appropriate requirements for a business. If someone wishes to use Excel then that is their decision. But if that business changes (large or small) then the Excel spreadsheet will be 'modified' with gradual loss of clarity.

Regardless of anything I say, the strongest advice is to understand how complex the accounting requirements are and to obtain software that addresses those needs. Consulting an accountant can help with that but does not remove the responsibility for choosing the most appropriate software from the business owner.

antrobus

GilbertGradgrind wrote: »

Particularly since it has evolved away from being like Lotus 1-2-3 and a genuine financial tool into some overblown graphics package with number input. Excel can obfusticate any accounts, no matter how simple, Which results in any Accountant having to reconsider the whole financial statement over again in order to achieve clarity and transparency.

That's a bit like arguing that all cars should be banned because some people will insist on driving whilst drunk and killing themselves by colliding with the nearest tree. All tools are capable of being misused, and besides wouldn't the same be true if Excel was used as a modelling tool?

Nevermind. There is a company called VT Software that sells Excel based accounting solutions, whose VT Final Accounts package was the "highest rated" in a survey of accountants (at least that what it's ad in Accountancy magazine says). Never used it myself, but it's very existence should be sufficient to demonstrate that accounts do use Excel to "do book keeping" and that it is possible to do so whilst achieving "clarity and transparency" (whatever that is). If you have any lingering doubts on the matter I suggest you pop along to AccountingWeb where they actually discuss this topic from time to time.

As far as Excel is concerned, the statement that "Accountants ... never use it to do book keeping" is inaccurate. Accounts do use it for book keeping. And for accounts production as well (which is something a bit different). Whether they're right to do so is another matter entirely.

As far as the OP is concerned - that is, assuming that they are still reading this, and haven't run away screaming for the hills - it is unlikely that you're going to get anything approaching a helpful answer unless you can supply some more information about your exact accounting requirements.

Pennywise

antrobus wrote: »

Nevermind. There is a company called VT Software that sells Excel based accounting solutions, whose VT Final Accounts package was the "highest rated" in a survey of accountants (at least that what it's ad in Accountancy magazine says). Never used it myself, but it's very existence should be sufficient to demonstrate that accounts do use Excel to "do book keeping" and that it is possible to do so whilst achieving "clarity and transparency" (whatever that is). If you have any lingering doubts on the matter I suggest you pop along to AccountingWeb where they actually discuss this topic from time to time.

VT's book-keeping package (which is what this thread is about) isn't excel based! It's the final accounts formatting package that's excel based, presumably for formatting etc reasons which is all built in and protected via micros etc so the user doesn't need to change anything - all they need to do is import the data from the Non-Excel book-keeping/nominal ledger system and then tick a few boxes. It's miles away from actually using excel as the number crunching device for control accounts, ledgers etc. I use VT - I use the book-keeping package for the book-keeping and preparing the ledgers, bank recs, control accounts, etc., and then once I have a correct nominal ledger and trial balance, it gets exported into the VT accounts preparation spreadsheet for formatting/presentation reasons only. I'd never use Excel for book-keeping - though I use it a lot for forecasting etc which is it's real purpose. After 25 years in practice, I have yet to see a spreadsheet with the same kind of easy bank reconciliation and same kind of discipline/control that even the cheapest decent book-keeping packaage. When you can buy VT book-keeping for a one off fee of about £125, that does full ledgers, bank recs, etc., or get their cash book for free, I fail to see why you'd want to waste time writing your own spreadsheet for a simple small business.

nickj_2

antrobus wrote: »

hills - it is unlikely that you're going to get anything approaching a helpful answer unless you can supply some more information about your exact accounting requirements.

i just have a decoraitng ltd co , just me and my wife , no other emloyees , i just need a simple income and expenditiure accounts , i have used excel a few years ago but then changed to qb , which i do like but it appears that everytime microsoft bring out a new os it becomes either unusable or uinstable , for instance the first one i used was the 2004 version which worked with xp but not vista , so i get a 2008 simple books , however i have not been able to import any data from the 2004 to 2008 which is absurd , so i'm just thinking if i set something in excel then that should be compatible and future proof

antrobus

nickj wrote: »

i just have a decoraitng ltd co , just me and my wife , no other emloyees , i just need a simple income and expenditiure accounts , i have used excel a few years ago but then changed to qb , which i do like but it appears that everytime microsoft bring out a new os it becomes either unusable or uinstable , for instance the first one i used was the 2004 version which worked with xp but not vista , so i get a 2008 simple books , however i have not been able to import any data from the 2004 to 2008 which is absurd , so i'm just thinking if i set something in excel then that should be compatible and future proof

If you have a limited company then you'll need to do a lot more than produce "simple income and expenditure accounts". Ultimately you'll need to be able to produce financial statements that comply with the Companies Act 2006 that satisfy both HMRC and Companies House. I would presume therefore that you have an accountant that does that sort of thing for you, using the information that you've supplied them. That's why I would suggest talking to them about your problem. Primarily because they will already have made a decision themselves about what book-keeping/accounts production software they're using, and they might well have specific preferences about how best you can supply them with your accounting information. In fact it's probably a question they've answered many times before. They might already use Sage (or whatever) and prefer it if you used the same, so that they can just import the data. Or they might say, no we'd prefer it if you just kept a cash book in Excel and we'll take it from there, and if you want to produce your own income and expenditure accountto see how you're doing then follow these simple rules.