Advice on Computer and software please!

fittaedae

Hi folks,

We are a small electrical business and due a change of circumstances we are moving from a shared office to a home office, others who were involved in admin used a cheap laptop and office software... No backups (eek) and the laptop was used by everyone (including) their kids!

We want something a bit more "business" and safer. I have picked up a 1TB portable external drive from Maplin this weekend in their daily deals (offer on till mid April) for £69.99 (code A85LG) so our storage and backup is sorted. We were thinking of a 1TB 4GB desktop we have an old dell monitor which is sufficient at the moment, we have a wireless printer which is also sufficient for our purposes. Our laptop is ancient as is our desktop and it is very very slow.

We need to produce Invoices, Quotes, Statements, Reminders and the usual business letters. We are looking at Open Office as we looked at Office 365 Home, but believe that you can't use this for business use??

Have looked at Quickbooks and Sage for the financial side of things but again the prices start getting scary... But may be a good investment?

We have been looking at PC world, Dell, Levono, Misco etc but the prices are pretty high...

Anyone willing share their experiences pros and cons? Offer any pointers?? Can any techy people office some advice?? We really don't want to waste time and money and make the wrong purchase. Most staff in shops don't really have the ability/want to answer our questions and going to a professional IT company is well out of our price range.

Thanks in advance

SailorSam

I use Open Office but was struggling the other day with a spreadsheet and found this better from 'Kingsoft'. I've not looked at the rest of the package yet and although it's free for personal use you may have the same problem as OpenOffice if you wanted to use it for business, still if you want to check it out ....

http://www.kingsoftstore.co.uk/kingsoft-office-freeware.html

fittaedae

Thanks I will go and check it out

paddyrg

Can I suggest you have a look at online services such as office365? You *lease* Microsoft Office, but it includes a load of cloud storage (auto backup), no upfront fees, you can cancel whenever you want to. You need reasonable computers as they're always running the most up-to-date versions of office

You could also look at google's much cheaper http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/enterprise/apps/business/ which will manage your online presence and email as well as all their online spreadsheets etc. Plenty of google drive storage etc, which again acts as backups.

Oh dear I'm describing all this very badly...

In short, instead of thinking in terms of a classical home office setup, it has become very easy to use online/partially online services which automate a lot of the steps you used to need an IT department for. It means your data is backed up somewhere way offsite, it means your emails all come from your domain, it means a lot of that fussing around is gone.

fittaedae

Hi Paddyrg, yeah we have had a look at office 365 but its all rather expensive for us... We have to replace our desktop and laptop (for out of office use) so that is gonna chew up a sizable chunk of cash...

We really did not realise just how expensive decent computers had got!!! I mean you can pick up a laptop from Asda/Tesco for £300 but it ain't gonna last and is not really what we need...

Thanks, it is something to consider though once we replace the antiquated home PC we have

paddyrg

Have you had a look at the Google offering instead? Not as fully featured, but rather good nontheless, and much cheaper

Mind you, a £350 lappy will last you a couple of years ok if you don't install loads of games/rubbish :-)

fittaedae

Not had a look yet, but will do.

We would prefer not to use a laptop as our main computer as if its damaged or lost during travel it would put business on hold

Would rather have the laptop as a backup and for rare use when on holiday or away on business....

Plus it's me who will be doing the large amount of invoicing, typing etc and laptops are horrible for that IMHO

paddyrg

Then beauty of office 365 or the google apps is that the computer can be lost/stolen/broken/etc it's OK - everything lives on the servers, you just get a new blank machine and in a few hours you're working again. And an external keyboard is maybe a tenner or so. Just sayin' ;-)

The Office365 deal - you mention that the home edition isn't for business, you're right, but the office pro basic deal is like £100/year IIRC, or a tenner a month if you haven't got startup cash!

martindow

For letters, emails keeping accounts, etc. I don't think you need a high end expensive computer. Fast powerful computers are needed for things like game playing and editing video but not for basic office work.

fguk

Paddyrg is right.

Office 365 Small Business Premium is £100 something a year + the VAT per user. You get 5 copies of Office to be installed on your business PC`s or laptop for that, plus hosted email/calendaring etc including mobile email for your iphones/android etc which is invaluable for business.

Office Home & Business bought in the shop would cost you £150 + VAT per computer. Its a great saving already!

As for equipment. Get a Lenovo, or a dell, or a HP or some other big brand that you recognise. Make sure it has Windows 7 or 8, 2Gb Ram, Core i3 or above processor and whatever hard disk they are offering (320Gb for a business is more than enough usually, even if you take thousands of post installation photos of your work). It shouldn't cost you a fortune (ebuyer has a Lenovo Essential B590 at £314.99 ex VAt on the site now which meets the specs), you are right, cheaper the laptop, cheaper the build, but it should still last years with reasonable care. Desktop should be similar spec and similar price.

Sage or QuickBooks are nice to have (Sage Instant isn't that expensive?), best to match it to your accountants preference, although its all the same really.

And as a Pro IT company ourselves, can I just ask you to think about what happens when you find some bodged electrics in a house, and how much it can cost to put right. Done right first time, with the right advice/skills is far better isn't it!?

Any clarifications needed let us know.

fittaedae

Hi fguk,

Thanks for advice. Tell me do you have to go though a business account? We have seen a fantastic deal like you describe on Dell's site but its not available on their business site only dearer options are available or no monitor etc? ECode D006633 £449.00 1TB 4GB...

We feel that we may just buy a computer ourselves instead of putting it through business accounts as it seems less hassle and would get us up and running! We are using our old house one which we have wiped and its okay but not really fast enough for the amount of work in the future. We also have a personal laptop that we can use when away.

We are considering Sage but as I do a lot with Excel spreadsheets we need to analyse what out needs really are! As I say we are small we have 5 electricians and wages are done by accountants.

Andy yes you are completely correct right first time is best, but when we have had quite a few unpaid bills of late which we are pursuing, cash-flow and budgeting is king right now!