free acounting software?!

samiam85

I googled "free accounting software" and found a few results:
has anyone got any experience in any of the list below?

http://www.turbocashuk.com/
http://www.freeaccountingsoftware.net/
and microsofts http://www.ideawins.com/

mkeeley

Had a quick play with TurboCash, seemed OK. Apparently it quite big in other countries, Australia and Canada I think, but works fine for the UK too.

Not tried Free Accounting Software, so can't really comment other than to say the user interface looks fairly good from the screen shots. However they talk about dollars so may well just be tailored for the US. The forum link seemed dead so couldn't check.

The Microsoft solution is US orientated, so probably not a good idea. They're supossed to be releasing a UK version sometime (don't know when, apparently it's been in beta since May 2006!).

So I think the only choice that definately works over here is TurboCash, or you could use a simple system (manual/spreadsheet) and wait for the UK version of the Microsoft software.

Marc

johnllew

From another thread here:

WHA wrote: »

Please don't use a spreadsheet. Yet again, I've just spent all morning going through someone's spreadsheet to track down all their errors - and again, this person is fully computer literate and sincerely told me that the spreadsheet was right!! There is a tortuous trail to follow to get from the each initial entry right through to the end results, with loads of silly errors along the way. If they had used a proper package, it would have saved them a lot of time and would have saved a couple of hours time that they now have to pay me for! I have never yet seen a spreadsheet for book-keeping that was actually worth the time spent on it and that was actually correctly completed from start to finish - and that's after working for 25 years doing people's accounts! I hate clients who insist on using spreadsheets. Don't do it!!!

Try www.vtsoftware.co.uk - they have a completely free cash book program on their site which is perfectly adequate for a typical small firm for their simple book-keeping. Alternatively www.winweb.co.uk which is another completely free web-based system that has the basics plus sales and purchase ledgers for controlling customers and suppliers dues.

Spreadsheets are a hopeless way to do your books. There are no built-in checks and balances that you will find in a proper software package, so allowing you to make mistakes without knowing it. It is too easy to accidentally format a cell into a label rather than a number, meaning the figure won't be included in the totals. Too easy to add a row or column and not adjust the formulae to include it. I could go on - for hours.

Don't do it. There is no need. There are proper software packages out there, as I said, even completely free.

mkeeley

Don't beleive all you read about spreadsheet solutions being rubbish and hopeless, many people use them successfully and can be both easier and quicker to use than a software package. Although it depends on your level of business etc which solution would suite you best. They're only rubbish if they've been created badly, but the same goes for a software based solution.

I had a look at the VT software I thought it was horrible, personally I'd go with TurboCash over that every time.

I've seen other posts regarding winweb with some people not liking the idea of someone else having their data, but you could say the same about GoogleMail etc. The only thing is that, although it's free, it requires that you use a WinWeb Accountant Partner. So not really free unless you planned to use one of their partners anyway.