Easiest way to do your accounting?

TheTracker

Pennywise wrote: »

Most decent accountants will just recharge out at their lower wholesale cost for their own clients. We certainly do. That usually brings the monthly cost down to under £10 for most of the popular systems.

Thanks for the advice. I'm planning to ask my accountant when I see him next week but hold little hope as he is a small outfit. I may try to wangle reducing his scope to not do payroll/vat at the level of the online service cost.

I harbour a heavy dislike to pricing schemes that are built on referrals and heavy discounts, rather than open published prices that are accessible by all. I can understand the motivation but it doesn't jive with me. Like the half price toothpaste at Tesco that is only full price 2 days a month, or tradesmans discount just because your kid goes to school with Plumber Bob's daughter. If they just made it £10 with no discounts or referrals I reckon they'd make more money. Their business plan however.

Pennywise

TheTracker wrote: »

Their business plan however.

No reason why a tiny firm can't get heavily discounted prices. I do and I'm a one man band, I can get one of the big players for £7 per month which they sell directly to businesses via their website for £30 and I recharge to clients at £7. Unfortunately, some accountants aren't happy with just charging for their time and expect to make profit on recharges too which is something I've never been comfortable with.

TheTracker

Pennywise wrote: »

No reason why a tiny firm can't get heavily discounted prices. I do and I'm a one man band, I can get one of the big players for £7 per month which they sell directly to businesses via their website for £30 and I recharge to clients at £7. Unfortunately, some accountants aren't happy with just charging for their time and expect to make profit on recharges too which is something I've never been comfortable with.

That's interesting, I'll mention it to them. They use Sage and as it stands once a year I transcribe from my software back out to their monthly spreadsheets and send bank records only for them to 3 weeks later give me draft P&L and Balance sheet figures that inevitably match precisely my original figures. I don't mind paying for the rest of their services and after 10+ years I trust them so I'm not looking to move elsewhere. I would like to just give them my end of year balance sheet and submit my own VAT and potentially RTI in return for a £200 price reduction on annual accountancy to fund the online package fees. Even better if they can pick it up straight from the service themselves.

If I was a small accountancy practice I would worry about the overhead of maintaining staff with knowledge in the online packages, and risk of having to update the client's records in the online system versus my own, and that the client would change records so they do not reconcile year on year.

Pennywise

TheTracker wrote: »

If I was a small accountancy practice I would worry about the overhead of maintaining staff with knowledge in the online packages, and risk of having to update the client's records in the online system versus my own, and that the client would change records so they do not reconcile year on year.

The online systems are a lot more user friendly than Sage, and staff training is a lot easier. Most accountants won't have two systems - the client/online system is the "live" system with just the balances extracted for the year end accounts/tax return. No problem with clients changing figures as most systems can be "locked" at each period end to stop changes being made to historical data. It's all been thought of and works very well.

CanadianExpat

I know you're looking for advice on avoiding accounting software rather than selecting one, but after trying to do my (single client!) accounts on Excel I was introduced to Quick File and have become a huge fan. And it's free.