Accounting

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On a - now closed topic - one of the proper business tools mentioned was:
"Purchase a good computer based accounts package such as 'Sage accountant plus' or similar. "

My advice: stay away from everything Sage! It's very expensive, complicated and overvalued! ("Sage line 50" compares with the programs mentioned below and costs £ 525.00!)

Other, much better, easier to use, and loads cheaper (so better value for money) are:
MYOB - Mind Your Own Business Accounting plus £ 149.00
Mamut - Accounting Standard £ 149.00 - plus you can add other modules later like Customer Relation Management (mail-shots etc) very easy
For most start-ups and/or self-employed traders/trade persons the RCAP - Rapid Cash Accounting Package will be more than enough to get you started (records your VAT cash accounting in one go, easy!) £ 17.95 at the moment.

Worked with all of them, so not 'plugging' any for own benefit. Used MYOB for years until our business needed a proper CRM program and Mamut offered more for less than Sage's 'Act'.
Had to work with Sage accounting plus for a charity I did the books for - hated it - too expensive and getting reports out for the trustees was a monthly nightmare (in the end it was easier to create reports in Excel than using SAGE).
For a network organisation (BNI) I - volunteer treasurer - used the RCAP program, made life very easy.
 
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I concur. Bought Sage and it nearly drove me nuts (and that's whilst I worked in IT industry and was pretty computer savvy and I have passed a Diploma that included an accounting exam).

I just bought RCAP (the other day) and it's absolutely spot on.
 
Don't forget to include the price of Microsoft Excel, where applicable!
 
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Can anyone easily explain to me how to start a new year with the rapid cash accounting programme?

I'm having difficulty understanding the help files on how to do this.

Thanks.

Tony.
 
Hi. You start a new year with by making a copy of the whole software file. It works best if every year has its own folder.
E.g folder for the financial year 07/08 you name RCAP0708. The next year you name RCAP0809.
 
Hi. You start a new year with by making a copy of the whole software file. It works best if every year has its own folder.
E.g folder for the financial year 07/08 you name RCAP0708. The next year you name RCAP0809.

How do you make a copy of the whole software file?

I've started using the software straight out of the box as it where as in I inputed the dated straight away I didn't put the software in a folder to begin with so what I have is a file with all of my accounting data in.

So do I have to delete all of this data from the file in order to copy the file into a folder.

Presumably I should have copied the file into a folder when I first downloaded it so that I would have always had a blank (no input data) file to use?

Thanks.

Tony.
 
Find the file in your MY Docs folder or wherever you saved it.

Open it.

Top menu click "Save AS" and save it under a new name (you do not delete the old one - it just creates a new one with the new name).

Yes - with the new one you will have to remove all the old entries unless as you said you had of saved a blank one! Before you do make sure you have both files (old year and new year).
 
Find the file in your MY Docs folder or wherever you saved it.

Open it.

Top menu click "Save AS" and save it under a new name (you do not delete the old one - it just creates a new one with the new name).

Yes - with the new one you will have to remove all the old entries unless as you said you had of saved a blank one! Before you do make sure you have both files (old year and new year).

Thanks for the advice and taking the time.

Regards,

Tony.
 
It's horses for courses really, if you are a diy builder you should only need excel to keep track of your costs. If you are a jobbing builder then Sage accounts would be better as with the right version you have PO's and project costing. However, if you are a larger construction company, then you would likely need an all singing and dancing construction package. Something like construct advanced http://www.ledgerservices.co.uk/construct_advanced.htm which does estimates, job costing, cis, retentions etc etc.
 
Bearing in mind that I am not familiar with accounting packages anymore as I have to have an accountant, the only defecit I found when I looked at the various packages some time ago, is that many did not include payroll facilities.
 
I didn't say it was as cheap as chips ;) But for smallish companies who need also Payroll and online VAt return (plus have their bookkeeper and/or accountant accessing the accounts) it is a proper option.
 
personally i've tried sage, quick books, easy books, simply books and several other software packages, none have been able to do quote to job to invoice to accounts to tax & vat properly despite their claims and so i still do everything manually
estimates are done on word
as are invoices
accounts are done on excel and everything self calculates for tax & vat. a simple equation change in a box allows me to change between 0, 5 and 15% vat and i can see at a glance how little the government allows me to keep after it has bled us dry !! :LOL:
 
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