Please suggest free or low cost invoicing software

[Clinton]

Alan, when I get a chance I'll do a write up, but I am very busy. I've got editors of various business magazines chasing me for articles I've promised them on how to value businesses, alternatives to mainstream financing etc. (which articles drive clients to my consultancy at UKBusinessBrokers where I advise owners on exits and on extracting value from their businesses). Just had an email from the editor of Sift's sister publication as well; he's chasing copy.

So I'd love to do this, complete with pros and cons of each package, as it's bound to save a lot of people a lot of money, but no promises. I've got a ton of other writing to do first.

For now anyone wanting to follow the same route I did simply needs to go to eBay and type in invoicing software or accounting software.

Some of those packages look very good.

A few posters have mentioned various alternatives that work for them, including simple Excel based solutions. Readers of this thread could take the ones mentioned here and the ones they find in eBay through their paces as most packages offer free trials.

Bottom line: IMO, there are a lot of alternatives to subscription packages and if you're looking for some simple book-keeping or invoicing software, for goodness sake don't sign up to a monthly plan!

 

[Clinton]

PS: In addition to some of the low cost or free programs already mentioned, there are programs like manager.io which is a fully fledged accounting package and completely free for the small, one-man bands. No cloud nonsense, no monthly subs. Also, they provide extensive guides, regular free updates and an active forum to raise questions / make suggestions. It may be worth checking out.

You pay only if you want to upgrade to multi-user, web based etc.

 

[Scalloway]

Maybe not particularly suited to VAT registered businesses!

http://cdn.manager.io/www.manager.io/screenshots/bas.png

 

[Clinton]

Maybe a quick Google search like this would be worth doing! VAT registered businesses seem to be using it just fine.

Anyway, I'm not going to provide a running commentary on this or other software, or on any weaknesses / flaws anyone perceives in a particular package.

I'll leave small businesses to do their own research and reach the own conclusions.

 

[Scalloway]

When I click on your link it seems to come up with a list of queries as to why the software doesn't work with VAT properly!

 

[Clinton]

<sigh> Yes, those are threads in the support forum. Support forums tend to have people asking questions / seeking solutions.

But if customers are asking VAT related questions it suggests that your initial claim about lack of VAT support, which you "backed up" with an image, was hasty ...and was incorrect.

As is your current, new objection. It's not whether people have questions about how to use the software that matters; it's whether those questions get answered. Even a quick browse through the threads in the first few Google results paints a glowing picture of active support explaining to customers where they've made a mistake and how they can solve their problem.

I don't own the software, have no connection with it, and haven't even used it, but it's more than a bit strange when accountants, who are usually cautious and thorough people, jump in to diss an accounting solution without even doing the most cursory of checks.

Whatever your motivation here, I suggest you move on to (or continue to use/recommend) some other software if you don't like this one.

 

[john1989]

I’m not sure why any VAT registered business would want to dick about with workarounds when there are other free options out there that have VAT functionality.


Perhaps these business owners don’t value their own time.

 

[Scalloway]

it's more than a bit strange when accountants, who are usually cautious and thorough people, jump in to diss an accounting solution without even doing the most cursory of checks.

I took the time to look at the screenshots on the website. The GST report immediately jumped out at me as bearing absolutely no relation to the output need to complete a UK VAT return. As @john1989 says it may be of use to businesses where the owner would rather spend there time mucking about making something work rather than spend money getting something that works straight out of the box.

Xero starts at £9.00 per month. The minimum wage is £6.70 per hour. So if you only value your time a minimum wage you only have 1.33 hours a month to spend on workarounds before you are worse off.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

No nothing, technology is going cloud based / subscription model, one off licensing is dead business model.

Ever since Digital Railroad ran into the buffers I have avoided any cloud based solutions. Any business which puts its accounts in the cloud where you have no control over outages and closure is naive at best.

 

[Clinton]

I’m not sure why any VAT registered business would want to dick about with workarounds when there are other free options out there that have VAT functionality.

That a solid, helpful support forum exists means that people are "dicking around" looking for "workarounds"? You and Scalloway keeping going on about time based on some weird assumption you seem to have that using free software or one of the low cost packages is somehow going to cost more time. My experience has been that simple, clean, does-the-job software costs me less in time than complicated nonsense boasting a million features that I don't use. Some such software is paid, some free.

...there are other free options out there that have VAT functionality.

Great! That's what this thread is about. Let's skip the one I was talking about ... and have your suggestions for free accounting / invoicing software. That would be a really useful contribution to the thread.

atmosbob, it's not just when they go bust. Way back in the 90s, and long before "cloud", I subscribed to a web-based, traffic stats program that my business at that time came to rely heavily upon. One day they blocked all clients' access to stats and put a huge price on it i.e. held everyone to ransom. I leant an expensive lesson there: If you don't control something ...it doesn't matter whether you own it. This modern rush to put one's dangly bits in somebody else's vice is driven largely by ignorance and by not being aware of the options.

I've done a deal now with one of the smaller producers of a paid software for a bulk discount for the students I mentioned earlier. It's been a good day.

 

[john1989]

You and Scalloway keeping going on about time based on some weird assumption you seem to have that using free software or one of the low cost packages is somehow going to cost more time.
Not at all. But messing about with software that doesn't meet your requirement and having to look for fixes and workarounds doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

My experience has been that simple, clean, does-the-job software costs me less in time than complicated
I'm glad you agree that simple is often good. I'm sure you will also agree that having to find workarounds and fixes makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Great! That's what this thread is about. Let's skip the one I was talking about ... and have your suggestions for free accounting / invoicing software. That would be a really useful contribution to the thread.
The free bookkeeping packages that have VAT functionality off the top of my head are:
Quickfile
VT Cashbook
Capium
Bean Balance

 

[Martin Winlow]

If (the) value you place on a tool to help run the finances of a business effectively is much less than £120 per year, then I would honestly question the viability of the business. Business savvy people place a value on running the finances of a business effectively. Maybe you've missed a trick?

You have a point but surely the issue is whether the cost can be justified? I'm in a similar position where I run a new, small company and simply cannot afford the best part of £1k annually for an accountant. Nor should I have to. If HMRCs online system just had a good deal more in the way of an explanation (with examples) of how to complete their forms, small and very simple businesses would not need to spend a significant to huge amount on an accountant every year. As it is, like everything else it has any influence on, HMG seem determined to push us all into the hands of others - anything to create more jobs, it seems.

 

[Scalloway]

I pointed you to this resource in an earlier thread.

https://www.gov.uk/topic/business-tax/corporation-tax

 

[The Byre]

If you believe that even invoicing software (see the OP) should be attributed an "annual" value you've been conned hook, line and sinker.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I am tired of all this rubbish about annual subscriptions being more cost-effective etc., etc. They are not!

I have to deal with dozens of SW packages and over the years, I have noticed that all those promises of updates and bug-fixes remain just that - promises!

In EVERY case of subscription versus packages, I have found that not only are the packages cheaper, but also better and more likely to be kept up-to-date. As these subscription schemes mature, the companies then all go into a profit harvesting period, in which they cut back on R&D staff, but continue to receive their subscriptions.

This makes wonderful business sense for the likes of MS, Avid and Adobe, but it leaves the user with ever-diminishing utility, but tied to the SW like a mental patient to a gurney.

 

[Karimbo]

Cloud accounting is the bane of my life. I got a deal for £15+VAT for access to freeagent and a few other packages through barclays, but they have decided to withdraw the promotion and now it's near the cost of freeagent full price. A little bit peeved with that.

Paying £25 a month for use of some accounting software is really grating. Not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. But I have a small ltd which is VAT registered and feel like I have to fork out these expensives for the sake of legal compliance, or making legal complliance easy.

Cloud accounting is also slow, have to wait for page loads and feel like theres a lot of lag if you want to do something quickly. On a desktop software after you've become familiar with it, it's possible to enter invoices really quickly.

 

[Karimbo]

£10 a month does appear competitive. But one of the first businesses I created ran for over 10 years under my ownership/management. At £10 a month that's £1,200 over 10 years!

It sounds like a lot, but you cant stretch it out over all those years.

A person whose worked 50 years earning £30,000 has had £1.5M of his own money pass through his fingers. It sounds like a lot when you stretch it out over such huge time span.

 

[Karimbo]

Alan, you're still thinking in terms of large upfront costs, and I'll agree with you there. But if we talking £10 a month vs paying £100 to buy the software outright, I'm not excited about the per month option.

With one off software you'll find the tax rule change could render the software useless if you are relying on it for payroll & VAT returns (which I am doing).

You would be lucky to get more than 2 years out of your one off payment software. Even on a one off payment software you should expect to keep paying a subscription for updates. VT accounts have a annual license for their accounts software.

The only accounts software that I think are workable as a one off purchase are probably budgeting / self employed accounts software.

 

[Clinton]

It sounds like a lot, but you cant stretch it out over all those years.

Er, why not? All the large businesses are very clued up about TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). They are aware that a £200 investment at the start that's going to last 5 years is a lot smarter than £10 a month. It's only the fairly clueless end of the spectrum that get conned into paying more than they need to and get seduced by the small "per month" fee.

With one off software you'll find the tax rule change could render the software useless if you are relying on it for payroll & VAT returns (which I am doing).

You'll notice that my OP was about invoicing software, not payroll. Invoicing isn't that complicated. VAT isn't either. I reckon all invoicing software can easily accommodate any change in VAT rates. Trying to get people to pay a subscription for invoicing / VAT software should be made a criminal offence!

You would be lucky to get more than 2 years out of your one off payment software.

That's what they'd like you to think. One of my clients is still running MS Office 2002. It works perfectly for him. He did have to patch it at one point so it could read docx files, but apart from that it does everything he needs it to do. That package is 15 years old now. And guess what, Microsoft are now trying to convince him that Office needs to be paid for by subscription (i.e. open ended payments so they continue to make money from him forever and ever). Yes, there are some fancy new features to the new Office but, you know what, most small businesses haven't used all the old features yet! The same applies to most accounting software. Tax may change from year to year, so payroll and tax software would benefit from updates. Not so other accounting software.

 

[STDFR33]

@Clinton 'VAT isn't complicated'. Really?

 

[Deleted member 59730]

@Clinton 'VAT isn't complicated'. Really?

How is VAT complicated?

 

[Alan]

I think the point is being missed.

There just wont be any one off payment software solutions going forward.

There will be

• Open source - self hosted
• Cloud subscription
• In house developed

and combinations of the above, but the one off piece of software distributed on a CD ( or floppy drive ) is a dead concept. No software developer would chose that business model so it wont exist. Sure, there are some laggard and right now they do exist, but that is the nature of what they call 'digital disruption'.

Can a small business ave some money by finding some non subscription software, sure they can.

Is it worth the effort? Maybe / maybe not

 

[ffox]

That package is 15 years old now. And guess what, Microsoft are now trying to convince him that Office needs to be paid for by subscription (i.e. open ended payments so they continue to make money from him forever and ever). Yes, there are some fancy new features to the new Office but, you know what, most small businesses haven't used all the old features yet!

But, that's not the whole truth is it Clinton? An Office 365 E3 licence at £176.40 per year buys you
1. Office 2016 for install on five PCs or devices. (One off purchase on Amazon £182 for one PC.)
2. Free upgrades as soon as they come out, for as long as you pay the subscription.
3. 1TB of cloud storage. You can run your Office software on anything you like, tablet, PC, phone, so no need to buy expensive computers.
4. SharePoint on-line. On which you can do your invoicing, VAT, Bookkeeping, CRM, SOP, ERP etc, etc. So much better than all those spreadsheet solutions, and they can be shared for full collaboration.
5. Skype for business
6. Enterprise class Exchange email.

I think you have to admit that you get a little more than WP, SS, DB.
And if you don't need the locally installed Office 2016 you can opt to pay just £60 per year per user and use the SaaS versions of Word, Excel, Access etc.

Just having the security of not losing anything (time included) in the event of a PC failure makes it worth the subscription.

BTW. This IS the direction of larger companies and not one off purchase as you suggest.

 

[Alan]

How is VAT complicated?

From an invoicing point of view, its not. From a reporting point of view, with flat rate, EU MOSS etc it does start to get complicated.

 

[STDFR33]

How is VAT complicated?

How isn't it?

 

[Karimbo]

@Clinton, we may be talking about different things then. For invoicing (since I have 10 invoices max). I actually use excel spreadsheet and print to pdf to generate it.

I was thinking about complete accounting, and for complete accounting you need up to date software. They are always doing small tweaks to the tax, payroll changes every year.

Also, if you use your own sytem for a VAT registered Ltd then anything you save in software costs could be lost in accounting fees. If you use a proper system that can be easily audited then it will save the accountant some time. If you are suing spreadseets with receipts stored half digitally, half paper it will be a headachae.

I use freeagent and my account fee is relatively small. Probably because I have everything reconciled to the penny, every single invoice is uploaded and attached to entry in the books. So if accountant needs to do light audit and spot checks, everything is available to hand.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

How isn't it?

I've been doing VAT returns since day one. I was registered for Purchase Tax exemption before that. The only times my VAT return has taken longer than 15 minutes was at the very start when I did it without the aid of a calculator. I waited about a year for the high cost of calculators to drop.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

And if you don't need the locally installed Office 2016 you can opt to pay just £60 per year per user and use the SaaS versions of Word, Excel, Access etc.

I use Open Office. Didn't realise how much I was saving. Slap up meal this weekend!

 

[ffox]

I use Open Office. Didn't realise how much I was saving. Slap up meal this weekend!

Heavens, don't do that. What if your HDD fails next week, you'll need that money for the repairs and loss of business

 

[Clinton]

Ah, but atmosbob, what if you wanted FIVE copies for all your other office machines. Is it still free? And how much do you pay each time the software is upgraded? And how much did you have to pay for a superfast computer to run Open Office? How do you manage without 1 TB of data storage online or enterprise grade email? I could go on.

Heavens, don't do that. What if your HDD fails next week, you'll need that money for the repairs and loss of business

I use Open Office, have automatic backups of my hard disk and in the unlikely event my hard disk fails, I'm going to have to buy a new HDD anyway. The last time I checked new hard disks were a darn sight cheaper than £60 a year (and no extra £60 per year per additional user).

Listen, I completely agree that as a business gets bigger there may be some sense in looking at some of the options you suggest if - IF - they need to facilitate collaborative working, access to documents from multiple locations / multiple devices etc. But most small business don't need all these gizmos.

 

[Alan]

Heavens, don't do that. What if your HDD fails next week, you'll need that money for the repairs and loss of business

Simply use a cloud drive to store docs from Open Office ( Libre Office) , such as Google Drive ( free 15gb ) Drop box ( free 4gb ) or any of the paid services for cloud storage.

Or use Google Docs / Sheets

No one needs MS office, its a convenience.

 

[STDFR33]

I've been doing VAT returns since day one. I was registered for Purchase Tax exemption before that. The only times my VAT return has taken longer than 15 minutes was at the very start when I did it without the aid of a calculator. I waited about a year for the high cost of calculators to drop.

Once set up properly, doing the VAT return is simple and is usually done with a few clicks.

VAT as a subject is complicated and has many, many 'funnies'. That's why there are many specialists in this area of tax.

 

[ffox]

Listen, I completely agree that as a business gets bigger there may be some sense in looking at some of the options you suggest if - IF - they need to facilitate collaborative working, access to documents from multiple locations / multiple devices etc. But most small business don't need all these gizmos.

What most small businesses need is to be able to concentrate on business. They don't need the worry of installing software, checking that backup has been working, checking that the software is up-to-date for compliance, having to wait around for the computer support man to call (or worse answer the helpdesk phone). People are in business to do what they do best, not to become amateur computer experts.
With Office 365 if the £70 android tablet that is usually in use fails business continues using an iPhone, or PC, or whatever.

Convenience is desirable for anyone, for someone in business convenience also has value.

 

[pentel]

This thread seems to have drifted a bit....

Back to the original question, my vote would go for Inflow.

Does what is asked for and more. Free for small users then a one off fee if you don't want to update.

 

[Idosell Shop]

There is pros and cons battle. You can always use open office and there is nothing wrong with this since it will work well on a small scale of operation. Sooner or later you have to swap into professional solutions- simply it is cheaper. Still, there is a room for bespoke solutions with GBP300/day developers and it always will be. Rented solutions are just more cost effective, more secure investment wise.

 

[Karimbo]

I am on monesaving forum a fair bit and watch programmes like superscrimpers, it's amazing how people will spend so much time people will spend chasing pennies. £120 profit could be made in a single evening if you put your time into it.

COmpare that to the time expended in doing a messy DIY spreadsheet bookkeeping system.

maybe it will be just 1 hr more each week compared to a productive and effiicent software. Well that's 52hours in tghe whole year. That's 4-5 working days!

From a facebook group superscrimper style:

Just got an email from Receipt Hog- “Congratulations! You're a Monthly Sweepstakes Winner.” “Wow, I wonder what I've won,” I thought. “Your lucky receipt was drawn, and you're now 20 coins richer” Oh. Not money then.

It takes 1000 coins to get a £3 amazon voucher, so basically I've just won nearly a third of a penny. Why on earth have they emailed me to tell me that!?

 

[Deleted member 59730]

For accounts I use Easy Books for iPad. I just love sending invoices from a Wifi spot while on holiday.

 

[Karimbo]

For accounts I use Easy Books for iPad. I just love sending invoices from a Wifi spot while on holiday.

You're definately unique.

 

[The Byre]

No one needs MS office, its a convenience.

Which is also where it belongs!

 

[Alan]

But most small business don't need all these gizmos.

Hmmm, every small business I help needs these gizmos, but that is tautological (?) because they wouldn't ask for my help with digital remote working solutions if they didn't.

 

[ffox]

Which is also where it belongs!

You may think so, and for your business that may be the case. However, all of my clients use MS Office, a while back I was remoted onto a clients network installing some updates to a server. I needed to run a process which I had created, installed and documented, so I located the 'How Do I' I had written for them on their system. The document looked wrong. After checking it thoroughly I realised that I had written it using Open Office. In Word 2010 it looked rubbish, the header formatting was all displaced. As the header contains my logo and titling, my brand, I was not impressed.
I checked and corrected all the documentation using Word on-line and deleted Open Office from all of my machines.
The moral of the story is that if you create documents that represent you and you care about your customer's perception of your image and services don't cut corners to save a few quid. It can backfire.
Office on-line is free and available to all who sign up for a free Microsoft Account so why would anyone need open source software?