Best Cheap accounting software for small company

[james3000]

Hi i have been using quickbooks online for a few years now . However i have been having constant issues with them plus my subscription price has doubled to around £15 a month .

I deregistered from vat this year but there system won't allow me and even though the transactions are imported from my bank i have to manually select the vat from each one . I only log in every few months and enter them so this takes a long time .

Can any please recommended an alternative . I'm a ltd company just run by me and pay no one else .Just need to connect my bank feed and import my quickbooks history .

Many Thanks

 

[UK Contractor Accountant]

QuickFile free or £45 + vat per year if regarded as a large company.

 

[jamesbaldock]

+1 for QuickFile. Very good and perfect for start ups and small businesses as they don’t start charging you until go over 1000 entries (I think) per year.

 

[Mr D]

Best and cheap generally not going together too often.
Yes, quickbooks can be problematic when you do something their tech support cannot help with.
They do not appear to like people stopping using them.

 

[justintime]

Pandle may be a suitable alternative for you. £6 a month and includes bank feeds

 

[Mehmood Rajoka]

Go for Pandle .

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Accounts Portal is worth a look. If you use an accountant ask if they cant get you a discount.

 

[james3000]

Best and cheap generally not going together too often.
Yes, quickbooks can be problematic when you do something their tech support cannot help with.
They do not appear to like people stopping using them.

Yep it was too much hassle to leave in the end and to be fair to them there's not many cheaper with the same service .

 

[The Byre]

A pukka balanced bookkeeping programme with multiple currencies, stock control, bank control, payroll, P&L, graphs, etc., etc., is gnucash - it's free but Mickey Mouse it ain't!

https://www.gnucash.org/features.phtml

 

[gpietersz]

We use Gnucash too. Pretty powerful and completely free (and open source).

 

[The Byre]

We use Gnucash too. Pretty powerful and completely free (and open source).

Just to nail this one home, if @james3000 wants something better than GnuCash, he will have to get a real enterprise package tailored to his specific needs from someone like SAP or IBM. These Mickey Mouse cloud systems fall far short of real bookkeeping and resource planning programmes and are carefully designed to draw one up the subscription ladder until you are paying more for them p.a. then you would for the real thing!

 

[gpietersz]

@The Byre all cloud software is designed to draw one up the subscription ladder! That said, a lot of people can stay on the lower tiers.

GnuCash has one big disadvantage.: it is essentially a single user system, so you have a problem if multiple people need to make entries.

I think you are a bit pessimistic about having to go for a "real enterprise system" for something better, or at any rate the implication that its going to require something hugely expensive. There are a number of open source accounting and ERP systems around: e.g. LedgerSMB for accounting and Tryton for a full ERP system (I am in the middle of doing a Tryton install at the moment).

More expensive than GnuCash which you can install yourself (its just desktop software) but significantly cheaper than even bottom end SAP.

 

[The Byre]

GnuCash has one big disadvantage.: it is essentially a single user system, so you have a problem if multiple people need to make entries.

The GnuCash community has been calling for multiple users functionality for ages. We don't use it as we have a 15-year-old system written for us and based on SQL and it is beginning to show its age - every time I go to Mrs. M's office and suggest she tries GnuCash, she looks at me over her glasses as if she was looking at a mentally retarded and somewhat troublesome child.

We have to run books in two currencies and deal with three and all the basic cloud schemes I have seen immediately want real money for their 'advanced' packages for such a simple thing.

 

[gpietersz]

The GnuCash community has been calling for multiple users functionality for ages.

No sign it will happen though. I cannot see how it can be done without a proper server version, which will complicate the architecture as people will still want a simple desktop install too.

There is a workaround: if you use a proper database backend (rather than the default XML files) to store the accounts you can have multiple users but only one at a time. Acceptable for many small businesses. You still need a database server though - not a huge barrier (stick it on a small VPS or a Raspberry Pi).

 

[gpietersz]

We have to run books in two currencies and deal with three and all the basic cloud schemes I have seen immediately want real money for their 'advanced' packages for such a simple thing.

Exactly what I dislike about SaaS pricing. One small change in your business (like one single foreign customer who wants to pay in their own currency, in this case) and you suddenly need to pay more eery single month.

 

[Finadept]

I've heard good things about Pandle given it's price point. You won't get everything at this end of the market but surprisingly it does a lot for $7 per month. The Xero business editions may be more than you will likely want to pay but check with your accountant as there are partner editions that can be accessed which provide a bank feed and a ledger for a lower monthly cost.

 

[DontAsk]

An important consideration is how easy it is to send the data to your accountant at year end. I chose my accountant (personal recommendation) and then chose one of the packages that they support directly, i.e., they have the software and staff who know how to use it.

 

[johndon68]

Back in post 8 of the thread, the OP said he'd decided to stick with QuickBooks...

 

[DontAsk]

Back in post 8 of the thread, the OP said he'd decided to stick with QuickBooks...

At least my post might be useful to someone reading the thread in the future.