Software Recommendations

[Jon K.]

Hello. Could I ask for your collective experience when it comes to accounting software.

Our present situation: We are a medium-sized company that are presently using Sage 50 (v21). We can have as many as 30 users using the software at the same time. As you can imagine, Sage 50 is not dealing well with this.

We are happy to consider cloud or offline. The software would have to deal with customers, sales orders, invoices, suppliers, purchase orders, stock, banking.

Your personal experiences would be valuable, particularly if you are around the same size as us when it comes to concurrent users.

Thanks for your time.

 

[kevin.doran]

Hi Jon

Honestly, you're likely to get a mixed bag here. None of us like Sage so that's a start at least! I like Clear Books, Nichola Accounts Portal and David Xero. Then there's Kashflow, FreeAgent, Quick Books, Liberty, the list is endless and all do much the same unless you've got some really specific needs.

No harm in jumping on a few free trials to see what's what though, that along with speaking to your accountant is likely the best starting point.

 

[Jon K.]

Thanks Kevin. We'll start getting our hands dirty! Thanks for the pointers.

 

[kevin.doran]

If you come up against anything Clear Books related feel free to give me a nudge...

 

[johndon68]

Kevin - do many of those that you listed support 30 concurrent users as mentioned by the OP?

Whilst previous versions certainly did not, v21 of Sage should be handling 30 users without too many problems, I've seen it running with 50 users with no appreciable issues...

John

 

[avalanche]

Kevin - The recommendations you gave all seem to be small business/ self employed type packages will any of them handle 30 users?

 

[UK Contractor Accountant]

I suppose the starting point here is what is your budget for this software upgrade?

The usually small business packages Xero, quick books, clear books et are probably out of the running for the number of users you are after as well as volume of transactions for a medium sized business.

The usual response from Sage is to upgrade to Sage 200 but I would have thought Sage 50 should be up to the job with a bit of tweaking.

There are specialist Sage programmers and experts out there who can develop Sage 50 to meet your growing needs.

 

[David Griffiths]

Xero will handle multiple users and I wouldn't see 30 as a problem. However it is aimed squarely at the small business market and the volume of transactions is likely to be the main issue. If there are more than 1000 per month, which does seem likely with 30 users, then it's not likely to fit the bill

 

[johndon68]

There are specialist Sage programmers and experts out there who can develop Sage 50 to meet your growing needs.

If it is the number of concurrent users that is the big issue then it is not something that a Sage developer would be able to change...

John

 

[UK Contractor Accountant]

Have a look at Sun Accounts and Aqilla. Both are likely to be pricey!

 

[Jon K.]

Firstly, thank you everybody. I appreciate this doesn't realistically have any easy answers, but each package reference gives us something to research.

It's probably worth adding something I neglected to mention in the original post - we could also do with something that keeps track of stock levels and bills of material, whether that be out-the-box or as additional modules.

We talked to Sage last week and they themselves said v21 would only support 10 concurrent users. Sigh.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

 

[johndon68]

We talked to Sage last week and they themselves said v21 would only support 10 concurrent users. Sigh.

Taken from Sage's own website here: http://www.sage.co.uk/sage-50-accounts-professional

"Have up to 20 users at same time without compromising performance."

John

 

[Jon K.]

Taken from Sage's own website here: http://www.sage.co.uk/sage-50-accounts-professional

"Have up to 20 users at same time without compromising performance."

John

Yeah. And then in a wonderful lack of consistency:
http://www.sage.co.uk/sage-50-accounts-professional/compare
"Number of users:
Up to 10 users"

 

[hwkiani94]

Look at quickfile.co.uk its free and has all the things you need

 

[David Griffiths]

Look at quickfile.co.uk its free and has all the things you need

You seriously think that it is anything near an adequate replacement for Sage Line 50 with capability for 30 users?

And that it has "all the things you need" which are stated to include sales orders, purchase orders and stock control?

Or did you skip everything except the thread title?

 

[hwkiani94]

You seriously think that it is anything near an adequate replacement for Sage Line 50 with capability for 30 users?

And that it has "all the things you need" which are stated to include sales orders, purchase orders and stock control?

Or did you skip everything except the thread title?

Yes. It can have unlimited users. Has stock control, invoicing, payments and automated bankimh feeds

 

[David Griffiths]

Yes. It can have unlimited users. Has stock control, invoicing, payments and automated bankimh feeds

Purchase orders, sales orders?

Stock with bills of materials?

All mentioned above

And that's without considering reporting. Last time I looked at Quickfile, describing the reporting as basic would be being polite

 

[hwkiani94]

I use it

 

[john1989]

In my opinion Quickfile is a step backwards from using a spreadsheet.

 

[David Griffiths]

I use it

Just because you use it doesn't make it suitable for somebody with the requirements of the OP.

I've used it as well, and I wouldn't use it for my own business if they paid me.

 

[Jon K.]

To just push this forward a little bit, our accountant has suggested three possibilities:

• Xero with Order Harmony
• Quick Books
• Pegasus Opera 3

Has anyone any first-hand experience with these? Nothing in-depth but either a 'it's great!' or 'don't touch it with a bargepole' would be helpful.

Thanks again everybody. Really appreciate your time.

 

[David Griffiths]

I use Xero for my own records and for clients and have done so for six years. It's an excellent program but you'd need to check if it can handle the volume of transactions as I've previously mentioned. If the issue is a high number of sales invoices, then there are several invoicing gateways that will handle this and you can post in periodic summaries to Xero. That might not work with Order Harmony

Quickbooks will try to push you to the online software, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't have stock control. (One of my clients signed up for it recently and had to give up on it)

Can't comment on Pegasus

 

[D.Q.]

Hi Jon. Some good comments above and I agree with David Griffiths, the systems you've mentioned are great, zoho I like the look of from a feature/functionality perspective although I've never used it. But David's right they work best with small businesses with a handful or 2 of users.

It sounds like you are at a somewhat crossroads where you could get either get a crm for your customer stuff, so lead>opportunity>forecast>quote>sales order. And then run it alongside a financials package: If you aren't too happy with sage, then an-other system for the order through to financials bit, which may also do your stock and BoM (bills of materials) bits you need.

Or, you could choose not to have disparate systems and go for an erp (enterprise resource planning) solution if you want the more 360° anytime-anyplace thing going on, which is more of a longer term solution/strategy. Erps support infinite concurrent users. Hope that helps. Darren (ukbf newbie)

 

[GlennDrake]

Hello, I am one of the co-founders of QuickFile

@David Griffiths it seems you have a vested interest in promoting Xero, but that's your prerogative. However to criticise @hwkiani94 for not reading the thread then making the claim "Xero will handle multiple users and I wouldn't see 30 as a problem" seems a bit rich. The OP asked specifically about concurrent users, almost any web based application will run into significant consistency issues with 2/3 concurrent users nevermind 30.

I'm not suggesting that QuickFile will be adequate for the OPs needs (for one we don't have native stock control), but to make unsubstantiated remarks about the reporting being basic is hardly fair. Perhaps it would be worth elaborating on why you believe this to be the case?

We have over 10,000 UK businesses using QuickFile to manage their bookkeeping/accounts, most are very satisfied. You can read the feedback yourself on our homepage (scroll to the feedback link at the bottom of the page):

Also it seems odd that as a UKBF staff member you are promoting a particular vendor. Particularly as we have been a client of Sift Media in the past. I've not come across this before with any other advertising platform.

 

[john1989]

I think you are being very defensive, and your criticism towards David is unfounded.

In fact, his very first post mentioned that Xero is ‘unlikely to fit the bill’.
Considering Quickfile offer year end services, I don’t think many accountants will be quick to recommend Quickfile anyway.

The OP outlined their needs, and Quickfile does not meet their needs (neither do other products). This isn’t bashing Quickfile, just a simple fact based on the needs of the OP.

 

[GlennDrake]

@john1989 fair enough, and I don't want to suggest that QuickFile will meet the needs of the OP. But comments like this seem unfair:

"Last time I looked at Quickfile, describing the reporting as basic would be being polite"

QuickFile includes a TB, P&L, balance sheet, ageing reports, basic tax computations, custom nominal ledger reports, projects, electronic VAT & ECSL returns etc. Perhaps that doesn't cover everything the OP needs but I would hardly call it "basic".

I completely understand why accountants would not be interested in promoting QuickFile. That said we are now disbanding our own accountancy services and working with accountants who use our Affinity product.

I'm not a frequent poster on UKBF but will confidently refute such claims.

 

[weebly_one]

We specialise in helping people keep using Sage 50 with large data sets / numbers of users when Sage themselves have often told the client that they need to move on to a bigger product (they usually suggest Sage 200) Please get in touch for an informal chat about your options if you want to keep the Sage 50 but just make it work better.