small business accounting

[pipston]

hello,

anyone run a small business? i need accounting software as it's getting out of hand - narrowed it down to Sage One or Quick Books - anyone have unbiased experience of using either/both?

also on a separate question does anyone use a CRM/database for clients/suppliers?

my business is expanding and i really need to get a handle on this stuff!

thanks,

[garrardrj]

I have used Sage for a really small Sports and Social Club , it created reams of paper that i stopped using it , just used Sage Payroll and a Excel Spreadsheet . Its worth paying somebody to do the work for you , if you can afford to that is . There are many people about who do two or three or more small business accounts .
I would just do it myself , but then i am very good with remembering things and figures , if your not , pay someone

[Rumple]

Our accountant swears by quickbooks 

[WolverineMAc]

A lot of clients use sage as they find it more robust than quick books, also sage instant does not cost much around £130 pounds.  A few small clients use free agent.  Excel not of much use if you want to reconcile bank or have an idea if debtors and creditors

[cuprajake]

 We use sage instant accounting too.

It's a rest good easy to use system

I use a excel for invoicing and print these off.

I then input them into my sage and pluck them off once payment clears the bank as it's cash accounting

Same goes for my purchases.

If I can do it anyone can.

Just try to do it weekly and it's about an hours job.

[benj1989]

If you have a business account with Barclays they offer a system like sage but better. Also allot cheaper. Look online seems to be very useful

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

[vRSAlex]

I use freeagent.  Does exactly what I need.

[WolverineMAc]

We use sage instant accounting too.

It's a rest good easy to use system

I use a excel for invoicing and print these off.

I then input them into my sage and pluck them off once payment clears the bank as it's cash accounting

Same goes for my purchases.

If I can do it anyone can.

Just try to do it weekly and it's about an hours job.

Any reason why you don't produce the invoices on sage. If not do you import the info into sage rather than repost

[pipston]

We use sage instant accounting too.

It's a rest good easy to use system

I use a excel for invoicing and print these off.

I then input them into my sage and pluck them off once payment clears the bank as it's cash accounting

Same goes for my purchases.

If I can do it anyone can.

Just try to do it weekly and it's about an hours job.

Any reason why you don't produce the invoices on sage. If not do you import the info into sage rather than repost

I assume its because they want them to look a certain way for corporate branding or similar.

thanks for the replies - it seems that sage is the main one, ive also heard good things about quickbooks though so am pretty torn. i know i can call the sales line but they will both just blow hot air about their own product so was interesting to hear some honest opinion,

[WolverineMAc]

You can brand your own invoices to print in sage no different to excel

[cuprajake]

I am thinking of doing my invoices on sage. But from what I gather it's a one time thing. Sometimes our invoices need to be altered to take into account things like excesses or vat liability n knowing me. I don't always get it right first time lol.

It doesn't take long to fire them on.

[sam]

Hi,

I run a small IT company 3 employees plus myself.
We run our entire business through Sage accounts. I started using instant and now utilise the plus package as we needed re-occurring billing and Supplier purchase ledger etc. Re-occurring billing is a god send when billing for services on a monthly basis under contract ;)

In short it does everything you'd expect. From an IT standpoint it runs IMHO so much smoother than quickbooks. Creating reports in Sage isn't too difficult either.

If you need any further info drop me a PM

[JPC]

Xero is the absolute tits. Love it! Direct bank feeds so no inputting data for a bank rec... It's all therefor you to match up! It's awesome.

[sub39h]

I know my dad's business used Sage, but he did also have an accountant on the case. Can't offer much more advice than that

[JPC]

Sage is in the dark ages compared to offerings available now. If you are a company turning over like 2-10 mil with a full time sage trained accountant, fair enough, but otherwise.. I would never go back to using sage!