The Framers Forum

I’m looking to setup with an online accounting software and QuickBooks seems to be fine for my needs, I don’t have a massive turnover and not VAT reg. Just want something to track receipts to help with tax return that can be scaled up as I grows.

I am keen to get a view on what other people use and how the software can be used, I’m sure there are other features that I’m not even aware of that could be of use to me

I use Zettle for my payment provider and aware that these can be linked.

Thanks in advance.

I just use Google Sheets.
Once a month I update my spreadsheet and it takes me around 1 hour.

Quickbooks user here, I like the fact I can have it as an App on my phone. So literally as I spend it I post it into the app.
Find in very user friendly and if you haven't used a system like it before it's very intuitive to use. Think it costs £6 a month.

I don't use dedicated accounts software for my accounts, but I have used Quickbooks in the past and it was very straight forward to use. From what I anderstand Quickbooks is probably one of the easiest acconting software packages to use for people who don't really need to be experts on more complicated accounts software like Sage. My accountant drew out for me what items I needed to show on a spreadsheet and I have continued to prepare my accounts on a spreadsheet. Initially using ruled colomn accounts books, but later using Microsoft Excel. I don't enter things on to a computer while I am in the shop, I print out my own Excel two part weekly forms to record my weekly transaction, using a ball point pen while I am in the shop and enter them in my compuer based Excel spreadsheets manually at a later date. As I am only planning to work for four days per week when I get around to re-opening my shop I am expecting to be trying to change to having a complete weeks shop transactions recorded in ball point pen onto only on A4 sheet of paper, which will be pre-printed out from my computer as a blank form generated using Excel.

I have used this method for about the last 15 to 20 years and it has work quite well for me. Like many others I do not much enjoy accounts and do not understand much of what the accountant does with them when I pass the spreadsheets through to him. My monthly spreadsheets on the computer have a few check sums in seperate boxes which have to match the same figures in adjacent boxes to check that I have not made any mistakes and this is very helpful to me as I find it necessary to easily tell me if I have made any mistakes and to tell me where to look to locate any mistakes. I believe that the system which my monthly spreadsheets use is called double entry accounting. I also have other additional calculation generated to determine my overall profitability on a month by month basis, togther with gross profit, net profit, cash flow calculations and key performance indicators. This my not suprise you, but I am a bit of a dunce when trying to control the financial side of my business and these extra bits of information have been quite important for me to keep the fanancial side of things functioning on a sensible level.

I hope that this makes sense and that at least some of this might be useful to some degree.

We use https://www.solaraccounts.co.uk/ its very simple based on the old version of QuickBooks before it became a cloud based system
very intuitive (even my technophobe wife gets on ok with it)

Thanks for your input.

i have been using spreadsheets but I'm not great at updating it as I go and then have a bigger task / headache at the end of the year.

I like the idea of updating on the app as you go!

Thanks again

My wife does the books for me and after trying Sage some for a year we switched back to using a spreadsheet. My accountant
Is happy with it and so are we.

I use quickbooks and like it especially the app on my phone as i can photograph receipts and put straight on each day. It is easy to use.

Nick

Thanks again. I’m going to go with QuickBooks. Start the new tax year a bit more organised … I hope.

Cheers all!

I use Sage, but it's too powerfull, been using it for too long to change, it's really an Accountants software, but in a couple of years when I stop the Ltd company and become a sole trader , I might change to spmething like Quickbooks