Online software – Xero, Sage, Quickbooks?
There has been a mad influx of cloud accounting providers to the market in recent years offering a modern solution to ‘keeping the books’. There are plenty to choose from including Quickbooks, Freeagent, Sage One, Kashflow, Clearbooks and Xero to name the big boys. What’s it all about and why is it something you should be looking at as a business owner? The main benefit for small businesses is that it can greatly reduce the manual data entry required to keep everything up to date with the use of a bank feed. The bank feed drags the bank transactions in from your business bank account so you can simply choose where they need to be allocated to. This is a huge time saver! Is it for everyone? Well the answer is no. There are lots of small businesses who do not need to keep formal books on software and prefer to drop in their ‘shoe box of records’ to their accountant at the end of the tax year. There are many benefits to keeping in year records of everything but the cost vs benefit is not worth it for every business owner. Cheltenham Tax Accountants will always look at your individual needs and determine what is the best solution for you when taking into account time, cost and your business needs. We are accountants Cheltenham and are able to offer a free initial meeting to assess your needs. Although as a modern firm of accountants we certainly embrace technology and particularly online cloud accounting software we have clients that keep their records in all shapes and sizes and would never insist you change for the sake of change. If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it! For the record we believe that Xero offers a very practical solution to a lot of small businesses and as an official partner can offer advice on set-up and transferring across your current data. Stephen Edwards Cheltenham Tax Accountants Ltd Accountants Cheltenham