Claire Georghiades FCA, Co-Founder of Accounts Resourcewrites: Many small businesses start life with their income and expenses on a
spreadsheet. As your business grows or if you register for VAT you will
have to consider using a software package for your accounts. We are
often asked which cloud accounting software packages we recommend. Here
are our top three cloud accounting software products.
Online means no software to install and business owners can log in
anywhere with an internet connection. Software updates are carried out
automatically and data is safely stored and backed up.
1. Xero Cloud Accounting Software – Ideal For Larger Business
We have made no secret of the fact that we love Xero. We think that it lives up to its claim as
the world’s easiest accounting software without compromising on
functionality, and this is why are registered as a Certified Partner for
Xero. Features: Easy to use cloud accounting software connects you with your accountant. Accreditation: Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales; Institute of Certified Bookkeepers Price: Micro business – £9+VAT per month; Small business – £20+VAT per month Free 30 day trial: no payment details required. What we love:
Automated bank feeds and bank rules mean one-click bank reconciliations
Fantastic iPhone app Xero Touch
gives you bank information on the go and allows you to do your
invoicing and expense claims (and then throw away all those messy
receipts)
Easy to use and integrates with many excellent add-ons eg Paypal
Dashboard giving a snapshot of important financial information
Comprehensive help – as well as the Support Team, the new Xero
community means that if you post a support question it will be answered
by any of the Xero Partners
Directors’ current accounts and drawings accounts for sole traders
can be treated as a bank account so no untidy journals needed when doing
expense claims.
The VAT return can be filed on-line with HMRC directly from the software.
2. FreeAgent Cloud Accounting Software – Ideal For Freelancers And Contractors
Despite our love affair with Xero, we are proud to say that we are ‘FreeAgent Friendly’ and if you are a small-business owner or sole trader who lacks accounting experience, you’re the target market for FreeAgent. Features: Easy to use cloud accounting software connects you with your accountant via IrisOpenBooks. Price: Sole Trader £15+VAT per month; Partnership £20+VAT per month; Limited Company £25+VAT per month What we love:
Project management – You can organise expenses or income by project,
and establish a budget for each to measure their profitability
Time tracking feature where each user can log in and manage their
own timesheets, while the project manager retains an overview of the
entire project
Dashboard giving a snapshot of important financial information
A simple interface and everyday language throughout, transactions are gathered under headings such as Work and Expenses
Unique tax time-line showing upcoming deadlines to take away the stress of dealing with the taxman
VAT return can be filed online directly from FreeAgent to the Inland Revenue.
A one-click report that creates a self-assessment summary for income
tax purposes, the details of which you can copy to your tax return
iPhone App – Mobile Agent, although not as useful as Xero as bank feeds are not carried out automatically
Not so good:
FreeAgent does not offer automatic bank feeds but it makes a good
job of tracking previously matched transactions and attempts to match
similar transactions as they’re imported
FreeAgent’s range of reports isn’t as extensive as Xero’s or
KashFlow’s, but the main ones – trial balance, VAT, profit and loss, and
journal entries – are here
3. Kashflow Cloud Accounting Software – Ideal For Stock Based Small Business With No Accounting Knowledge
Features: Easy to use cloud accounting software connects you with your accountant in the cloud via Orbit Accounts Accreditation: Institute of Certified Bookkeepers Price: £18+VAT per month Free 14 day trial: no payment details required. What we love:
Kashflow
integrates with a variety of payment card processors, including
SagePay, Barclaycard and Paypal. These allow you to update your
accounts with payment information automatically.
Dashboard may not be as polished as Xero’s, but its information is
presented clearly, with historical balances, sales charts and quick
links.
An impressive invoicing tool. You can quickly create quotes and turn them into invoices through a single button link.
A huge list of reports and tools, some of which are displayed in the
browser, while others open in a spreadsheet, including one that
produces the figures needed to complete a self-assessment form, and
another that generates a business “health check” score, with suggestions
on how to improve.
Like FreeAgent, direct VAT filing. You run the VAT report, enter
your HMRC online filing credentials and submit. Given how much of a
chore many small businesses find submitting returns, the ability to do
so without leaving KashFlow is a major strength.
A unique stock management feature. It’s basic, but functional: you
enter the number of items in stock, and that decreases when you issue an
invoice containing that item. You can also set a value at which you’d
like to be warned about low stock.
We like all three of the cloud accounting software products we’ve
tested, and all appeal in different ways. Kashflow may not be as easy to
use as FreeAgent, but its stock control features make it an attractive
choice for stock-based businesses.
However, it is Xero’s superb management reporting tools which are
transforming the way we can work with our clients. It makes it easy and
cost effective to manage compliance and frees us up to offer you high
value services. For more information on which cloud accounting software
package would be best for your business, please contact us on info@accountsresource.co.uk or on twitter @accountsresourc
By Claire Georghiades FCA, Co-Founder of Accounts Resource. Accounts Resource is a pro-active accountancy practice based
in South West London. Accounts Resource are specialists in providing
Accounting and Tax solutions to small and startup businesses and won The
Best New Startup Award at the Richmond Business Awards 2012.
Jeffery Battersby for MacWorld writes: If home is where your heart is, then there’s a pretty good chance that
home—or at least your Home Folder—is where you prefer to keep your
business’ financial information. While there are plenty of excellent Web-based apps
you can use for tracking your business finances, if you’re
uncomfortable with the idea of working within a browser and keeping your
business’ financial information in the cloud, a traditional Mac
application is your best option for you.
I looked at four apps for managing your business invoicing and finances: Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold, The Acclivity Group’s AccountEdge Pro, Intuit’s QuickBooks for Mac, and Marketcircle’s Billings Pro.
The first three are traditional invoicing and accounting applications,
while Billings Pro and iBank offer compelling features, but also require
additional software in order to complete the package. While all of
these apps offer excellent tools for managing your business finances,
MoneyWorks Gold stands above the rest, for an excellent user interface
Top choice: MoneyWorks Gold 7
If you’ve been around the Mac accounting game for any length of time
you’re likely already aware of the more well-known players, QuickBooks
and AccountEdge. The one application that probably hasn’t made it onto
your radar—but should have—is Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold (;
$99 per seat license). MoneyWorks Gold is a solid, full-featured
business accounting application that is networkable, supports multiple
users, and works on both Macs and PCs. MoneyWorks offers simple access to all your business data and the
options for sharing your data with Mac and PC users on your network.
MoneyWorks uses a flowchart-like interface similar to what’s used by
both AccountEdge and QuickBooks for Mac. The application’s interface
consists of a sidebar with navigation links to Moneyworks’ collection of
financial tools and and a larger main window that displays a flowchart
that changes depending on which item you’ve selected in the sidebar. As
is the case with both AccountEdge and QuickBooks 2014, the flowchart
attempts to create a visual relationship between various business
activities. While this makes all of these applications a bit more
interesting visually, in practice I’ve rarely used the flowchart to
figure out how the many aspects of a business are related.
Most of the tools you’ll use on a regular basis appear in the navigation
section entitled Day-to-day. Here you can create quotes, sales orders,
and invoices, reconcile your bank accounts, create and receive purchase
order items, and review accounts payable. Each of these same tasks are
also available in other areas of the application and selecting other
Navigation options provides you with access to a deeper set of tools and
features. For example, when you select Items and Inventory you have
tools for receiving stock on items you’ve ordered, viewing a journal
list of all the stock you have on hand, and building new stock items
from items you have in your existing inventory. With multiple users enabled, MoneyWorks makes it easy to manage which users have access to what in your company’s data file.
MoneyWorks includes just under 100 reports, including sales tax reports
for Canada and VAT reports for the U.K. If none of the applications
existing reports fit your specific needs you can create custom reports
of your own. Reports are available either from the Reports menu or from
the main application window when you’ve selected a specific navigation
area. For example, selecting Chart of Accounts from the navigation
sidebar provides you with links for a number of account-related reports.
Two features make MoneyWorks a standout: Multi-user network capabilities
and cross-platform client applications. (Features also found in
Acclivity’s AccountEdge product.) Sharing your MoneyWorks file on the
network is as simple as opening the Sharing and Users settings and
putting a check in a box to turn on sharing. (A Datacenter version
allows access by iOS devices and multi-company hosting) By default the
application allows access to anyone on the network, so to limit access
you also need to password protect your data file. Once you do so you can
add users and limit their access to features. Unfortunately, there is
no group option for managing user access to data, so every user you
create needs to have access managed individually. [snip] The article continues @ MacWorld, click here to continue reading. You can follow Jeffery Battersby (the author) on Twitter Here.
InCloud360, a leading supplier of cloud accounting and CRM
solutions, and cloud advisory services, has announced a new webcast for
professional service companies seeking measurability in their
operations. The webcast, 5 KPIs that Matter for Professional Services,
will be held on Wednesday April 23, at 1 PM ET.
The webcast will feature keynote speaker David Hofferberth of Service
Performance Institute (SPI) sharing years of analysis into the top
performance drivers and profit-centric measures that drive financial
success for professional service companies. Specifically, the webcast will provide attendees:
Competitive Analysis: Learn how, as a Professional Service
Organization, you can learn to outperform competitors and align your
strategic financial goals.
Five Key Performance Indicators for Financial Success: This
Whitepaper combines years of strategic planning and research from SPI
and informs readers of the Essential Definitions and Metrics on which
PSOs need to focus.
How to Monitor Your Alignment to the KPIs: Learn more about the
crucial metrics--and the Intacct cloud solution that helps you monitor
them in real-time.
Many Professional Service Companies have already seen the value of
partnering with a leading cloud provider. Through InCloud360, companies
and organizations, especially those in the professional services
industry, have recognized previously unseen growth and financial
insight. Intacct provides professional financial management and
accounting software for streamlining your services business using a
single, connected system to manage the end-to-end process of delivering
services to your customers--on-time, within budget--and improve revenue
per employee by up to 23%. Again, this free webinar, sponsored by InCloud360, will be held on
April 23, 2014 at 1 PM ET, is free for Professional Service
Organizations, and can be registered by clicking here: http://online.intacct.com/20140423Webinar5KPIsThatMatter_website.html?referral=incloud360.
About InCloud360
InCloud360 is a cloud technology advisory, consultancy and services
firm tailored to helping mid-market and fast growing small businesses
achieve their optimal level of operational efficiency and effectiveness
by defining and implementing core processes, optimizing outcomes and
using best of breed solutions to deliver the greatest value to their
customers. InCloud360 specializes in professional services, technology,
nonprofits and related verticals. For more information, call
678-250-3086 or visit http://www.InCloud360.com.
About Intacct
Intacct is a leading cloud financial management company endorsed by
the AICPA business solutions. The Intacct system includes accounting,
contract management, revenue management, project and fund accounting,
inventory, purchasing, vendor management, financial consolidation and
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The April 15
tax deadline is approaching. What happens if you can’t get your taxes
done by the due date? If you need more time, you can get an automatic
six-month extension from the IRS. You don’t have to explain why you’re
asking for more time. Here are five important things to know about
filing an extension:
1. File on time even if you can’t pay.
If you complete your tax return but can’t pay the taxes you owe, do not
request an extension. Instead, file your return on time and pay as much
as you can. That way you will avoid the late filing penalty, which is
higher than the penalty for not paying all of the taxes you owe on time.
Plus, you do have payment options. Apply for a payment plan using the Online Payment Agreement tool on IRS.gov. You can also file Form 9465, Installment Agreement Request, with your tax return. If you are unable to make payments because of a financial hardship, the IRS will work with you.
2. Extra time to file is not extra time to pay. An extension to file will give you six more months to file your taxes, until Oct. 15. It does not give you extra time to pay your taxes. You still must estimate and pay what you owe by April 15. You will be charged interest on any amount not paid by the deadline. You may also owe a penalty for not paying on time.
3. Use IRS Free File to request an extension. You can use IRS Free File to e-file your extension request. Free File is only available through the IRS.gov website. You must e-file the request by midnight on April 15. If you e-file your extension request, the IRS will acknowledge receipt. You also can return to Free File any time by Oct. 15 to prepare and e-file your tax return for free.
4. Use Form 4868. You can also request an extension by mailing a Form 4868,
Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual
Income Tax Return. You must submit this form to the IRS by April 15. Form 4868 is available on IRS.gov.
You don’t need to submit a paper Form 4868 if you make a payment using an IRS electronic payment option. The IRS will automatically process your extension when you pay electronically. You can pay online or by phone.
5. Electronic funds withdrawal. If you e-file an extension request, you can also pay any balance due by authorizing an electronic funds withdrawal from your checking or savings account. To do this you will need your bank routing and account numbers.
Visit IRS.gov for more information about filing an extension and the many options you have to pay your taxes. IRS YouTube Video:
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$99 per seat license). MoneyWorks Gold is a solid, full-featured
business accounting application that is networkable, supports multiple
users, and works on both Macs and PCs.
