Are you using the Best Accounts Package for your Business?

Every day, as we run our client’s credit control functions, we remotely access many different accounts systems. As a result, we feel that we’re well suited to pass on our opinions about which accounts systems work best and why. There are many different accounting systems in the marketplace such as Harvest, Kashflow, Wave etc and all are unique and all fulfil a purpose. However for the sake of ease and security in your business, we would recommend you look at one of the big three providers Sage, Quickbooks and Xero.

In our opinion, a good accounts package should complete the minimum of 3 things :

* Allow the process of raising invoices on a daily basis, to either one individual client or a number of clients in a run, with furthermore the ability to be able to email both the original invoices and copies thereafter at any given time.

* Allow you to create a statement of accounts for an individual client, with no barriers as to the dates, values or numbers of transactions to be listed within that statement, which again can be emailed at any given time.

* Have the ability to raise management information reports, to highlight what monies are owed to you by a particular client and from where, with a view to creating a process for the pursuit and recovery of your outstanding monies.There are many other functions that a business owner could deem equally as important to them, this is for the purpose of successful credit control.

Sage is the oldest player in the market and has a well established name within the accounting industry but this may well be its only downfall. Although Sage are working constantly to improve its ‘user friendliness’, in our opinion Sage is great if you have a good grasp of accounts, if you are a complete novice then Sage may not be the best introduction to accounting software.

Quickbooks has also been around for a while but was a little slow in developing the on-line element of accounting. They are more than making up for this now and their advertising presence has increased dramatically over the last few years. However in our opinion although Quickbooks are nearly there with the customer ‘interface experience’ there is still work to be done.

In our opinion Xero is the best starter package for a business looking to gain control of its accounts and its credit control function. Whereas we think Sage suits accounts people with a grasp of business, we think the opposite with Xero, it suits business people who need to gain a better understanding of accounts. Because of this we think it suits the ‘masses’ more.

Furthermore Gavin McBride Director of Smith McBride Chartered Accountants and Tax Consultants share our view:

 “As a practice we have had experience with most if not all of the bookkeeping software on the market. Xero is our preferred choice for our clients to use. The main reason being that they find it easy and logical to use. Xero can really help a business owner to run a much more efficient business and keep track of who owes them money! It can also help them to keep a handle on how much money they are or are not make day to day”.