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Sage is good for Accountants and HMRC as it creates an audit trail if you make changes. It will sort out VAT returns and employers end of year returns. Payroll will automatically log on to your online banking and pay staff automatically if you wish but it does not support my bank, Alliance and Leicester. My accountant also offers me a discount if I provide my accounts to him via Sage (about 30%).
On the flip side I have found it (initially) quite fiddly to use and the help files are pretty awful. The same could be said for Sage Customer Support as well!
I am still using it though as it does get easier with time and I am able to do things like producing Waste Transfer Notes at the same time as invoices which saves loads of time.
Sage takes quite a bit of time to set up (data input, working out nominal codes for suppliers etc) but once it is set up it is fairly easy to use.
If you do decide to purchase Sage it is vital to purchase SageCover at the same time as that allows you to have access to any program updates due to changes in legislation from the Government or HMRC. If you don't get it then you risk having to buy the program again just to keep it up to date.
To purchase Sage can I recommend that you try http://www.creative-computing.co.uk/ They offered me a very competitive price and they also offer technical help with Sage.
Hope this helps :)
Apologies for this.
I have used Microsoft Office Accounting Express which is very good for small businesses and it integrates really well with Excel, Word etc. Best of all it is free... really! If you want extra features then you may want to upgrade to the Office Accounting Professional product but this is rarely necessary (although I have just done so in order to get multi-currency support). If you want a payroll system (rather than doing it manually yourself) then that is £10 per month (but I find it OK to use the HMRC CD-ROM and then manually enter the montly payments into Office Accounting).
The only difficulty I have had is issuing refunds but there is an online discussion group that helped me sort out how to do this. The only other disadvantage is that few accountants know about it unlike Sage but I just print off the end of year reports, give that to my accountant (who likes pen and paper more than computers anyway) and he is happy with it.
If you decide to use it then make sure that you get the UK version from http://www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk/
Jeremy
I use Quickbooks, though I'm trained on Sage I do find Quickbooks far easier to use and nowhere near as complicated. Also beware buying from Amazon et al all to often they are directed towards the American market. But good luck.
Marc
Thanks for all of your replies and advice. I've looked a bit deeper into the options and have decided to use the free Microsoft package.
My decision was not just based on the price, but as Proguard said, Sage is a bit over the top and fiddly wheras the Microsoft program looks a lot easier to use.
All the best,
Paul
As Jeremy said, the software is called Microsoft Office Accounting Express.
I would not reccomend it as a replacement for a good accountant as the HMRC changes what you are allowed to claim for, but it does give you an idea if the ink is black at the end of the month.
All the best
Paul