I’m a PT and work freelance through a UK ltd company so have to keep accounts.
I have used several different systems for my accounting and have experience to share that can save anyone else a load of hassle:
Quickbooks: Pretty good overall, fairly straightforward to use. I was fairly happy with this but my bank gave me SAGE for ‘free’…
SAGE: Absolute and utter nightmare!!! Unless you are an accountant full time SAGE is not to be touched with a very long ROV hook (in my humble opinion). Ridiculously complicated, about as intuitive as a mandarin chinese user manual. I ended up with totally outdated accounts and a very big headache to sort out in time for the corporation tax deadline…
Kashflow: Saved my a*se big time. As soon as I discovered this I got straight on top of my accounts and have used it ever since. An absolute dream to use. If you try it you simply will not want to use an accountant again (except for end of year stuff and tax planning perhaps). For an offshore dude you need about 15 mins a month to keeep everything perfectly up to date. The homepage is here:
http://www.kashflow.com
There is a free trial so have a look. (BTW if anyone has any mates who are sole traders pass this on to them and if they try it I guarantee they will buy you a pint!)
One last one I discovered recently is called Brightbook. This is nowhere near as good as kashflow but it is absolutely free so beggars can’t be choosers… Homepage here: https://mybrightbook.com/
I hope you save some time to play with the kids or go to the pub as a result of this. Happy accounting(!) 😆
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