Company Accounts - Bank Statements

innews: snipped-for-privacy@e18g2000yqo.googlegroups.com:

In most situations I would recommend QuickBooks over Sage. QuickBooks presently has a problem with multi currency and you have to be very careful with VAT reports but it is a lot easier to use than Sage.

Why would you prefer to avoid Microsoft products? They have brought out Microsoft Office Accounting which I would say is even better than QuickBooks.

Did he suggest any?

I haven't suggested analysing information for the sake of it or analysing what's not there. I've not even mentioned analysis. I have just recommended that you should use the information available to you to produce a set of accounts.

I feel that is a better approach in the long run than saying: "The accounting records are a mess! Lets guess the figures."

It reminds me of a new client who proudly told me that he had a separate business account.

I asked him if he only put business transactions through his business account and only personal transactions through his personal account. His answer was: "No."

PeterSaxton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@p36g2000prp.googlegroups.com:

Thank you, I'll bear that in mind, ease of use is important, we may all take a share in the day to day book-keeping. I was concerned about acceptance by accountants with Sage appearing to be more popular in the trade but perhaps not or perhaps it is more suited to bigger outfits than us.

Being in the IT industry for 20 years is enough to turn you off M$ for life so I'd prefer not to give them any money if I can help it. That said I'm not for cutting noses and spiting faces and will check it out too.

I'll let you know what he suggests if he ever returns our phone calls :-/

Thanks again

My experience is that most clients are actually better at recording their income than they are at recording their expenditure. They need to manage their sales ledger or they won't get any money in. There is no such problem with regards to the purchase ledger.

snipped-for-privacy@p36g2000prp.googlegroups.com:

Sage have made more effort to sell through accountants. I do prefer Sage when it comes to payroll.

I've just obtained a new client because she needed QuickBooks training and her accountant could not use it. She would send printouts of her P & L Account, Balance Sheet and general ledger transactions to him. He never once asked for her bank statements! No bank reconciliations were ever performed by the client. How can anybody prepare accurate accounts efficiently without being able to review the individual transaction?!

I had a feeling that would be your reason!

There's even a free version and a trial of the paid for version.

I had a feeling that might be the case.

The question is then: what to do about this unrecorded expenditure?

Obviously the Input VAT is lost if you have no supporting invoices, but do you post the "missing" debits into the P&L to make the P&L right and to make the tax right? All those B&Q cash invoices mislaid in glove compartments and down the backs of settees?

Martin I'm guessing would prefer to leave the accounts "wrong", so that the margins are wrong, and the comparatives next year are wrong, and everything is wrong; rather than exercising "common sense" to make everything hunky dory...

:o(

I think you've got the name wrong, or else you should give up trying to guess, especially if you haven't read and understood the previous posts.

There's nothing wrong with recording expenditure incurred even if there's no invoices to support the expenditure. I would still advise a client to retain the invoices.

I think Martin's point was related to a limited company client in which it is necessary to disclose the bank balance at the accounting period end.