e-skills UK Guide
Small business accounts systems
Buying an accounts system
Congratulations. The fact you are interested in buying an accounts system for your business probably means that you have grown to a reasonable size already or have keen aspirations that you will be growing very rapidly.
Business accounts software enables you to manage your accounts with a lot more clarity and ease than using manual methods. By using an accounts package you will save both money and time. Systems can cost from a few hundred £’s to many thousands, so choose carefully.
If after reading this you are still not sure, then how about using a simple spreadsheet solution for now? For details on that take a look at the guide that talks about tracking the financial numbers, available here.
What is an accounts system?
Money management is a key part of running a small business. Interestingly most businesses do the same thing – they sell products for a profit (hopefully!) and then process the subsequent orders and invoices. Software manufacturers realised this and have created software packages that will help you manage the money side to your business.
Accountancy products come with a whole slew of features and capabilities. At the entry level you may have a single user product but at the other end of the spectrum you can get accounts systems capable of being used by lots of people at the same time designed for running very large corporations.
For our purposes we will focus on the entry level accountancy products.
A typical small business accounts package will have the following features:
● Standard financials.
● General ledger.
● Receivable and payables.
● Profit and loss balance sheets.
● Invoicing.
Other elements or modules can be added to many of the more up-market products so they can end up with more functionality, but for a small business these features should be more than adequate.
It is possible to upgrade many of the well known basic accountancy packages so that you can stick with one supplier as your business grows. These upgrades may be quite involved, so try and plan ahead if this is the case. One of the most significant upgrades is to go from a single user product to a multi-user product. This often requires changes to the way the data is stored and accessed, necessitating quite a bit of work on occasions.
How to buy an accounts system
Purchasing an accounts system can be fraught with difficulty like any major software purchase.
It is best to speak to your advisors and see what they use and would recommend. For example, if your accountant uses a particular product then it may make sense to stick with that so that your systems are compatible. This can save you money and effort when it comes to the year end audit of your business.
There are a number of specialist software resellers that are trained on particular products from particular vendors. You will not get much of a choice from one reseller, but asking a couple to show you what their products can do would be a wise thing to do. These resellers should also be able to offer you post sales support and consultancy if there is a requirement to customise your product.
Certainly having someone in for a day or so to setup the software after purchase may be a good investment.
You will need to make sure that your IT hardware (such as the PCs) are able to run the software and if you need to share data you may need a network in place. For more general advice on buying software then take a look at this guide.
Suppliers of small business accounts products
Here is a list of companies that supply accountancy software for small businesses:
Commercial suppliers
We do not recommend specific products or suppliers; instead we provide you with a representative sample which covers the range of suppliers/products available. You may choose to look at these suppliers or products but this is entirely at your discretion.
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