Alternatives to Sage.

[VoxPops]

Our accountants charge us a fortune for doing not a lot - a big chunk of the cost is our Sage licence.

Does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives to Sage (I like the look of Zoho) and how much could an accountant cost to submit accounts for a small Ltd company with few complications? Failing that, can anyone suggest a decent online reference which will allow us to do as much work as possible?

Thank you.

[NickCW]

An alternative to Sage is Xero Accounting: https://www.xero.com/uk/advisors/

Good from what I have heard (not used myself) - might be worth a call/look.

[Googie]

We are now running with Xero having installed it in January. Experience generally good although it does have its shortcomings,especially with expenses which require an add on. Basic costs are £24 per month but you will still need a bookkeeper to reconcile invoices etc. To avoid back entry of lots of data best to avoid adopting it mid way through the year. Also check that your bank account can be linked to Xero.

[Mr Kitten]

I use quickfile - which is a little clunky, not as easy to use as Xero, but is free!

My accountant charges £77 a month to do everything (books, payroll, etc.). I'm a small Ltd company and pretty straightforward.

[hawk94]

+ 1 for Xero.

I work for a financial services company and we find Xero the easiest to work with they also have a busy apps marketplace where you can buy third party apps to solve a variety of headaches.

If you are shopping around these are some of the popular cloud accountants - Quickbooks Online, Clearbooks, Kashflow.

[MOBB]

I'm using Kashflow and it is very easy to use, costs me £5 per month, but I am a one man band contractor.

[Davel]

On the advice of our Auditors, we moved from Sage Line 50 to Xero.

[PhilboSE]

Using Xero coupled with ReceiptBank and finding them a good combo for a SME. Linked to a bank account makes reconciliation pretty straightforward and the necessary tasks come nicely to hand.

It's integration options are also pretty good, lots of addons available for specific needs, and we use the API with some self-writte code to link it to our CRM.

Recommended.

[VoxPops]

All very helpful - thanks very much.

[tight fart]

If it's just the cost, Barclays offered me sage at around £10 a month, Costco also has trade offers.

[XMT]

Great topic!
I have looked into this on and off for over a year now but cant find one to settle on.
Accountants seem to use Sage
many recommend xero
however there are plenty out there that are free or lower cost with essentially the same service.

I signed up to this one 6 months ago which looks very good but I have not used it at all. I have just came to my year end and looking to adopt one from now onwards:
https://www.waveapps.com/accounting/

Thanks

[Burwood]

tight fart said:

If it's just the cost, Barclays offered me sage at around £10 a month, Costco also has trade offers.

Great intro given your user name

[jamoor]

I'm looking into Xero right now combined with cin7 or dear as an alternative to sage 200

[Davel]

With Xero, our Auditors can check our accounts on line and do any reports or returns that we may need.

Equally our Accounts lady can ring them whenever the need arises and ask them to look at an entry on the system.

Happy so far and much much cheaper than Sage.

[NeilOak]

My company (PREIM) uses Xero, and has done for the last 5 years. We also use the add on MyPay to do the payroll which then posts the payroll costs into Xero directly.

Contact an Oakham based company "Max Accountants" www.maxaccountants.co.uk who are very helpful in getting you started.

[RegMolehusband]

I've just started to use Xero and it's good but with some annoying shortcomings.

In particular, has anybody got around their strange policy of sending out of Xero to suppliers and customers as though they came from the email address "[e-mail]"?