Cheshire wrote:

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Hi Joanne

 

Hi Nicola

Why is the Accountant insisting? - Easier to look at sales figures if only one report

Why is the client insisting? - Time consuming 

Are they VAT registered? - No

What do they sell? What are the VAT rates - all the same? - Cleaning

What happens if said customer asks for an invoice when they pay same day? - Customer has never asked but if they did they they would happily generate an invoice

How does client track his sales on a daily basis? - Spreadsheet

How do the clients pay him - direct to the Bank? Card payments? What happens if client gets cash? How will you know that a client has paid the correct amount? - Cheque, Bacs and cash -  All recorded on spreadsheet

A bit more about the business modus operandi might help with this one. - It is a cleaning company

 

I can see why the accountant wants to generate invoices for everything - tighter controls ect, but client already has a spreadsheet which tracks daily works carried out which is updated as soon as payment is received.

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Nikole wrote:

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Cheshire wrote:

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Hi Joanne

 

Hi Nicola



What happens if said customer asks for an invoice when they pay same day? - Customer has never asked but if they did they they would happily generate an invoice

How does client track his sales on a daily basis? - Spreadsheet

How do the clients pay him - direct to the Bank? Card payments? What happens if client gets cash? How will you know that a client has paid the correct amount? - Cheque, Bacs and cash -  All recorded on spreadsheet

A bit more about the business modus operandi might help with this one. - It is a cleaning company

 

I can see why the accountant wants to generate invoices for everything - tighter controls ect, but client already has a spreadsheet which tracks daily works carried out which is updated as soon as payment is received.

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 First off the Accountant and Cleaning company need to have the discussion and agree a way forward.  Although that said, he can just agree a way forward with you and tough the Accountant has to deal with it.

BUT - what happens when they get the inevitable tax inspection - are they then expecting the Accountant to fight their corner? If so and I was the Accountant and they ignored my advice I wouldnt be minded to provide that much assistance and let them hang themselves as they inveriably do!

No on the one hand he isnt VAT registered and presumably is supplying his services to other non vat registered folk (B2C rather than B2B) so is not required to issue an invoice in the strict sense.

I take it their spreadsheet shows the method of payment, not just the amount of payment - I mean lets face it the cheque/cash payments are not banked the same day, so how will you track it? (cheque! who even does that these days?!). 

How does he issue invoices to his credit clients?   Invoice book?   Software?   You doing via sage?   How do you know with the credit terms clients how and when they have paid?    As long as he has robust systems then that should be fine. 

That said, isnt Sage a bit overkill? Could it not all be done via his spreadsheet?

There is abolsutely no way I would be batch invoicing if they did not issue actual invoices - that would be just a waste of time.

I did another reply possibly whilst you were replying to mine. Think it covers off the credit customer query I had in part.

I would suggest a 3 way conference call to sort it out.

is the client likely to be VAT reg soon - wondering if that might be driving some of it (maybe, perhaps!)

Oh boy, they have a fair few in their accounts team then!

So, for the invoices raised in AN-other software, these can be data dumped (viathe import facility) into the existing sage. Or better still, cancel the existing sage and use the old sage. It aint broke, so why spend more money on a new one, especially if its on a subscription model. I have onewho is still using sage from over 15 years ago, even though they are in MTD4Vat (and still compliant!)

If it is (even a very very very old version of sage, which initially only looks to export to pdf) software then there will be a way to export to either excel or CSV. It just sounds they dont know how to do it.

Cheshire wrote:

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If it is (even a very very very old version of sage, which initially only looks to export to pdf) software then there will be a way to export to either excel or CSV. It just sounds they dont know how to do it.

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 Hi Joanne

Yes, we must have both been typing a response at the same time. Client is no where near the vat threshold so that cannot be a reason. The client wanted to be able to email invoices/Stats ect directly from the accounting software which apparently there existing software doesn't do. I'll have to check what accounting software is in case they are getting it confused with something else. Client originally signed up for the basic version of the cloud based Sage but the accountant cancelled the subscription and signed them up for the Sage 50 which is way more expensive!.

 

Cheshire wrote:

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Hi Nicola
Talk about overkill by the Accountant - he must be getting a kickback! or cannot be ars*d learning how to use the online stuff. SageBusiness (Sage one as was) wouldve been pretty much overkill but cheaper and easier for them Im sure.

Do let us know what software they were using - we might be able to help to see if they can drag reports and email invoices. They mightve even be better qith sliq invoicing or something similar (no idea on cost these days/if still free).

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 Hi Joanne, 

He didn't want anyone else setting up the accounts on Sage which probably explains why he cancelled Sage One. Yes, I'll definitely find out exactly what the software is called and let you know. 

Thank you for your help one again

Hahahaha John - I have just posted about this on another post after some chaos this morning with another, formally free, program.

I take it then this was a one off cost? Must have a look. THANK YOU

Hi John
Oh thats weird - I had a gander - its showing as 'per year'
www.sliqtools.co.uk/sales.aspx

Hi John
Thanks for that anyway!

Im doing the invoicing (or supposed to be)

Ive suggested Pandle, Quickfile for free (plus set up costs - Im doing it) or use of QBO/Sage ongoing but discounted costs. Or the option of checking with his myriad other software bits if he can do invoicing as well and adding a new user (me, or getting his staff to do it perhaps!).

I've just done a quick search for it, and all I've found is from the mid-2000s - two versions downloadable from download.cnet.com (which I didn't even realise was still a thing!) Interestingly, it runs on Linux under Wine (though I've only looked at a couple of screens). As you say, it doesn't respond when you try to print invoices (though printing a list of invoices works). Import and - important here - export is limited to product and customer databases.

The link on that page is to a website www.account-n-see.com that doesn't seem to resolve, and it the software appears to have been written by an outfit called Crowley Graphics - I get a number of results searching for that name, but none that I would say are definitely THE Crowley Graphics from thirteen or so years ago that wrote that software.

All in, I'd say it's a dead duck - I suspect the company is long gone, or if they're still around in some form probably don't have anything to do with the software these days.

This is nothing to do with the original question, or where the discussion has headed since. I just saw the latest post in my feed and thought I'd take a look.

Hi Nikole,

I thought it was a bit odd, TBH. When I spotted your post mentioning it in my feed, I didn't read back over the thread - just glanced at the last few posts - so I assumed at that point it was just invoicing software. (Glancing back over the thread now, it seems that's all your client is using it for.)

Installing it and playing with it last night shows it's more than that; it looks like an attempt at a full accounting package (though there were some things I couldn't see - for example, how to produce a VAT return! It probably is there, but I didn't spend an especially long time looking.)

When you say you couldn't get it to print a list of invoices, was it a case of you've found where it's supposed to do it, but it didn't work, or was it a question of not knowing where to do it? If the latter, when I'm home I can run it again to remind myself and describe the method I used here.

The aged debt report, my brain's a little fuzzy on now - I think I saw where it was, but I'm not sure if I tried it, so I'll try that when I'm home. (I'll have to bung in some more random data, though - I only put a couple of transactions in).

The absolute bottom line, though, is they do need to stop using it. Your opening post mentions they wanted you to set them up on Sage, but based on my quick read of the thread now, the motivation seems to be because of the accountant rather than anything else: ISTM their motivation should include that it has a number of problems, and its age* means it looks like it's no longer likely to be supported by its developer (as I said before, dead duck).

* Though amusingly I guess it's a similar age to the software I wrote as a temporary solution for a client, and which they were still using until the end of last year!

VinceH wrote:

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Hi Nikole,

I thought it was a bit odd, TBH. When I spotted your post mentioning it in my feed, I didn't read back over the thread - just glanced at the last few posts - so I assumed at that point it was just invoicing software. (Glancing back over the thread now, it seems that's all your client is using it for.) Yes client is using it to produce invoices and an aged debtors report. 

Installing it and playing with it last night shows it's more than that; it looks like an attempt at a full accounting package (though there were some things I couldn't see - for example, how to produce a VAT return! It probably is there, but I didn't spend an especially long time looking.)

When you say you couldn't get it to print a list of invoices, was it a case of you've found where it's supposed to do it, but it didn't work, or was it a question of not knowing where to do it? If the latter, when I'm home I can run it again to remind myself and describe the method I used here. I found where to print them but each time i tried to print it came up "not responding" so has to close the programme down. I tried numerous times and still got the same response. 

The aged debt report, my brain's a little fuzzy on now - I think I saw where it was, but I'm not sure if I tried it, so I'll try that when I'm home. (I'll have to bung in some more random data, though - I only put a couple of transactions in). When you want to print an aged debtors report, you can select the month in a drop down box. No matter what month i selected it always produced a report based on the most recent postings. Again i tried to alter various settings but couldn't get it to print set dates. 

The absolute bottom line, though, is they do need to stop using it. Your opening post mentions they wanted you to set them up on Sage, but based on my quick read of the thread now, the motivation seems to be because of the accountant rather than anything else: ISTM their motivation should include that it has a number of problems, and its age* means it looks like it's no longer likely to be supported by its developer (as I said before, dead duck).

* Though amusingly I guess it's a similar age to the software I wrote as a temporary solution for a client, and which they were still using until the end of last year!

I can get eventually reconcile everything working with the limited use of functions that i have. It just means it is going to be a little bit more long winded. I am back in the clients office tomorrow when the accounts person is in so  hopefully we can put our heads together and get everything balanced. 

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-- Edited by Nikole on Thursday 3rd of October 2019 04:40:19 PM

-- Edited by Nikole on Thursday 3rd of October 2019 04:40:45 PM

When you say you couldn't get it to print a list of invoices, was it a case of you've found where it's supposed to do it, but it didn't work, or was it a question of not knowing where to do it? If the latter, when I'm home I can run it again to remind myself and describe the method I used here.

I found where to print them but each time i tried to print it came up "not responding" so has to close the programme down. I tried numerous times and still got the same response. 

Ah, okay.

At least you get an error to say "not responding" - where I said it didn't respond, I *literally* meant that; in some cases I clicked on a print button and nothing happened; it didn't respond. For example, in 'Account book' if I select an invoice, right click on it for a menu and from that menu click "print invoice"... nothing happens. If I click "Edit invoice" from the menu, I can look at the invoice - and there are buttons at the bottom of the window including "Print Preview" and "Print" both of which, again, do nothing.

Thinking a little further on this - my initial thought was "Windows is reporting a problem, which Linux isn't..." but in fact I wonder if it's the program itself reporting that (it thinks) the printer isn't responding? This made me wonder if different reports can be configured with different default printers (which would explain why you've been able to print some things but get "not responding" for others) - but looking at the settings for the program, I can't see anywhere that could be done. (And on the things I printed, it didn't allow any printer choices as a step in the process; it was a case of click print... get the print out - which was annoying, because I would have sent the print outs to file rather than to a real printer!)

If you have more than one printer available, try setting a different one as your default in Windows, then try the troublesome reports again - to see if they can be coaxed into printing that way. Better still, if you have a PDF printer set up (i.e. so you can "print" to a PDF file), set *that* as the default and try again.

The aged debt report, my brain's a little fuzzy on now - I think I saw where it was, but I'm not sure if I tried it, so I'll try that when I'm home. (I'll have to bung in some more random data, though - I only put a couple of transactions in).

When you want to print an aged debtors report, you can select the month in a drop down box. No matter what month i selected it always produced a report based on the most recent postings. Again i tried to alter various settings but couldn't get it to print set dates.

Right... I've found the Aged Debtors list; there's a tab for it in the Account Book window. There's nothing there for changing the month in the version I'm looking at - so either they're different, or you mean using the calendar in the main window.

I think the Month drop down for that is just for the calendar itself, which gives access to a diary. However, on that same window there's a 'session date' (top right) - that's probably the date to change to get the Aged Debtors at a different date.

[clicks...]

Ah, perhaps not. It still gives the Aged Debtors based on the actual date.

Hmm... looking at the Session Date selector again, I note that even after changing the session date, it does note that today is 03/10/2019.

I suspect that session date is only used for entering data, then. (Checks... yes, creating a new invoice uses the session date).

Therefore I don't think you can choose the date the aged debt report runs - except perhaps by changing your computer's date before running the software. (Probably a sensible idea to disconnect from the internet before doing that, though, because anything that works online might get confuzzled, and might even report security issues).

I can get eventually reconcile everything working with the limited use of functions that i have. It just means it is going to be a little bit more long winded. I am back in the clients office tomorrow when the accounts person is in so  hopefully we can put our heads together and get everything balanced.

Well, there are a couple of things you can try above - but ultimately, the your client chose to persist with this software long after they should probably have dispensed with it, so if it takes you a long time they can't really complain if your fees are higher as a result.

Playing with the software now, while there are clear problems and things missing in what it does, it also does have some bits that may have proven useful had it been further developed - so it's a shame it hasn't been. (Especially given that I can run it on Linux!)

Ho hum.

-- Edited by VinceH on Thursday 3rd of October 2019 06:25:27 PM