Financial software

[gas path]

Can any of you guru's recommend a reasonable (fairly simple!) financial package for keeping income and outgoings for a couple of rental houses? Ideally it would be able to scan in receipts too and consolidate records for the income tax etc.
I do not object to paying but not the sort of 'Sage' prices.:confused:

[mixture]

income tax etc.

From those words I infer you're not running this as a business (i.e. no VAT reports to file etc.) ?

Most things out there are targeted at businesses, so there will probably be a bunch of features you'll find you need to ignore.

Maybe a combination of an Excel spreadsheet and Evernote/Dropbox/Whatever for storing your receipts would suffice for your humble needs ?

Just don't forget to comply with HMRC guidelines for scanning receipts ;)

P.S. never used it, but just found on Googoo... maybe this app would be of interest ? http://www.earnestapp.com/ ... same goes for www.quickfile.co.uk (http://www.quickfile.co.uk)

[gas path]

@ mixture
Many thanks for that! I had gg'd for something suitable but for some reason missed the 'earnesapp' it looks to be just about ' on the money' and it's free!
As I said I didn't mind paying but was loathe to in case whatever I picked was unsuitable!:ok:

[driftdown]

I have used Quicken for years and was most disappointed when they stopped support in the UK.

I purchased a US 2011 version and am still using it to this day. The formats may be in USD but I really don't care much about that

[ExGrunt]

@Driftdown

The last UK version release was quicken 2004. When Intuit withdrew from the UK it was released for free use. The file was called QuickenUK2004R2.exe (it goes without saying that you have to think really carefully about downloading an executable file from the internet).

I think it is still available, but not from Intuit who now want to flog their quick books, which I think is subscription /cloud based etc.

I agree that it was by far the best money management programme.

HTH

EG

[vulcanised]

I'm still using Quicken 2 c.1992 for banking stuff.

Used Quickbooks for a friend's business and well pleased with that.

[FullOppositeRudder]

I've used several of the Quicken programs going back to the 90's including the DOS version. I still use Quicken Cashbook 8 which was produced for the Australian market when the GST (VAT) was introduced. It's a very good program - simple yet 'Quick and Easy' as the marketers first claimed. It ran on multiple windows versions (possibly 3.11 - I can't be certain) but certainly 95, 98, XP and now W7.

I'm not sure what's around today - I've had no need to investigate. This veteran of the last century still does all I need. I'm still discovering how flexible and versatile it is.

FOR

[axefurabz]

<cough> MS Money98 still does me just fine. :8

[Capot]

We use Quickbooks-on-line (ie cloud-based) for a small training business (non-VAT), and very good it is too, especially the recent major update. It costs £22.80 per month.

But if your requirements are as simple as they seem, I would seriously think of keeping your life simple and just use Excel, saved to Dropbox or similar for safety and convenience.

It is exceptionally easy to use one sheet for income, another for outgoings, and combine the two into a third sheet with a report in whatever form you like, which calculates automatically as soon as you update sheets 1 and 2.

The great thing about that is that your system is then tailored to produce precisely what you want, no more and no less.

You can add other sheets that calculate things such as asset values and depreciation (linked to the report), how-goes-it charts developed from the other sheets, and so on. You might want to have a sheet for each tenants rental payments which links to the overall income sheet, or direct to the report. If you have to issue credit invoices (why would you?), then you can have a sheet "off-accounts" for those so you know who owes what at any time, but you would only show the amount as income when it lands in your bank account. Don't bother with an accounts payable sheet; simply pay invoices fairly soon after getting them and keep a folder of the unpaid ones.

If your accountant recommends buying accounts software, get a new accountant. If you pay anyone under PAYE, use a payroll bureau, not an accountant, to tell you what to pay to the employee and to HMRC, and to submit the returns using the required software etc.

The report would be what you send to your accountant, if you use one, to prepare your annual return. It's format and content should be what is needed for that.


If you are outside the UK, ignore all the above!