Business Accounting Software
Mon, 20 October, 2008 – 8:33 am
This tax year I've transferred my accounts to Kashflow, which is an online accounting service available for individuals, businesses and companies in the UK. Before this I had used my own software written in PHP and dealt with everything fine enough but due to a lack of time, it had not been updated for quite a while and there was a lot that could still be done.
Khalid then introduced me to Kashflow, and although it's not free, it's so worth the price! I took full advantage of the 60 day free trial and my Mum (who does my accounts and invoicing) and I really had a good go through it all to make sure we were both happy with it. The bonus of it all being online of course is that we can both access it, which is handy seeing as we live about 3 hours apart!
So what features does Kashflow contain? Well we have the obvious features of course. You can add customers, add invoices, add expenses and purchases. You can also generate a number of reports to see your earnings for the year. Standard stuff really. However, you can also generate invoices online and set them to email direct to the client - you fill out a few boxes, select the client and the invoice is generated into a PDF, a great time saver. You put in the due dates for your invoices and when you haven't updated the invoice as being paid, you'll get an email through telling you the invoice is overdue - saves me having to write a list of when payments are due now!
The reports are great as I can see who's paid me the most, where I'm spending most of my money. The best report, for me, is the Profit and Loss report as I've got it set up to show me my turnover, then my gross profit (so turnover less unavoidable costs such as cost of sales, employee costs etc) and my net profit. However, there are various reports designed for companies, VAT registered businesses etc. and if there's something that you'd really need and can't get, the developers are pretty happy to take suggestions.
If you manage your own accounts, or do most of the entries and then pass your accounts on to an accountant to sort out then it's a really handy system as both you and your accountant can access it. Of course it's all secured and backed up on a regular basis too, so no worries about losing your accounting history and information. It also integrates with PayPal, can import all of your sales history from PayPal, saving you time if you do a lot of business via PayPal. It's certainly worth the free trial to have a look around anyhow!
Kashflow currently costs £15.99 + VAT per month after the 60 day free trial, so that's just over £18 a month. However, if you do fancy trying it out then sign up through my affiliate link, and you'll save yourself £1 + VAT a month. nothing major but that's £12 + VAT a year, almost one month free 
The 60 day trial has no commitment attached. You don't even enter your card details. So if you've gone as far as you can with Excel, or thinking of looking into a more professional accounting system, then I highly recommend at least taking a look. I've been using it for over 6 months now and am more than impressed.
It's pretty frustrating as I'd taken this past week off work too, to allow us to get some admin sorted out, work on some personal sites/projects and also go to the zoo, instead I've spent every day under the blanket on the couch watching boring daytime television and just faffing all day. A very unproductive week! So I'll have to grab some time next month if I can, as I've got a few projects going live this month.
I've added in a new fancy plugin called 
