Final Accounts advice - can you help ??

shadeofblue

Hi all,

I'm a recently new MIP and just started trading a couple of months ago. I'ts going well had a few small jobs to fit around my full-time job.

I've been approched to do some year end accounts for a now Self-employed School friend...
I've already purchased Solor Accounts & working well with it, but as its year-end accounts he wants I would like to know if anyone has ever done manual Final Accounts by extracting info from accounts packages ???
Would really be happy to hear your experiences/advice...would if I need to purchase a Final Accounts Software at this stage??,
Im sure you understand when starting up you intend to keep business start-up costs as low as possible until clientele builds up!

Would be happy to hear some sound positive advice

R

Monsoon

For the time and hassle it saves, VT Accounts Production is wonderful.

However, Solar reports look quite nice and can be exported to Excel (where I would edit the P&L layout a bit though), you can always do that, and add in a page for the accountants report and approval report. For simple sole traders this is a nice, cheap and still professional enough way of doing it.

When it comes to Ltd Co's, buy VT.

shadeofblue

Hi Monsoon,

Thanks for your advice, I did consider VT Final Accounts for a later investment.
I've currently been exporting reports to One Note (Microsoft Office 2010 Professional) instead of excel. In One Note the style of report comes out really nice... I'm thinking this could be a useful program to adapt reports to produce FA I agree it could be time consuming but once I got the body right it would mean tweeking when required.

Thanks for another recommendation of VT FA .

Thanks again

R xx

Monsoon

I've not used One Note much but I think the principle is the same - if you can export the reports to somewhere, tweak them a bit (Solar lists expenses in ABC order which isn't actually what you want) and produce nice looking accounts without too much hassle, it's a nice way of saving money at first.

VT is awesome though, once you start getting a bit busy, you will be glad of the investment

shadeofblue

I must admit I find it hard juggling a full time job and at the same time running a business.. I suppose alot of people do . Coping with demands I try to stick to a strict rule of only one project a week otherwise i'll be killing myself !! lol
Do you have any experiences of first starting out ? how did you juggle and choose to give up work?

Also do you know of anywhere to get a VT Final Accounts discount ? as I think it one of your past posts I got the link for the Solar accounts discount

Monsoon

Hiya
I don't know of any VT discounts, sorry.

I gave up work because I secured a 4 day a week contract doing admin/bookkeeping at a local business and then 1 day a week with a local accountant.

I guess I did juggle giving up work, because I had to phase out 'going to work' doing bookkeeping to make way for the 'work from home' accountancy that was better money.

I had to just take the plunge, it got to the point where I just didn't have time to do the accounts because I was spending all day out doing bookkeeping. I gave notice at a 7k a year contract and just hoped for the best.... and then next month another smaller bookkeeping contract came along enough to tide me over.... and the accounts picked up.

Hope that helps

shadeofblue

thanks for the advice very much appreciated... I love hearing about other peoples journeys
thanks again

Monsoon

Thanks, best of luck with yours!