Feedback on your accounting program

User Interface
1

I was looking to see what was out there in the way of accounting programs, especially any that natively support MTD as my accounting program does not.

I looked at every website listed on HMRC and discounted 95% of the programs leaving me with a few to look at. Eventually I decided to review your program on the basis that it had the personal touch and small community feel that my program has and the program focused on simplicity for business users like myself.

I will be purchasing your Making Tax Digital Bridging program, but will continue to use my current accounting program and I thought that I would explain why.

I quite liked the documentation, high quality support and reasonable pricing that I see on your website so I am happy to support you for the MTD Bridging software.

What I liked about your program:

Fast - a lot of online programs are very slow so your program is impressive from that point of view.

Great Support - You and my accounting program really stand out from the crowd

Status of Quotes - You are able to archive, delete and convert quotes. Something that my accounting program still lacks and something I really want.

Adding Links to LHS - My program does this in a different way, but your method is quite good as well. Really good idea.

Simple to use - Like my accounting program, very simple to use. This is probably the most important feature. Although my program is even more simple to use!

Create Suppliers/Customers on the fly - The ability to create customers, suppliers, sales inventory from within purchase and sales invoices is brilliant and something that my program still can’t do!

What I did not like about your program:

No Inventory Module - My current program has an inventory module that allows me to buy and sell that inventory and track status of inventory - on hand, delivered etc. It’s not just delivery notes, but allowing me to see where the Inventory is using the delivery module. For me selling IT Equipment, this is essential and I I cannot manage without this.

No Budgeting Report - My current program has this and I consider it to be a necessity in an accounting program

No blank Setup - My program is very modular in that I can add the modules I want such as inventory, payslips, employees etc. In addition, the chart of accounts only creates about 10 default accounts (to give you an idea of what sort of accounts you need to create), but you can delete these accounts and start from scratch basically. This means for example if you want to use the program for your personal finances, you don’t have sales invoices, payroll etc which is irrelevant to personal finances. Whereas my business account will include inventory, employee etc modules. By only including the modules that you actually need and allowing users to practically build chart of accounts from scratch you can customise the program to show only what you want and how you want it. My accounting program has a lot of custom field functionality and ability to arrange the chart of accounts unlike any other program that I have seen.

Gui Interface - I would not say that you have too much clutter, compared to some programs I have seen, but there are too many items in menus (also in a very unintuitive order) and some of the stuff on the dashboard I don’t need there like creating new clients for example. Not something I am going to be doing frequently in my line of work. I couldn’t work out how to customise the dashboard to only show what I want and getting rid of petty cash, credit cards etc that I don’t need is also a problem. My program requires you to create bank accounts etc, instead of trying to work out how to delete unwanted accounts. This ties in with blank setup point above. It’s much better to require customers to create the accounts (like bank accounts) that they need instead of being unable to delete unwanted things in the program.

I hope that this feedback is helpful as this is meant to be constructive criticism to aid you in improving your program. I did like a lot of things about your program, but it made me realise what a great product my current accounting software is and I will be staying with them, whilst using your MTD Bridging Software! Thank you

2

Hi @dalacor

Thank you for the constructive feedback! Many of our features are born here on the community so it’s really appreciated that you’ve taken the time to post this.

Firstly, it’s great to hear you like those features (particularly the support - but I may be biased! :wink:).

I would like to address your improvement suggestions however, starting with the inventory module. This has come up before, and it’s something we’ve discussed internally. Generally we see this as more of a stock management option rather than an accounting one, but definitely see the link between the two. Our preferred approach I believe, would be to link with existing platforms rather than trying to reinvent the wheel (therefore we focus on accounting and doing that bit well rather than focusing on multiple areas). Out of interest, with your existing software, is this something offered natively or do they link with a third party?

Moving on to budgeting, there is an open feature request for this, so I highly recommend adding your vote/comments there so we can easily monitor the interest in this area.

Blank setup - we’ve designed QuickFile for the “non-accountant”. Many users come to QuickFile not knowing where to start with nominal codes or bank accounts, so we give a predefined set to help with the setup. It’s worth noting however, that you can remove the nominal codes if you wish (this is done from the Chart of Accounts report).

With the dashboard, I agree that it would be nice to make this more relevant to the account holder rather than a one-sided fits all. I will certainly pass this feedback on to our development team. There are lots of things going on behind the scenes at the moment so I can’t make any hard promises or offer timescales, but if this changes, we’ll let you know.

I hope this helps, but if you have any further questions, please do let us know - it’s why we’re here :slight_smile:

3

Hi @QFMathew Thank you for a very quick response.

I hear what you are saying about not wanting to re-invent the wheel with adding functionality that could be better handled elsewhere. I have several programs that are separate to my accounting program because a dedicated program is better.

However with inventory, based on using my accounting program it’s not just simply about stock management. It’s also about managing repeat purchases knowing how much it costs, which supplier to buy it from and the markup that I applied to that particular product. My requirements is more about about purchase and sales shortcuts (on purchase invoices and sales invoices) to items that I frequently buy and sell. The stock management aspect in my accounting program as in if product has been delivered is just a bonus and its not a hugely complex feature. I will send you a pm with a link to my current accounting program and you can view how they do the inventory, delivery notes concept and also see how you can add custom fields and you will understand the value to me. The inventory and delivery modules are native to the program - they are not external addons.

You already do this to some extent with your sales inventory. My problem with this is that there is no link to any purchase inventory so you cannot have item a at purchase price £10 with sales price at £12 and bought from supplier XYZ. With my inventory module, I have the following columns - Item Code, Item Name, Item Description, Product Type, Supplier, Purchase Price, Sales Price as well as Qty on Hand, Delivered and Owned.

The sales Inventory is in my program classified as non-inventory and is better for things where I might purchase Backup Software Renewal from my supplier, but I sell a Backup Service, not a license to the Backup Software program so I am buying a product, but I am selling a service so they are not inventory. This is where your sales inventory and purchase inventory would come into play (if you had a purchase inventory).

I will see if I can find the Budgeting Feature request and vote for it.

With Blank Setup and Dashboard, if you check my email you will see how my program handles adding modules and blank setup to create a very simple program to use. My program is also geared towards non accountants. Your program has far too many COA by default and creates unwanted options as well. This actually makes it harder for non accountants to use the program. You understand how the program works better if you can create your own bank accounts and COA etc from scratch.

A key feature of my accounting program is the absense of menus. The program appears a bit too basic, but actually is quite featured, whilst retaining a high level of simplicity.

See this post to highlight my point - Delete bank account Big negative for me. There is no justification for creating default petty cash etc accounts as it just ended up frustrating this user and according to their post many other users complained about the same issue.

Entirely up to your development team how you want to handle your gui, but I definitely prefer my current accounting program for gui management although admittedly the colours are boring. Thank you.

… Edit. I think my account is too new. I can’t email the link to you.

4

Hi I would echo comments re enabling a blank chart of accounts: I am on the process of setting up for a small community group and thus have no need for payroll related items, and the other dozen or do default accounts. I recognise the interest in serving non - accountants bit starting with bank, cash, income, direct expenses and overheads with a single account in each would be a good starting point - it is easy to grow the list form there

5

Hi @Christina

Thank you for your feedback.

From the Chart of Accounts, if you go to More Options, you should see an option to “Remove Unused Accounts”. While this doesn’t completely remove them, it will hide them throughout QuickFile, effectively giving you an almost blank canvas to start from.

6

Thank you for the swift response - yes - I found that and deleted all possible but am still left with many more accounts than I need - I have also spotted the “hide accounts with no transactions” option which mitigates to some degree.