The Best Accounting Software for Accountants

Accountancy is something many people choose to leave to someone else. There are tales of freelancers whose accounting system consists of several carrier bags or boxes piled high with receipts delivered annually to their long-suffering accountant for them to sort out.

Fortunately, if their accountant uses BTCSoftware’s (https://www.btcsoftware.co.uk/) award winning packages, the chances are they have a system to suit which can line up those receipts in no time. If they can persuade the errant freelancer to deliver their receipts monthly rather than annually, then the specialist tax, accounts production and practice management software will make short work of producing annual accounts and tax returns out of random pieces of paper. Balancing monthly financial statements can be a chore for anyone, whether private individual or business owner, but it really does make an accountant’s life easier, even with the best software available to them.

Some of the features in the current software have evolved far beyond the heap of crumpled receipts beloved of freelancers of the past though. Given that HMRC has been accepting online tax submissions for some years, it makes sense that those who provide many of them are also fully digital where needed.

Accountants these days are just as connected as the next person, though, so the fact that many top software packages are now available with a cloud option is a definite plus point. It means that those clients who are equally confident online can upload their accounts straight to the accountant’s site and share the files with them immediately. For larger numbers of users the software should also be networkable with the option of multiple users at the same time.

Even the best accountant is likely to run into the occasional technical issue, and any software package worth its salt will have a decent technical team behind it, on call at no extra charge to help any of their users having problems.

Equally, the technical ability of some users may vary, so the software should be easy to install and intuitive to use. Direct submission of taxes and accounts to HMRC and Companies House respectively also helps simplify things somewhat.

Good software should also now be compliant with both Making Tax Digital and GDPR requirements. To increase the ease of use, it helps if it also integrates with other popular bookkeeping software packages to allow for easy transfer of existing records.

For the aforementioned freelancer, some accountancy packages are better than others. Those which incorporate a self assessment tax return option are obviously going to suit a small business better than software designed for a large organisation. It means that they can either ask an accountant to check their figures before submitting to HMRC on their behalf or submit their accounts directly themselves. The tax package offered by BTCSoftware also offers Partnership, Corporation and Trust accounts returns.

A period of free evaluation is often invaluable with new or unfamiliar software. Any software package worth its salt should offer this, even if it is only a couple of weeks or a month. The inclusion of updates should be standard too.

These are just some of the points for accountants to consider when looking at professional accountancy software packages. There may be others depending on their requirements and their clients’ needs, but these all feature in BTCSoftware’s packages, which might explain their award-winning status.