We have always used Sage Accounts Production.
It was purchased a few years ago and served its purpose well, however Sage have recently changed the software to a licenced product, making it very expensive, in our opinion.
We are trialling VT at the moment.
We love the bookkeeping element of the software - so much that all of our accounts prep is now done on it.
The final accounts module is also fantastic and very cheap, however it is geared to the UK market which is ok for sole traders, but it means for Companies, we need to amend the notes etc.
As it is excel based, it is simple to do and only needs to be done once.
VT can handle iXBRL also.