free accounts software

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holidayqueen

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Hi
I am involved in a not for profit community childcare service. All the committee are voluntary. There is a staff of 4 and they use sage as a wage package. The childcare manager does sort out the wages and the revenue. I am looking for a simple package that we could record the cash income which would be daily also other income plus all the invoices and expenditure so that we can keep proper track of all of this. I am computer literate but not good at excel so was looking for something that I would just have to enter the data. We are a limited company so need to have everything spot on.I have offered to help out treasurer with this. If we could get one free it would be great as we have a very tight budget
Thanks in advace for any help
 
TAS books basic is want you want. Its free to download from the TAS website (support may not be free however). However, its so easy to use, I doubt you will want the support.
 
There is no such thing as a [broken link removed]

Ask yourselves - why would a commercial organisation like Sage give away its software free?

The actual purchase price of software is a small part of the overall cost - the real costs are in learning and support.

I say this as someone who has paid for and used TAS Books 2. It's a good product but Sage is not a charity.

I also used Collsoft for payroll. It's cheap. It's excellent. The support is excellent.

Brendan
 
Brendan,

I note your point but totally disagree. It is definitely worth a go for this small operation. I would also say that if they speak to someone who uses TAS Books that should suffice rather than training. I gave my sister TAS Books 2 last year and she happily learned how to use it herself by trial and error. The other great thing about TAS Books is that you can easily correct any mistake you do.
 
The other great thing about TAS Books is that you can easily correct any mistake you do.
Click to expand...

Are you sure that you can do this with the "free" version?
I gave my sister TAS Books 2 last year...
Click to expand...

How do you mean you "gave" it to her? Did you pay Sage for it or were you able to download a "free" copy?
 
From memory, the version I had, you could operate upto 5 companies on it. So I installed it on her computer and away she went. She has only every asked me 4/5 questions on it and is not from an accounting backround. So that says alot for the user aspects of the product.

As for the free version, maybe somebody could post a reply here on their experience of using the free version.
 
The link Brendan has give on free software was to something I wrote. I have since updated this on helpforbookkeepers.com - The cost of free bookkeeping, accounting and payroll software

A few points on some of the comments here.
If you have a 5 user licence from Sage, it is for your use only. You cannot install the software on other computers or give a licence to someone else. You can set them up on your computer, but you do the work for them on your computer.

Tas First Books does not advertise a nominal ledger. It is advertised as cash management software, debtors, creditors, bank, but no P&L.

If you have time to learn free software, what did you not get done when learning the free software. Time is money, while learning form scratch you are not doing other work which still has to be done at some stage.

If bookkeeping/accounting is such an important part of your business, why do it yourself if you don't have the skills. Would you be confident receiving financial reports from a person with no bookkeeping/accounting skills.

Software companies advertise their accounting software as if any one could just start it up and they could be producing monthly accounts as good as anything from an accountant. When you use Microsoft Word you don't magically become a typist or writer. But when you see a badly laid out letter you know the person does not know how to type a letter.

When you see a badly laid out set of accounts (negative balance on customer and supplier accounts; 100,000 in your bank account when you are actually overdrawn by 20,000) you know the person does not know what they are doing, and they believe they do know what they are doing.

People complain that the get a big bill from their accountant at the end of the year, well that's because the accountant took their stuff, binned it, and started again from scratch.

Disclaimer:
I train bookkeepers. I fix accounting systems. I see and fix messes, that's my job. I see the cost of free and paid for software. I see the mess created by people who do not know what they are doing. Please if you don't know what you are doing get someone to do it for you or pay for someone to teach you.
 
Downloaded and installed TAS Books Free.
It is a full version if TAS Books 1 (Now First Books) Debtors, Creditors and Nominal

Problem:
You get 30 days free support and then you have to pay for support.
You don't have to pay for support, but in order to run the maintenance utilities to fix the system after a crash or the indexes get corrupted, you need a password. This password is only available from TAS support and the password changes every day. You must of course pay for support ion order to get the password.

So you do get very good free software, but you will have to pay for support to be able to truly use this product and I don't know if you will be sent free updates every year!
 
Nilsson,

If you back it up regularly surely any corruption issues are overcome by downloading it again and restoring it???

Do you think the product is worth a try for hard pressed businesses at the moment??
 
Tas Basics is not the same as Tas 1. Its a smaller product it does not have an invoicing module but you can record outstanding invoices on account.

All TAs products have a nominal ledger, creditors ledger, debtors ledger, cash book.

You get 30 days free support and the vast majority of people do not need to purchase training or support afterwards - the software is designed to be extremely easy to use. Certainly anyone who has done book keeping manually, on another package or in excel should find it very simple and straightforward to use.

The password that changes every day for tas products is not for access to the software, it is for access to the files in the back of the software. It is rare for someone to need to use this on Tas - very rare on Tas Books Basics. You only need to go into that area if your data is corrupted (and yes Paddy you are correct a stringent backup routine really does help safe guard against that happening as you can restore your data), and you need to rebuild reindex or delete files. You need a password to get in there as you can only do so under the advice of support. Were people allowed to simply go in there when they wished they would be at risk of seriously messing up their data which is something support could not fix for them afterwards.

The product is definately worth a try for small businesses its completely free.
 
Just want to resurrect this thread again as have just downloaded Tas Basics for free. Can't print any invoices - is that correct - surely that's kind of basic requirement?

Thanks
 
Featherhead's post above states -

Tas Basics is not the same as Tas 1. Its a smaller product it does not have an invoicing module but you can record outstanding invoices on account.
Click to expand...
 
Hurling Fan said:
Just want to resurrect this thread again as have just downloaded Tas Basics for free. Can't print any invoices - is that correct - surely that's kind of basic requirement?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi Hurling Fan. I've started to use this package as well but can't figure out how to create a VAT Annual return. My company's Y/E is 31/10/2011 but I don't seem to get an option to run it from 01/01/2011 - 31/12/2011. I'm evaluating it at the moment so trying to check the functionality before 30 days support runs out. I have email support today but perhaps someone on here can point me in the right direction?
 
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