The Fubra Blog
Accounting Software for 2010
As you might have seen from some of our blog posts last week – we had a lot of fun with all the fresh snow that arrived – but how did your business cope with the disruption to the country’s transport network? Luckily for us, as a web based company, if our staff can’t make it in to the office, they have most of the tools they need to work from home.
One tool in particular is an accounting software service that we’ve been working on for the past 18 months – it’s called Clear Books.
Traditional Accounting Software
Traditional accounting software typically provides a fairly archaic solution. Here’s the scene: You have an old windows machine in the corner of your office that has the accounting software installed on it. Your accountant or book keeper comes in every now and then to keep the system up to date. If you want some management accounts to see how your business is doing, you or someone working for you has to log on to that machine and export them. If it snows – your book keeper can’t get to the office and your accounts start gathering dust. If you are at home one evening, and you want to know how much you owe the VAT man – you have to wait until the next day to visit the office. You’ve paid a large amount up front for the privilege of installing the software, and then each year you have to pay to keep it up to date.
Traditional accounting software….
- Comes in a box
- Needs to be installed on a computer
- It can only be accessed from one computer, by one person at a time
- Has a hefty up front cost.
No Accounts Software
Some people don’t like using these old accounting software products, so they opt for an even more labour intensive approach; they get their accountant to physically collect all their invoices, and bank statements (also know as the black bin liner method), so that he can prepare their payroll, VAT and end of year accounts, and then physically deliver them back to them when he’s finished with them. This method typically gives you no ongoing picture of your businesses performance, and you have to rely on bank statements, spreadsheets or just your gut feeling to see you from year to year. Also, if you need to refer to an old document – you normally can’t because they are with your accountant.
Online Accounting
Then there is the new approach. We call this online accounting. In this scenario, the accounting software is accessed via a web browser. You don’t need to install anything on your PC. You can view your accounts from any computer (PC, Mac, Linux) with an Internet connection. So can your accountant or book keeper, so he/she no longer has to drive to your office. You and your business partners can be accessing the software at the same time, from any where in the world. There are no major up front costs, you just pay a small monthly subscription – and regular software updates are included as part of this. The software automatically generates your VAT returns each quarter, and lets you file them with HMRC with a few clicks of the mouse.
Online accounting software….
- Can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection and a web browser.
- Requires no software installation, updates or upgrades.
- Has a low monthly cost, with no up front fees.
If this sounds like something you want to know more about, you might want to read my 10 reasons to use Clear Books post.
Clear Books gets a new front cover
A few weeks ago work started on updating and restructuring the design of Clear Books, an online accounting software product to free your time.
The beta version was launched back in December last year (2008) and since then the software has shed it’s beta label (July ’09) and evolved rapidly, boasting a number of great features and reasons to use Clear Books.
VAT recognition
We are pleased to be able to announce that the first commercial product using php-govtalk with the HMRC VAT extension has achieved recognition from HMRC. This is a major step in development of php-govtalk: it means that the UK Government have recognised php-govtalk as able to produce the fully valid XML that is required to interface with their electronic VAT returns system.
While this recognition is for the Clear Books product as a whole and not the php-govtalk library, Clear Books itself uses only the php-govtalk libraries to manage the interface between its own internal database and HMRC’s systems and gives a good indication that other products choosing to use the library would also easily achieve recognised status.
For more information on how to use the library to achieve recognition please get in touch with any member of the php-govtalk team.
php-govtalk in the wild
The first live implementation of the php-govtalk library was made public last week.
Clear Books is a feature-rich online account package. Its creators were looking for a way of adding electronic VAT returns to the system to allow its clients to file their VAT 100 declarations without having to use HMRC’s paper forms. php-govtalk’s HMRC extensions were perfect for the task. Their implementation currently uses the VAT1 extension but is designed to be easily upgradeable to the VAT extension when HMRC roll out the next generation of their API.
Clear Books is currently going through HMRC’s recognition process for its VAT100 online submission product. As the XML used by the Clear Books is generated purly by the php-govtalk library and VAT extension this will be a significant milestone in the project’s development.
Once recognition is granted we plan to release a set of sample scripts which can be used to generate the XML logs required by HMRC as part of their recognition process.
We’re looking for interns
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills today took the wraps off their new online initiative: the Graduate Talent Pool. The idea is simple — provide a single location where graduates (and soon-to-be graduates) can go to look for internships, and a place for companies, looking to beef up their graduate recruitment, to advertise their current intern vacancies. Fubra has got on board with the scheme and is advertising a number of exciting positions.
While all of our positions are unpaid (except for expenses) they offer great experience working within a young, exciting new media company, the chance to expand the student’s portfolio, as well as the possibility of a paid position if we’re impressed during the internship. Read the rest of this entry »