Accounts Packages

[Guest]

I have to buy a software package for the pre-school to do our accounts with, i just wondered what everybody else uses, there are so many out there!!!!!!!

[Guest]

We use 'Sage'. Sorry I'm not the treasurer so I don't know anything about it but I know the treasurer is happy with it.

 

 

Al

[Steve]

Hmm. Whitetree, I'd say Sage is a general accounts package which an accountant or other experience bookkeeper would make use of, rather than a dedicated system for controlling the accounts of a nursery type setting. The difficulty with this is that you'd need to go through quite a learning curve to master Sage and customise it to work in the way you want, whereas a dedicated package, while it would certainly not offer the comprehensive features (tax, profit and loss and so on) of Sage, will already be set up to allow you to input number of children, charges, sessions and so on.

 

Does that make sense? Unfortunately I don't have any names to hand at present but I'm sure there will be someone here who does. I'd be interested to see a list developing here!

[Running Bunny]

There is a company called Parenta who have lots of nursery management tools - websites, management software, fee planner, pay roll etc. They are not the cheapest in the business, but their customer service and products are the best on the market (in my opinion)

 

You can request an online meeting with one of the staff who will give you a 'live' demonstration whilst you are sat at your computer, they talk you through all of the features - it's well worth doing, even if you are at the early stages of thinking about this.

 

You can have a look on their website here

 

To be fair on this, there are others -

 

Connect Software

Kindersoft

ey-essential

Instant Nursery Manager

[Deb]

Have just recently bought Quick Books Regular which I am really impressed with, have entered all last year's accounts so have reports at the click of a button. It has a payroll option but have no experience of this as yet, building up to that. I have no accounting knowledge, am just thorough and logical in my approach.

 

This was recommended by a friend who is an accountant. Now all I have to do is email him our Accountant copy of our accounts, as he uses Quickbooks which is something to bear in mind.

 

There is an initial interview in the package which takes you by the hand through the setting up process, which I have done all without any training, just some computer confidence I guess.

 

I was told that Sage is more difficult to understand and would perhaps need some training. I have also been told that Sage is not as compatible with Windows in as much as things like the drop down menus work in different ways or at least not as other applications.

 

Quick books certainly seems to be fairly idiot proof at the moment and I hope will prove to be money well spent.

[Guest]

Thanks for the all the info,

Debs does quickbooks reg do the tax, VAT etc, does it allow me to put in childrens names, sessions, charges etc, I really need something that is easy to use

[Deb]

So sorry for not replying to this sooner. I believe Quick Books does VAT and Tax and you can create your own invoices but I haven't used any of these things personally. I don't think it is like the specific nursery software that you can buy.