Have already got Xero – a cloud-based accounting system – and various other similar ones.
Had a locally hosted accounting and taxation programme (Digita). Nothing at all wrong with it – works very well in the main (odd minor things I must remember to mention to the developers sometime but nothing serious) – just the time taken doing software upgrades and having to let Lorraine use my computer to do her timesheets.
Also, a nagging feeling that scrappy bits of paper or the inside of my head as a CRM system is really not where I want to be moving forward.
Chat to my account manager at Digita and find, yes, there is an online version and I can have it enabled on more than one computer as long as there is only one person in the programme at any time.
No brainer therefore…
Add to that an announcement by both Xero and Digita that one will be able to link a data set in both so that making alterations in one will lead to those alterations being replicated in the other then – happy days!
Which reminded me of a conversation (ongoing) about which CRM systems other people use and whether they would recommend it to others means that getting Zoho (but the free version and not the 15 day free trial I’d been forewarned) and remembering that Zoho links with Xero and suddenly – whoa!
So sign up for cloud Digital (Digita Virtual Office – DVO) and park that in the corner of my mind.
I’m warned that the moving over of data could take three working days so, given I had a set of accounts with a filing deadline to adhere to, the data transfer gets put to one side.
This week I’m completing a set of accounts that started life on Xero and has been moved to Digita the old way and I’m reading the paperwork and notice the link only works between Xero and DVO (keeping up out there?) so suddenly there’s an incentive to get it up and running. That and another set of figures getting to the point of entering into Digita and thinking I might as well put it on the new system and, there we are, my mind’s made up!
Off the data goes (upload to cloud) and back the confirmation comes, all done in less than a day but, of course, having three days in my mind I’ve assumed I’m not dealing with it and, in any case, I’ve a whole day out in meetings and my osteopath appointment’s been there for ages and I might as well get my hair cut otherwise it will be holiday time and it won’t have been done.
So today it is.
Then the dawning that I’m not around at all tomorrow and, all of a sudden, the day is getting “cluttered”, especially in view of the dentist’s appointment which has been there for months obviously. Multitasking – that’s the answer!
Except that you can’t do three things on the same computer at the same time – if there are any complications and you have to concentrate. Sooooo – leave something until Monday? If I need the DVO up and running before I can do it, so be it. So, enforced learning complete with major learning curve as it cannot be done any other way.
As I write Accounts, Practice Management and Corporation Tax are running fine, Personal Tax and Company Secretarial no reason to expect otherwise. Just leaves the Accounts Advanced (this naming is obviously ironic as what the accounting bodies have done to small company accounts can in no way be described as an advance) and here I cannot find the master formats so a late ticket to Digita after I finish this and, with any luck, an answer and a course of action for Monday.
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