Clear Books : Accounting Software for small businesses

One hundred and twenty pounds a year plus VAT sounds a bargain for a pretty comprehensive accounting system with unlimited user access.

Aimed at the small business and sole trader arena Clear Books is an online accountancy package that gives you the tools to look professional and produce meaningful numbers ensuring you’re on top of the detail in less time than you’d be with a pile of spreadsheets.

Starting with invoicing, Clear Books can generate fully customised documents containing your logo or if you haven’t got as far as designing a look yet you can choose from a selection of pre-designed ones. These can be sent the traditional way or emailed as a PDF.

You can automate a lot of the processes involved with invoicing including setting up recurring ones and chasing overdue ones via email. Customer statements can also be generated.

Say goodbye to the manual entry of bank statement details by importing them electronically. All you have to then is describe the transaction. The system can even remember details and complete the description automatically for future similar ones.

From an accounting perspective the system will provide you with all of the usual reports including balance sheet, p & l and cashflow. You can of course get your accountant logged in to make sense of anything you’re not sure of and he can see full audit trails and make any journal adjustments necessary.

The software is recognised by UK HMRC for the filing of VAT online and will produce a VAT report covering this. If your business is outside of the UK you can tailor sales tax rates to suit your location.

Data is backed up daily and secured with 256 bit encryption giving you piece of mind that your numbers are not only accurate but safe as well.

Conclusion
Available on the web anytime anywhere and with a multiple user function allowing collaboration with key people this is a good looking package.