I wonder if anyone has experience of freeware accounting programmes for a
sole-trader business (heating engineer) - the simpler the better. I have
had a look at a couple, and they seem rather complex (Banana cashbook,
TurboCash).
There are two things you should be aware of:
1) The bookkeeping requirements of different countries are different.
You'll need a program that's written for your country,
2) If you're going to depend on the program for anything more than a
personal record, you'll need a program that does actual bookkeeping -
that pretty much means "written by an accountant". (Coded by a
programmer, probably, but trust me, programmers aren't accountants -
we need accountants to make sure that what we write really works.)
The IRS (or your country's equivalent) won't accept a printout from
"Joe's Accounting Program" as anything more than scrap paper. But the
output of a double-entry ledger will look very familiar to them,
especially if the program uses the standard account numbers.
