Here's a question, "What is the best tax and accounts software for accountants and tax advisers?"

I run a small tax and accounting practice and use Digita for tax returns, corporation tax returns and iXBRL accounts to HMRC.

I considered using IRIS which I use at some of the accountants I consult to and have used a lot over the years.

IRIS seems to be very popular but also quite expensive too from what I can see especially for smaller practices.

For the price charged Digita seems a lot better although perhaps a little less module cross integration in my experience and AutoMail in IRIS is very handy for time saving on letters to clients but quite complicated to program MS Word to pre-populate client letters with relevant client info.

I am certainly very happy with Digita but would like to see the program developed a bit more each year to say deal with CGT calcs better for example it does not seem to have changed much over the last few years I have been using it.

If you don't "develop" to don't grow your client base.

Does anyone have any thoughts on tax software for accountants and tax advisers they would share with me that might be useful for all readers?

I would say Digita is very good, but they could certainly improve their software a lot by adding just a few new features you see in IRIS and other programs.

Here is my experience re tax and accounting software...

I have used Iris a lot helping other firms with their clients and used Digita in my own practice previously.

I was a Digita user for around 5 years until via QuickBooks online apps came across Taxfiler.co.uk and have used IRIS for over 10 years too.

Taxfiler.co.uk is around £15 plus VAT per month, per user, for unlimited clients, unlimited accounts and unlimited tax returns, on a monthly rolling contract.

This is less than a 5th of what I was spending on Digita and in my experience Digita is cheaper than IRIS.

Taxfiler is "cloud" based but you can back up individual clients off-line and restore to Taxfiler if needed.

At first I thought Taxfiler could never be anywhere as good as Digita simply because of the massive price difference to pretty much all the other tax software out there.

However having used Taxfiler for a while now and think tested most aspects I actually prefer Taxfiler so for me it was a win win swapping from Digita to Taxfiler.

I also prefer Taxfiler.co.uk as it links to QuickBooks online and Intuit (behind QuickBooks) are really good at linking up with other good software companies for app integration.

However Digita is just linking up with Xero and having used Xero quite a bit too I really don't think it is anywhere near as good as QuickBooks online so glad I changed for that reason two.

All the big successful software companies out there (Microsoft, Google and many others) are mainly swapping to monthly rolling contracts and long tie in contracts are dying out due to customer unpopularity.

It seems (as usual) that tax and accounting software companies (other than Intuit and Taxfiler) are slow on realising customers hate long tie in contracts.

Try getting out of a Digita or Iris contract mid term for example.

There is a live demo on Taxfiler.co.uk give it a try but I have to say I was even more impressed when got into actually using Taxfiler.

Personally, having used Iris and Digita a lot, I think Taxfiler.co.uk is easily the best tax and accounts software solution for small practitioners but would also be great for many larger accounting and tax practices as well.

I had never heard of it until QuickBooks apps pointed me to Taxfiler and can't thank QuickBooks online apps enough for having done so!!!

It is a total pleasure to use with very good online help pages although for the most part it is so easy to use help pages are not needed to get to grips with using it.

Hope that helps fellow forum users potentially save quite a bit on their tax and accounts software!

Liz

Edited by user 22 August 2016 17:10:58(UTC)  | Reason: link correction