1&1 Web could also be greatest identified for its website hosting merchandise, however the firm has greater ambitions than that. The newest addition to the vary is 1&1 Online Accounting, a cloud-based set of bookkeeping packages geared toward freelancers, small and medium enterprise customers.
The software program is powered by sevDesk, a model of the German developer SEVENIT. SevDesk has solely been round since 2014, however the firm has been working onerous to internationalize it, and the 1&1 On-line Accounting service is now absolutely tailored to the authorized and enterprise necessities of the UK.
On-line Accounting plans begin with Bill, a easy package deal for getting ready quotes and invoices solely. Commonplace templates make it simple to get began, and you’ll model paperwork with your individual letterhead and brand. It’s licensed to a single consumer for entry on any machine, and could be yours for £four.99 ($6.69) a month over the primary yr, £9.99 ($13.38) on renewal.
That is a little bit costly; ClearBooks provides you extra performance in lots of areas (although no VAT on the starter product) and helps limitless customers for a similar value on month-to-month billing, dropping to £eight ($10.70) a month if you happen to pay for 2 years up-front.
1&1’s Accounting plan provides on-line cashbook administration, doc submitting, an summary of price facilities, DATEV export and separate entry for tax advisors. Your account could be accessed and managed by as much as three customers, and it is priced at £9.99 ($13.38) a month for yr one, £19.99 ($26.76) on renewal. Once more, rivals like ClearBooks supply extra options for much less.
The high-end Stock Supervisor plan additionally consists of warehouse and inventory administration options, together with an up-to-date stock overview, speedy choices to write down and dispatch supply notes, and instruments to test buyer and provider costs. The service could be accessed by as much as ten customers, and it is priced from £19.99 ($26.76) a month for yr one, £39.99 ($53.53) on renewal. That is not low-cost, however stock administration is a invaluable characteristic which is not at all times an choice elsewhere.
All plans are supported by a few cell apps. SevDesk provides you entry to the core service, and sevScan digitizes receipts for together with in your data. Each apps can be found for Android and iOS.
No enterprise can afford to have this sort of important service go down for lengthy, so it is good to see that 1&1 On-line Accounting consists of 24/7 assist by electronic mail and phone.
There’s one other welcome safeguard in 1&1’s money-back assure. You’ll be able to strive On-line Accounting for as much as 30 days, and if you happen to’re sad, you possibly can cancel the product on-line (no must struggle your means by way of customer support) and obtain a full refund of all of your prices.
Setup
The 1&1 web site does an affordable job of presenting the options of its On-line Accounting plans, and most customers will shortly be capable to determine which product they want.
Faucet the Purchase button and also you’re in a position to buy the plan on a month-to-month or annual contract. There is no preliminary low cost for month-to-month contracts, so they don’t seem to be essentially the most interesting of selections; for instance, 1&1 Stock Supervisor prices £39.99 ($53.53) if you happen to select the month-to-month choice, £19.99 ($26.76) if you happen to go for annual. Even higher, annual contracts are billed month-to-month, so there isn’t any chunky up-front invoice.
Hand over your money by card or PayPal and also you’re prompted to your private particulars: identify, bodily and electronic mail tackle, cellphone quantity, firm identify and sort.
A few emails arrived quickly afterwards with affirmation and acknowledgement of our order, however nothing associated to the On-line Accounting product itself, no product abstract or description, no ‘getting began’ particulars, no clear hyperlinks to assist assets.
The Welcome electronic mail did not even point out the phrase ‘accounting’, as we might signed up for the Stock Supervisor product, and if something it appeared to counsel we had bought website hosting (on the backside of the e-mail a line instructed us ‘If for any purpose you aren’t happy along with your web site you possibly can cancel your package deal inside the first 30 days from date of buy to obtain a full refund’).
We learn between the traces and adopted the hyperlink to 1&1’s Management Panel, the place there was an icon for On-line Accounting, and tapping that began the actual login course of.
Though we had chosen to register the product for private use, 1&1 On-line Accounting began by demanding we enter our firm identify. It additionally requested for our nation, most popular language and foreign money, in addition to asking us for our cellphone quantity for a second time.
By default 1&1 On-line Accounting treats you as VAT-registered, however you possibly can select non-VAT registered standing with a click on.
Login full, the service lastly takes you to your internet dashboard the place you are in a position to get began.
Interface
1&1 On-line Accounting opens with a visually interesting overview of your accounts, together with a abstract chart of income and prices and an inventory of any to-do-type duties you may need arrange.
A drop-down record allows finishing up widespread actions in a few clicks, together with creating recurring invoices, proposals, order confirmations, supply notes, contacts and duties. Most of those areas use the identical doc creation instruments, with bins to enter buyer data, bill particulars, header content material, footers and extra. There’s loads to take a look at, however when you perceive one in all these actions you may shortly be capable to work out the others.
A left-hand sidebar provides you speedy entry to service modules, together with Contacts, Orders, Invoices, Receipts, Funds, Paperwork, Reviews, Duties and Stock. You may most likely wish to use this early on to create your record of contacts, or import current particulars through CSV, and use the Stock part to construct up particulars of your merchandise.
Every of those sections provides you a number of views on its information. At its easiest, clicking Contacts allows specializing in suppliers, clients, companions or prospects, or displaying everybody. All screens have choices to create additional customized filters of their very own, and most of your information could be simply exported in numerous methods (PDF, CSV, ZIP and extra.)
Whereas this may sound sophisticated, you solely must delve into the total modules when it is completely obligatory. A Search field on the Dashboard allows discovering contacts, orders, invoices and extra by key phrase, and a Final Considered record means recently-accessed data are solely ever a click on or two away.
Workflow
The 1&1 On-line Accounting Dashboard presents itself as a abstract of your setup, however you are able to do plenty of work from the web page, too.
Select Add Proposal from the drop-down record on the correct, for example, and a kind allows getting into your contact’s particulars, product particulars, header and footer content material and extra. You will not have any saved contacts or merchandise simply but, however that is okay – 1&1 On-line Accounting permits you to create new ones from the Add Proposal and different doc creation screens.
Save the proposal and it is saved on the system. Revisit the doc later and also you’re in a position to convert it into an order or an bill, generate it as a packing record, possibly mark it as ‘order denied’ if you recognize it is not going to occur.
1&1 On-line Accounting follows a lot the identical precept with different paperwork; the service does its greatest to assist streamline your workflow by permitting you to hold out related actions from any merchandise with a few clicks.
The service is a little bit underpowered in some areas. The Reviews part presents solely two report varieties, for example, Revenue Assertion and VAT, and neither are significantly configurable. Exporting is comparatively simple, although, with for instance the power to obtain a PDF copy of your revenue assertion with a click on.
Fascinating productiveness boosters embrace good receipt scanning, the place you possibly can add a scanned receipt as a picture or direct from the app, and a textual content recognition system makes an attempt to mechanically detect and add the date, quantity, provider and different fields to the system.
A helpful built-in activity system allows creating reminders for calls, emails, appointments and different customized to-dos. It is no substitute for a standalone to-do supervisor, however the integration with the system makes it value having.
If you happen to’re confused by any of this, tapping a Assist icon within the backside proper of the display opens up a really primary textual content knowledgebase. This covers the necessities, however no extra – superior choices are sometimes ignored, and there is little or no common recommendation or overviews on use totally different areas of this system.
1&1 does no less than have its 24/7 assist, a really invaluable additional if you happen to run into issues. Response instances are quick, however diagnosing accounting points requires a really totally different set of expertise to 1&1’s typical website hosting points. If you happen to take the 30-day trial, take a look at the assist workforce rigorously earlier than you join.
Closing verdict
1&1 On-line Accounting has an honest core set of options and is simple to make use of as soon as you’ve got mastered the fundamentals, however the big-name competitors usually provides you extra and fees much less.