Accounting packages

[Paige Sullivan]

What accounting packages do you all use to manage your company's finances with?

[blakeh]

Use Xero, works better to integrate with WHMCS.

I really wish WHMCS understood actual business accounting concepts better, it annoys me that every solution is to sync/dump all the invoices into an accounting system.

 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

6 hours ago, blakeh said:

Use Xero, works better to integrate with WHMCS.

I really wish WHMCS understood actual business accounting concepts better, it annoys me that every solution is to sync/dump all the invoices into an accounting system.

Yeah, you can't really expect a billing system to be based around ensuring financial transactions are done correctly,  why would they focus on correct billing when accounting software does that afterwards and you simply clean up all the inconsistencies!

[blakeh]

3 hours ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

Yeah, you can't really expect a billing system to be based around ensuring financial transactions are done correctly,  why would they focus on correct billing when accounting software does that afterwards and you simply clean up all the inconsistencies!

Other industries solved this years ago by having the billing system do GL exports to any accounting system you wanted instead of having to sync every single transaction, thus junking up the accounting system. 
 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

17 minutes ago, blakeh said:

Other industries solved this years ago by having the billing system do GL exports to any accounting system you wanted instead of having to sync every single transaction, thus junking up the accounting system. 
 

I think adding more market connect products and adding new features like WordPress connect to a billing system is more important than actually worrying about billing! 

It's like bug fixes, we only care when it all goes horribly wrong, but we love seeing new market connect products in our admin area Every. Single. Day. I vote for new features and not stuff my accounting software can handle and if not I can pay an accountant to sort! 

I'm hoping pretty soon we can buy cpanel accounts direct via whmcs, maybe register domains directly and lease servers from them so we can really feel some more benefits! 

[bear]

2 minutes ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

I think adding more market connect products

What you did there; I see it. 😛

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

Well I've finally seen the light here bear, if we stop diversity and encourage more centralised products and companies - we'll be able to have a very rigid standard within the industry that will help people when picking a host 

Generichost1.com

Generichost2.com 

Hopefully whmcs launch the hosted version of the service soon and people won't be out of business due to down time- everyone will be down..... this is the smart way forward!  Nobody can aim blame at one host in particular if we're all down! 

I'm topping up on marketconnect in anticipation! 

[yggdrasil]

17 hours ago, blakeh said:

Use Xero, works better to integrate with WHMCS.

I really wish WHMCS understood actual business accounting concepts better, it annoys me that every solution is to sync/dump all the invoices into an accounting system.

ou 

Most billing services/software will not do accounting.  Accounting is quite different to billing.  I don't expect WHMCS to manage my business expenses, cash flow or bank accounts or other financials. Not that I want that either with the disaster WHMCS already is with  just billing alone.

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

I took it to mean he wishes it wasn't such a disaster prior to dumping into accounting software 

Like basic things, such as correct taxes etc as you probably know the result when you sync up lol 😆 

 

But alas, it works as intended so I'm told....

[blakeh]

10 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Most billing services/software will not do accounting.  Accounting is quite different to billing.  I don't expect WHMCS to manage my business expenses, cash flow or bank accounts or other financials. Not that I want that either with the disaster WHMCS already is with  just billing alone.

Yes, I know this.

My frustration is that WHMCS could be much better at understanding that we will need to get the data into a financial system and organize it in a way to make it easier and facilitate it better.  (i.e. better reports, ability to do GL exports, etc)

[blakeh]

3 hours ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

I took it to mean he wishes it wasn't such a disaster prior to dumping into accounting software 

Like basic things, such as correct taxes etc as you probably know the result when you sync up lol 😆 

 

But alas, it works as intended so I'm told....

Yes, this, exactly all this.

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

I do agree @blakeh I know I was somewhat joking but id love to see billing treated as a priority in the billing system software I pay for..

 Bonus points if it's before I leave! We have tried multiple accounting softwares and the trouble is bad data in, means bad data out. 

Depending upon your use case it will be manually adjusting and fixing things, I wish I could wave a magic wand and give a recommendation but its not the accounting software that causes issues they do work quite well! 

My advice is learn where whmcs does things incorrectly and you'll save time later adjusting the accounts later! There's a continuous cycle of tax mishaps for the uninitiated 😆

[blakeh]

1 hour ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

I do agree @blakeh I know I was somewhat joking but id love to see billing treated as a priority in the billing system software I pay for..

 Bonus points if it's before I leave! We have tried multiple accounting softwares and the trouble is bad data in, means bad data out. 

Depending upon your use case it will be manually adjusting and fixing things, I wish I could wave a magic wand and give a recommendation but its not the accounting software that causes issues they do work quite well! 

My advice is learn where whmcs does things incorrectly and you'll save time later adjusting the accounts later! There's a continuous cycle of tax mishaps for the uninitiated 😆

Thanks for the feedback.  I'm not the OP, and I've been using (suffering through?) the software for over 10 years. It's made a lot of improvements, but also taken some steps back over the years.

I went to cPanel Conf one year and remember talking to one dev and trying to explain how old school cash registers and restaurant POS software systems would allow for GL mapping and export to 3rd party accounting systems and how it would be nice if WHMCS allowed for this at a basic level for accounting needs.  I could tell by the expression on his face that he didn't understand why you'd need or want to do such a thing.

I wish WHMCS had some folks working for them that understand the business side of what we, their customers who use the software, have to deal with. 

But in the meantime, I'll await the next addons to the marketconnect place, like avocado delivery or Yelp ads. 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

1 hour ago, blakeh said:

But in the meantime, I'll await the next addons to the marketconnect place, like avocado delivery or Yelp ads. 

Fingers crossed for Skill Share - they'll advertise anywhere 😂

[yggdrasil]

On 2/6/2022 at 4:21 PM, blakeh said:

Yes, I know this.

My frustration is that WHMCS could be much better at understanding that we will need to get the data into a financial system and organize it in a way to make it easier and facilitate it better.  (i.e. better reports, ability to do GL exports, etc)

Assuming you don't want to export data by using the API or hooks you do realize you have complete and total access to your database?

This is no different to how other services or companies do it. With the proper scripts, software, or database tools you can export all the data from the database in Excel, CSV, or any format you want or create the proper SQL queries and then import them to your accounting or financial system. There is nothing you can't export in terms of WHMCS from your database to any other format or software.

This can be as simple as creating the proper spreadsheets or as complex as expensive financial systems that create every single data point or report.

Edited February 9, 2022 by yggdrasil

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

You absolutely can, in many formats- The integrity of the data remains the same whichever way its done! 

Whether you sync to an online tool, use sql, api or sing it as the world's worst lullaby down the phone to your accountant it's still the exact same data 😝

Edited February 9, 2022 by Bigol'tastynuggets
Typo

[blakeh]

1 hour ago, yggdrasil said:

Assuming you don't want to export data by using the API or hooks you do realize you have complete and total access to your database?

This is no different to how other services or companies do it. With the proper scripts, software, or database tools you can export all the data from the database in Excel, CSV, or any format you want or create the proper SQL queries and then import them to your accounting or financial system. There is nothing you can't export in terms of WHMCS from your database to any other format or software.

This can be as simple as creating the proper spreadsheets or as complex as expensive financial systems that create every single data point or report.

I don't want to hire a dev to create code compensating for something the software should be basically better at.

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

You could submit a feature request - Is probably the best advice you'll get if you don't want to adjust it! 

I do agree with you though, to me they need to strip back years of bad decisions and janky code and start fresh with billing! At least get VAT correct for a British company 🤦‍♂️

[blakeh]

1 minute ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

You could submit a feature request - Is probably the best advice you'll get if you don't want to adjust it! 

I do agree with you though, to me they need to strip back years of bad decisions and janky code and start fresh with billing! At least get VAT correct for a British company 🤦‍♂️

Basically this, we're here because of how it started and some early decisions.

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

Matt was cool, I think he lost interest eventually when his pockets were full! (Don't blame him) 

But it feels like whmcs is a headless chicken running around trying to make the right noises but not achieving it. 

[yggdrasil]

10 hours ago, blakeh said:

I don't want to hire a dev to create code compensating for something the software should be basically better at.

But... The software is not designed to do accounting or finances. I don't remember ever WHMCS being advertised as an accounting software like QuickBooks or others. It's a billing and automation software targeted at web hosting companies, hence its name. Or was at least originally...😁

If you look at the feature requests, you will find people asking WHMCS should do everything from monitoring their servers, to backups, to CRM, to accounting to everything else that shines under the sun. It's easy to lose focus quickly. WHMCS should better fix the bugs and improve existing features first before trying to venture into new areas. Just my two cents. People expect way too much from WHMCS.

Personally, I don't expect or want WHMCS to connect to my bank accounts, manage my expenses, interact with my accountant, or make taxes for me. Yes, it has a tax feature, but for sales tax on the billing procedure, not the back-end office accounting and taxes that business usually do as a complete separate business unit. I don't expect WHMCS to manage my servers or do IT tasks either or even monitor them.

You will have to hire a developer at some point as your business keeps growing as WHMCS will never be able to do everything you need. Even if you need to adapt WHMCS by using hooks or API, that already requires some coding knowledge.

If you want to be fussy, the way WHMCS handles credits or merges invoices is a complete no, no in accounting and needs to be corrected or changed. Not even going to mention how they handle currency either. My advice is not to even use those features, like credits, merging invoices, mass payments or currencies unless you plan to make all changes manually or integrate it into some system that will try to detect those issues and fix them on the accounting side. My best advice is just to export all invoices and transactions and then import them into a better system that can handle numbers.

Edited February 10, 2022 by yggdrasil

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

3 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

But... The software is not designed to do accounting or finances. I don't remember ever WHMCS being advertised as an accounting software like QuickBooks or others. It's a billing and automation software targeted at web hosting companies, hence its name. Or was at least originally...😁

If you look at the feature requests, you will find people asking WHMCS should do everything from monitoring their servers, to backups, to CRM, to accounting to everything else that shines under the sun. It's easy to lose focus quickly. WHMCS should better fix the bugs and improve existing features first before trying to venture into new areas. Just my two cents. People expect way too much from WHMCS.

Personally, I don't expect or want WHMCS to connect to my bank accounts, manage my expenses, interact with my accountant, or make taxes for me. Yes, it has a tax feature, but for sales tax on the billing procedure, not the back-end office accounting and taxes that business usually do as a complete separate business unit. I don't expect WHMCS to manage my servers or do IT tasks either or even monitor them.

You will have to hire a developer at some point as your business keeps growing as WHMCS will never be able to do everything you need. Even if you need to adapt WHMCS by using hooks or API, that already requires some coding knowledge.

If you want to be fussy, the way WHMCS handles credits or merges invoices is a complete no, no in accounting and needs to be corrected or changed. Not even going to mention how they handle currency either. My advice is not to even use those features, like credits, merging invoices, mass payments or currencies unless you plan to make all changes manually or integrate it into some system that will try to detect those issues and fix them on the accounting side. My best advice is just to export all invoices and transactions and then import them into a better system that can handle numbers.

Correct handling of billing would be a good start then! 👍 That totally ignores the issues with billing that exist with this billing system! 

Most of us use accountants and accounting software separately and realise how many mistakes happen when trading worldwide! It doesn't really matter which software you use if you start with bad data - you'll have bad data! 

I'd like whmcs to become a good billing system personally- it seems with every update we move further from that goal and people seem to say put in a feature request 😉 

Then bemoan that everyone wants new things- a good solid foundation would be much better than fixing issues! The ideal scenario is whmcs totally re-writes the billing setup, I don't belive its fixable at this point with the (what I perceive) to be a accountants nightmare approach to billing, I do have some sympathy for whmcs in the sense they're trying to appease a large market I.e worldwide users, but they need to start afresh. I'd have a lot more respect for them admitting it was good intentions that have clearly spiralled put of control into being unreliable and inconsistent. 

I've spent a long time using it, I may have given up personally and be stopping using it - but I still have clients using it for now and still most likely come here in my spare time to watch the same cycle repeat with the same people defending it blindly as the years go on whilst i have clients using it! 

[blakeh]

13 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

But... The software is not designed to do accounting or finances. I don't remember ever WHMCS being advertised as an accounting software like QuickBooks or others. It's a billing and automation software targeted at web hosting companies, hence its name. Or was at least originally...😁

If you look at the feature requests, you will find people asking WHMCS should do everything from monitoring their servers, to backups, to CRM, to accounting to everything else that shines under the sun. It's easy to lose focus quickly. WHMCS should better fix the bugs and improve existing features first before trying to venture into new areas. Just my two cents. People expect way too much from WHMCS.

Personally, I don't expect or want WHMCS to connect to my bank accounts, manage my expenses, interact with my accountant, or make taxes for me. Yes, it has a tax feature, but for sales tax on the billing procedure, not the back-end office accounting and taxes that business usually do as a complete separate business unit. I don't expect WHMCS to manage my servers or do IT tasks either or even monitor them.

You will have to hire a developer at some point as your business keeps growing as WHMCS will never be able to do everything you need. Even if you need to adapt WHMCS by using hooks or API, that already requires some coding knowledge.

If you want to be fussy, the way WHMCS handles credits or merges invoices is a complete no, no in accounting and needs to be corrected or changed. Not even going to mention how they handle currency either. My advice is not to even use those features, like credits, merging invoices, mass payments or currencies unless you plan to make all changes manually or integrate it into some system that will try to detect those issues and fix them on the accounting side. My best advice is just to export all invoices and transactions and then import them into a better system that can handle numbers.

In no way am I expecting WHMCS to be an accounting package, any more than I expect a cash register at my coffee shop to reconcile my bank account.

I have a background in accounting and business. I've been helping clients for 30 years connect their accounting systems with Line of Business (LOB) apps.  

What I expect is that WHMCS, as a billing package used by business owners would be better at understanding that this data needs to be easily exportable to accounting systems. Syncing all invoices to the financial system is impractical, and especially for this industry, where it can be high churn, just silly.

Cash registers support this type of function. Restaurant POS systems support this.

Currently the best work around is to use Xero as middleware and get actual financial data from it to put into your accounting system.

 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

26 minutes ago, blakeh said:

In no way am I expecting WHMCS to be an accounting package, any more than I expect a cash register at my coffee shop to reconcile my bank account.

I have a background in accounting and business. I've been helping clients for 30 years connect their accounting systems with Line of Business (LOB) apps.  

What I expect is that WHMCS, as a billing package used by business owners would be better at understanding that this data needs to be easily exportable to accounting systems. Syncing all invoices to the financial system is impractical, and especially for this industry, where it can be high churn, just silly.

Cash registers support this type of function. Restaurant POS systems support this.

Currently the best work around is to use Xero as middleware and get actual financial data from it to put into your accounting system.

 

Careful, logical answers upset people 😝

Your work background sounds very interesting though! I'd love to hear more about what you think could be improved! 

My views are very much based upon my experience and my accountant telling me off lol I'd love the opinion of someone with a bit more knowledge in the field if you have time of course!