In the UK, the standard rate of VAT (T1) is to change to 20% from 4 January 2011.  As with the changes over the previous two years, Fusion Accounts users will need to do nothing!

The new VAT rate will be available for your financial transactions from 7 December 2010 for any transactions that you are preparing now that require the new rate.

From 4 January, unless you indicate otherwise, all products having a 17.5% rate will be changed to a 20% rate as will any other defaults using this rate.

For more information on the rate change please refer to HMRC.

Understanding how important ‘time’ is for each and every business owner we have improved the signup process for our online bookkeeping & accounting software. This means businesses can now trial our accounting software by completing two simple steps.

As a result of changing the signup process we have found an increasing number of businesses, bookkeepers and accountants taking advantage of our free trial.

Our 30 day free trial enables businesses to try before they buy and it presents their bookkeeper and accountant with the opportunity to access their client’s data from any location allowing them to support them remotely. Users enjoy the fact that they don’t have to install any software and that they can start to use the software instantly.

After a business completes the signup process we engage with them to offer them assistance in getting started. Like with any of our customers we also offer them free support. Businesses can contact us by email or telephone and they can also speak to a support agent through using the ‘Live Help’ link within our software. We also offer a data import service where they can import their customers, suppliers, products, sage data, etc. into Fusion without having to re-key any data.

Click here for 'Free Trial'

Two more bank reports are now available.  The Debit Transactions report shows all the transactions that debited an account and the Credit Transactions shows all the reports that credited the account.

These reports are available on the Bank Reports page of the Bank menu.

We’ve been busy implementing some great improvements whilst everyone else was off celebrating Christmas and New Year!

VAT changes

Standard rate UK VAT changed from 15% to 17.5% on 01/01/2010.

To facilitate this change:

1) The default VAT rate was set to 17.5%.

2) Products with a VAT rate of 15% have been changed to 17.5%

The 15% rate is still available in the dropdown for recording historic transactions.

Improved Searching

We’ve made searching even better.  Instead of searching each time you click or tab to another field we’ve added a search button.  You can still press “enter” to initiate the search.

Some people loved the way the search remembered what had been searched on, some didn’t!  So, we’ve also added a checkbox “Remember Filter” which indicates if you want the current search criteria to be remembered the next time you go to or go back to the page.

More details in the transaction audit trail.

The transaction audit trail now shows the split of the transaction across all the affected accounts without having to drill down and shows more data against the transaction such as the VAT code, date of reconciliation.  The searching has also been improved with the ability to search for transactions in a particular year.

Bank Reconciliation

We’ve added a new Bank Reconciliation Report available from the Bank Reconciliation page or from a Bank Reconciliation.  This report displays all the details of a Bank Reconciliation.  Note, reconciled and reconciled transaction reports are available from the Bank Reports page on the Bank menu.

We’ve also increased the actions available during bank reconciliation to make the process quicker.

Edit transaction

The following transactions can now be edited from the transaction audit trail:

• Bank Payment,
• Bank Receipt,
• Customer Invoice,
• Supplier Invoice

This does not “edit” the real transactions as these may already be part of a VAT return, bank reconciliation session or year end.  Instead, reversals are created for the original transactions and new transactions created.

This is also available during bank reconciliation.

The edit facility will be extended to other transaction types over the coming months.

We have upgraded fusion accounts with many new features to improve the usability of the software.  These include:

• Action buttons across the top of the page which are also available from the right mouse button.
• A more consistent navigation approach
• An “outlook” style menu down the left allowing quick navigation
• Search on multiple column in the table views
• Search remembered when you return to a page
• Renaming of the “Receipts” and “Payments” menu to “Money In” and “Money Out” to avoid confusion

More details on these improvements can be found in Kathryn’s blog entry.

As well as this we have added the ability to set credit limits against a customer or supplier and made many minor enhancements that we’re sure you’ll appreciate.

As ever, we welcome comments and feedback.

We have added some user sales reports showing sales orders against customers grouped by sales person.  These are available on the “Sales Reports By User” page from the “Sales” menu.

We have also added a product report showing product details.  This is available from the “Product Reports” page on the “Sales” menu.

Please let us know if there are any other reports required and we will happily implement them.