[tommyd]

Other recommendations of accountants with decent online systems would be greatly appreciated. My current ones (Nixon Williams) seem fairly good as accountants, but the spreadsheet based expenses (and having to use email to take dividends, check profit/loss, etc) are getting quite annoying, and they want to charge extra to use their registered address rather than my own, which leaves a bit of a bad taste when Crunch include this.

I have heard good things about Crunch's system but some mixed things about the quality of their advice and how pro-active they are - any other feedback on them or others?

The point about the registered address and fraud is a real one, someone I worked with had this happen to them - will Crunch act as the service address as well as the registered address?

[Stoo]

I've used Crunch since I began contracting towards the end of 2009. So I was one of their early customers. I would say their software keeps getting better but their service as a whole has worsened as they've got bigger. That's not to say their service is bad, it's just not as good as it was when they had less than 100 customers. I've had a couple of instances in the past (around two years ago) where I've had to correct my account manager when he's told me something I've known to be wrong.

Having said that, just about everything is automated or part of their software now and I haven't had to speak to anyone there since last summer. Maybe their service hasn't gotten any worse, it's just become less personal.

[Nursie]

I've been using NW for about three years now and am deeply ambivalent about them for similar reasons...

[tommyd]

I'm unsure if you'll see this reply with the topic being quite old, but I found out today (via a Youtube ad, no less - well targeted, sort of!) that Nixon Williams now have an online portal, called Vantage: http://www.nixonwilliams.com/vantage - judging via the Wayback Machine, it has only been around since February this year.

If you speak to your account controller, they'll be able to set you up a dummy account to see if you like it - my understanding is that this would replace the monthly submissions of expenses and invoices, and give you a better real time view of your profit/loss, but you should still get the same level of service and attention paid to your account and it costs no extra. I'm still waiting for confirmation of all that (my worry being that I could make a mistake and it wouldn't get spotted, whereas it would with a monthly submission to a human) and for my account to be set up, so I can't comment any more on it, but it's definitely worth a look!

[gadders]

I use an accountant that is "Freeagent Compatible". I'd suggest having a look at the list on the Freeagent website (http://www.freeagent.com/).