SageOne revisited

A while ago I blogged about the accounting software Sage One - I've now been using it a couple of years, so thought it was a good point to revisit it and weigh up the pros and cons as a battle-hardened user. If you're wondering what accounting software has to do with the life of a science writer, one of the joys of being a freelance is you have keep your accounts in order to minimise payments to expensive professionals. There's no such thing as a free accountant.

This is online accounting software that keeps your books in order, does VAT invoices and other such goodies (in fact it even produces your VAT return and can submit it directly to HMRandC). If your accountant is into such things, they can get access to your accounts with extra accountant-flavour handles and help prepare you accounts more easily. My accountant has reduced my annual big bill for doing the year end accounts by around twice the £120+VAT a year I pay for using Sage.

Obviously that payment is the biggest downside. There are also one or two interface aspects that could be handled better. When you go into the site, which I probably do twice a day on average, you go to a screen where you can choose 'Accounts' or 'Collaborate'. I have never chosen 'Collaborate' so waste a few seconds every time clicking through to the obvious destination. Another oddity is that Sage's own invoices are accessed via the Settings menu, and don't automatically feed through to your accounts: you have to add them manually. (I've moaned about this and they've promised to look into it.)

But set against that, it is very easy to do all the basics like enter sales and purchases, enter payments, reconcile against bank accounts and so on. I check my business bank account every morning and simply add in any new transactions, so my accounts always match the bank figures. At the end of the month I do a formal reconcile, ticking off all the transactions against the bank statement and filing the associated paperwork. This is quick and easy. The result is, when I come to my quarterly VAT return literally all I do is a couple of clicks and my VAT return is done.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this makes accounting fun, though if you enjoy a good completed list of tick boxes, there is a type of pleasure in reconciliation. But it certainly makes this essential relatively painless. And because it's a web-based system, I can access it from any computer (or even my iPad) wherever I am.

We're all good at moaning about products that let us down, but I've genuinely been really pleased with Sage One. It's hugely more friendly and approachable than heavy duty accounts software, like the full blown Sage. If you have to do accounts, they have a free trial, so I'd recommend taking a look. (I use the basic Accounts, rather than Accounts Extra, which is for more complex businesses. They also have Payroll etc, but I've never tried that, so can't comment on how good it is.)

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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