Monday, January 25, 2010

Melbourne Brisbane Computer Repairs, Website design & SEO

Melbourne Brisbane Computer Repairs, Website design & SEO

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e-Record will no longer be available

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 10:49 PM PST

I don’t usually talk about tax software, and I don’t use e-Record myself.

However, I stumbled across this announcement from the ATO (Australian Tax Office): e-Record

When I started Computer Aid, nearly 5 years ago, e-Record was almost the only free package available, but it didn’t suit my plans for the business, so I didn’t use it.

So why am I talking about it?

Well, after having worked on many hundreds of computers over the last 5 years, I’ve noticed that many people use e-Record.

In fact, I’d say that for every installation of commercial software like MYOB and QuickBooks, there is probably 5 to 10 installations of e-Record.

To me, that indicates that e-Record is a lot more popular than the ATO wants to admit. However, the ATO is withdrawing e-Record because “it’s no longer compatible with current commercial record-keeping systems”… and will need to be re-developed.

To me, it seems like they are saying: “we can’t import and/or export to other accounting software, and we can’t afford any further development of e-Record, so we will just drop it”.

In the future, it seems the only options available to people who are using e-Record, it to buy a commercial package.

There must be way to bridge the gap between the manual “pencil and paper” form of accounting, and the fully commercial accounting done by larger companies.

I’m now wondering: Does this mean people will just keep using the last (outdated) e-Record? Or will they go back to manual pen-and-paper accounting? Or does this mean MyYob and Quackbooks will get a sudden surge in the money flowing into their coffers?

Only time will tell…

Related posts:

  1. I don’t understand MYOB (and the strict registration procedures)
  2. Increasingly longer times to fix problems
  3. backups for small businesses

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