Archive for December, 2011
Banking and savings – customer service and reputation forefront in decision-making
52% of us have moved our savings because we were unhappy with customer service, according to the latest moneyfacts.co.uk user polls. 42% of us have avoided a particular account provider due to a friend’s bad experience.
With bank account providers, 46% of us have moved current account because of bad customer service and 45% have avoided a certain bank because of a friend’s bad experience.
Accessing our banking and savings via the internet is becoming increasingly popular but still many of us prefer to pick up the phone or visit a branch. Our finances are something that we need to take seriously and can cause a lot of stress. This means when we want to discuss them or need help, we need to be treated fairly and receive a good service.
Banks are continually being slated in the press for unfair charges and for things such as going overdrawn. This, along with hearing about people close to us having had a bad experience, would be enough to put many of us off choosing a certain account provider. However important good service is to us, we should still be aware of interest rates being offered by different providers.
The average rate of interest paid on current accounts is 1% gross on a balance of £1. However, current account best buy charts on moneyfacts.co.uk show that rates of over 4% can be earned on these accounts. Banking facilities should also be looked at when choosing your current account. For instance, is it important to have a branch near to you? Do you want to use internet banking?
As well as these things, if you use an overdraft on your current account it is wise to compare rates of interest on these. Moneyfacts’ research of overdrafts shows that some providers are charging EARs (Effective Annual Rates) on authorised overdrafts of over 20% and for unauthorised overdrafts over 30%. Again, best buy charts on moneyfacts.co.uk show that better deals are available with rates on authorised overdrafts as low as 0% (introductory) and unauthorised at under 6%.
Rates on savings accounts also vary greatly. On no notice accounts at £1,000 the average rate of interest is around 2%. The savings best buys charts show that rates of over 4.5% can be found. Again, account facilities should be considered.
Free Accounting Software: Tips On Getting An All Easy And Practical Software
Most of the free accounting software are not high end accounting software, but simple, easy to use accounting software. These free software cater to the needs of home users or small business houses. Basically they focus primarily on the management of simple accounting. In fact with a free accounting software you can easily perform the tasks performed by a paid accounting software.
All these lead us to the question whether you should try free accounting software or for that matter download it for permanent use. More importantly- what you should look for and where you should look for free accounting software? Here are some tips.
It has been recently seen that a growing number of companies are developing and providing free accounting software for promoting their products and other marketing campaigns. Keep your eyes open to take advantage of such opportunities.
As there are free products, there are scams also. There are some not so honest sites which advertise that they are providing free accounting software for you to download. You simply need to fill up a registration form, state your personal information and blurt out your credit card number. Take guard against such sites. In fact, a legitimate free site would not ask for such information from you.
It is always better to go for a trail version, when you are considering to download a free accounting software. It is a great way to see whether it meets all your accounting needs or not. The best thing is that you do not have to commit anything. If you think, it is not great for your business, simply discard it and go for another demo version until you find the right one.
From all the above talk, you can safely assume that you can have the best accounting software with great features for free. Different functionalities are added to the existing free download-able software by varying manufacturers. Just browse through the different versions as to find out the perfect accounting software compatible with your business.
You can find free accounting software; which are intuitive, easy to use and robust. It is also possible that you can easily download without any complications. Free Accounting Software support also can be downloaded free from the net with free accounting software.
So using free accounting software is quite easy as well as practical today.
