Apple pie software

A retired accountant from Horsham is to take on the giants of the accounting software industry with a new bookkeeping package tailored for small businesses, writes John Stokdyk.

The #75 DO$H Cashbook package is the brainchild of 62-year-old Jonathan van der Borgh, a farmer and chartered accountant who retired from practice last year to realise his vision of an accounting system catering for the needs of small business users.

His family firm, Dosh Software, is poised to take on companies such as Sagesoft, Pegasus, Intuit and MYOB which sell packages from u99.

‘Most products contain far more than is needed,’ said van der Borgh.

‘What sets our software product apart is that it contains no bells and whistles. You need to use everything which it offers.’

DO$H Cashbook requires a 386-powered PC with 4Mb of RAM and 2Mb of free disk space. The program leads the user step-by-step through the bookkeeping process generating monthly summaries of payments and receipts, with facilities for keeping VAT accounts, reconciling bank statements and cashflow summaries. The user guide was written by van der Borgh’s son.

‘One of the biggest problems accountants face is that people don’t keep books very well,’ said van der Borgh. ‘It’s very unprofitable for small practices to deal with incomplete records. This product is so simple that everyone has got the opportunity to produce books in apple pie order.’

According to van der Borgh, the new program is pitched at the gap that exists between products such as Microsoft Money and Intuit’s Quicken, which serve the domestic market, and Quickbooks, TASbooks, MYOB and Sage Sterling, all of which are more expensive and elaborate than DO$H Cashbook.

The Sussex-based software entrepreneur was undaunted by the threat from the competition. ‘I’ve always felt if there’s a near monopoly in a particular market and you have the ability to produce a cheaper and more focused product, you’ve got an opportunity to make a dent,’ he said. ‘Until now, nobody has focused on the very small business sector.’

Dosh Software is also aiming to recruit up to 10,000 accountants to help sell the package. It will offer the application to chartered accountants for u50 until 31 July, going up to #60 thereafter. Practitioners will be invited to sell it on to clients for #75.

‘This is a big breakthrough for accountants’ said van der Borgh. ‘We’re hoping that if their clients keep their books with our product, they will find it easier to update their records on our software.

It’s so quick that even a junior could do a quarterly VAT return in an hour.’