Bokio UK Reviews 72

False promises of free accounting software. I understand free things don't exist, but then don't lie with your promises! The free version is pretty much a demo, forcing you to use the paid plan. Paid plans were announced in a short notice too.

Overall a positive experience with a few concerns recently after pricing model.
Started with Bokio in July 2021 when totally free. As a non-accountant I found it a very user-friendly route into accounting for a small business and contrary to others reviews I also found their support to be great when needed.
The AI templates feature is something that is quite unique to Bokio and understand their need to monetise the packages but I believe the "Balance" plan should be cheaper to attract more customers (half the price), especially compared to competition. This would put them in a uniquely strong position.
Either this or add back some features (AI templates, Invoices) into the Free edition to make it more usable again and charge a VERY small fee (£2 p/m).
I would like to see an API provided for integration as per most cloud-based accounting software.

As mentioned, i'd still recommend Bokio if these changes can be made as they have huge potential.

I have been using Bokio for a year to evaluate it in comparison to its competitors. As a free proposition it just about punches it’s weight and delivers a useful service, if a little feature light. Bokio have decided to start charging for their service from February 2022, this is a good thing as hopefully it will make extra funds available for new features and improved support. This is where my experience has been terrible. There have been three faults during my year of testing, whilst not a large amount, it’s the way in which they have been dealt with which have left me looking to leave the service. In the first instance my query to support was a simple “how do I do create a directors loan account”. The response I received led me to believe that either they hadn’t actually read the query or perhaps a language barrier existed that they didn’t understand my query. Most recently the software stopped sending VAT filings to HMRC, without any changes from the user end. When this was queried with Bokio, they immediately terminated the users connection to HMRC and told me to start again with it. This was poor for a couple of reasons, firstly if the user had other urgent communications to HMRC, they would have been stopped. Secondly, tech support didn’t present the user with any option, they just actioned their decision without consultation. When this failed to solve the problem, Bokio support then sent a generic response asking that the user check settings or perhaps wasn’t even authorised to perform such actions. This was perplexing again because the user had performed no changes and had previously filed with HMRC using Bokio and second blamed the user for something they had not done. There is possibly a touch of language barrier but the point made here is that as a free product you don’t mind this level of support. But if Bokio are to move to the subscription model they crave, their support infrastructure is simply not ready for it. I’ll be examining the completion closely.

I started using BOKIO as a free tool. I'm not averse to paying for software, but due to the simplistic nature of my business it wasn't feasible to fork out a huge amount for cloud software. BOKIO initially surpassed my expectations, then the cracks started to show. There are limitations on if you make mistakes - for instance, if you create two invoices, but made an error on the first one, there is no way to cancel it which previous software I've used have happily allowed. Also there have been several times where drafts were unable to be deleted and an "error" gets thrown up. There is no way to rectify this without having to put in a request for them to look in from the back end.

I appreciate that you get what you pay for, however, I'm not sure how they can justify charging (and indeed with the amounts they're proposing) until the software is a lot more stable. Sadly, I have now made the decision to leave BOKIO and move to another more reputable company that, for the same price BOKIO is proposing, can provide a working stable platform with even more features than currently on offer.

I hope BOKIO can improve their offering as I know business need income to stay afloat. However, I would currently not recommend the paid version of the platform to anyone in its current state.

Please allow me say my real feeling: bokio,such a cheat, promising free, clearly stated on their website:saying they can get fund from some source instead of their users, then this year, suddenly changed!
you can charge people, but you cannot cheat people.
shameless!

When I signed up April 2021 company's message below.....

"Yes, bokio accounting software is, and always will be, totally free as long as your do your accounting yourself, or in collaboration with your own accountant. No Paywalls, no limitation's, no credit card required. That's our promise.

Now they have decided to add new features, while taking away basic features and asking for monthly payments.

I also got blocked by bokio admin team on their fb group page for adding the point about being totally free in their online message.

So don't raise questions about previous promises or it will back fire and you will be blocked from posting.

It's clear they cant make money in their original business plan or have got greedy and free members are stuck once again with no choice but to upgrade to retain once free features.

Have been using this for just over 4 days now and with little bookkeeping experience, I feel I'm really getting to grips with the layout and how the platform works. This is way better than the software I was using before and I'm glad I decided to give it a go. I can honestly say this has given me a way better insight into my business than my previous software. My business is VAT registered and it's on the VAT Margin Scheme with HMRC, however, I don't see this option available in Bokio, yet? The only options available at the moment are Accrual VAT and Cash VAT. If the VAT Margin Scheme becomes available in the future it will be perfect for my needs. Thank you Bokio

I'd like to give this software a good review, because it has loads of excellent features such as automated bank feeds and MTD-ready VAT reports.

However, there is a bizarre insistence on using a pre-loaded set of accounting codes. If these codes do not match your needs, your only option is to substitute one code for another.

Although you can change the names of these accounts, that name-change is not registered in any of the drop-down menus. This means you either have to remember what alternative name you've used for the one you want or you have to memorise all the codes.

In some cases this is still not enough. If you want to do something as simple as split your sales into 3 or 4 categories, there is no way to do this. You are stuck with "Products" and "Services" as the only two options.

After about an hour and a half of trying to figure out how to work around the limitations of the software, I have reluctantly given up. This one strange feature ruins the whole package.

I've used many different accounting software packages before, but this is the first time I've come across one that won't let you organise your Chart of Accounts the way you want to. The support pages say this:

"Can I change the chart of accounts?
No, you cannot change the chart of accounts or add your own accounts (or rename them). This is because we want to help companies as much as possible in their bookkeeping. If everyone has the same chart of accounts, it makes automated bookkeeping much easier, supported by computerisation."

That doesn't make any sense at all. It is absurd to suppose that a widget manufacturer, a boutique consultancy and a hairdresser would want to use the same Chart of Accounts.

It would be a relatively minor programming challenge to allow codes of 0-9999 with the requirement to specify what type of account it is so that the software can handle it accordingly.

That's what everyone else does, so it is unclear why Bokio has chosen this unnecessary limitation.

So I've reluctantly dumped it and stumped up for accounting software that lets me organise my accounts how I want. Still "automated bookkeeping ... supported by computerisation", but written by people who can somehow achieve what Bokio cannot.