I need to keep more control on my business acounts - at present I just leave it all to my accountants, but the time has come to take control

Anyway, I need the basics of Cash Flow, Management Accounts, etc, any recommendations. Are Sage still the ones to go for?

Cheers
Jasp

Our accounts department still use Sage, can't say I've used it myself, but it seems to do what they want!
It's certainly still in use...

Microsoft have released a product called Office accounting which has almost all the features of SAGE etc but heres the nice part.... Its free if you want to run it on a desktop as a small business would

Office Accounting

Sage is good - but you do have to understand book-keeping processes. It's tough to use if you don't.

I've used QuickBooks, and currently using GnuCash on Linux (which is free, and more than good enough for home and small business accounting).

As non accountants we use Quickbooks. It is extremely easy to use and I'd happliy recommend it. However, if I was starting again I would have a look at the MS product as mentioned. The free version has some limits but there's a chart to compare them:

http://www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk/Compare.aspx

Quickbooks is VERY good for reports, especially VAT returns. Once it's been set up you just run the VAT return report and copy the details over onto the official form.