Evening

My wife’s just become a limited company while she works as an agency nurse.

I’m a PC guy but she’s looking at an iPad to run her expenses, accounts etc

Any one use an iPad for such things and find it functional/recommend any apps?

Whenever I get a spreadsheet sent to my iPad the first thing I do is open my laptop so personally don’t think an iPad is the best choice

Any thoughts?

Sounds like hell to me , like you when i get a spreadsheet or a word doc i go get my laptop as well , much easier to use.

Numbers and Pages should do the job…

How does that work then? The limited company thing for an agency nurse.

Yes they will but te interface is utterly shocking on the ipad.

How ever the numbers and pages software is free…

A laptop and google docs would be much more user friendly though.

Sounds to me like wifey just wants an ipad. Prepare for her to have one and have your laptop swiped when ever she wants to work

No. Awful idea.

iPad – great for some things, reviewing stuff, adjusting docs, that sort of thing. Good for finding references, using some web services. Dreadful for spreadsheets. Not a good choice if she ever wants to print anything.

Why doesn’t she get one of these: new MacBook. Small, very portable, long battery life, bling, easier to use than an iPad for most useful things.

Numbers and Pages as mentioned, be prepared it’s not easy playing around with spreadsheets in the pad without a mouse.
It’s just not sensitive enough.
Fat fingers, entering formula, entering figures… not really the best tool but it will do what you ask, just make it simple.

As for Ltd for Agency work, well I guess most of what you’ll be logging are receipts and payments, which is all capable by Numbers.. Nothing too technical though Yeah..

BOL

BTW numbers and pages work great on the iPad. If push came to shove she could get a bluetooth keyboard.

wanmankylung, basically she’s working like a contractor, multiple agencies, wherever the work is.

trail rat, wifey does want an iPad and is trying to put a square peg in a round hole, before I even posted I told her exactly what everyone would say and you’ve done me proud, she says it’s like I’ve posted most of the replies

MS Office for iPad is suprisingly good. you need a 365 subscription though.

bluetooth keyboard is well worth it, I use a logitech slim one.

Although I’ve recently been supplied with a Lenovo Yoga laptop/tablet thingy and I’ve barely used the iPad since.

how complicated is the expenses and accounts stuff? Just invoices, receipts and a tax return? (rather than payroll, stock control and cash-flow projections) Things like spreadsheets are a pain in the hoop on a tablet so maybe something like a cloud-based accounts package like quickbooks would be better – browser based (and typically iOS friendly too) and only the functionality you need for book-keeping rather than all the bells and whistles of a spreadsheet app.

Office 365 is pretty good. Numbers is absolute bobbins. It just takes far too long to run even simple formulas.
Pages is OK if you just want to write a simple letter, but nothing more advanced.

agreed. numbers is gash, pages is poor, keynote is pretty good.

Think if you’d like to import a bank statement to reconcile your accounts using an iPad?

Get her a MS Surface Pro3 instead

Why doesn’t she get the iPad as a business tool but do her accounts and invoicing on your PC?

I- stuff.

Only good for preventing coffee rings on your furniture or curing a wobbly chair leg.

buy a laptop.

Chromebook and QuickBooks Online would be my choice.
Real keyboard, instant on, light and has the same battery life as an iPad.
I really don’t understand becoming Ltd though 😐

Would an ipad keyboard make using Google drive easier?

When operating as a contractor, some people set themselves up as a ltd company for various reasons. Some agencies just like you to do that, it also offers the potential for some people to persue creative tax “planning” i.e. pay yourself a wage around the personal allowance and take out lots in company dividends*. Morally dubious of course but that’s only one of the reasons people form a ltd. The OP’s wife probably has lots of other reasons why it makes sense.

* this isn’t mandatory behavior for people in a ltd, it’s just an option some people go for.

One of the new lightweight PC laptops would be better and half the price. Just do the accounts on Google docs and she can access them from anywhere including your laptop and iPad. If she wants an iPad for herself though then just buy one. The tax man is unlikely pull her up on it so she will get away it. As fraud goes it’s pretty small beer.

I am currently on a fortnight long work trip to Austria. As I didn’t have a role which required IT all I brought with me was my ipad. On arrival my boss decided I could keep track of our expenses. Naturally I reckoned a spreadsheet was the way forward and I ended up using google’s Sheets software.

I was expecting it to be a bit of an epic but you know what? It’s actually been ok. Formulae are easy enough to put in, you can ‘touch’ the cells you want to include in formulae which makes things better than fat fingerling them in and, from my bosses perspective, the fact that I’ve set it up so he can look at it from his Google account rather than ask me to print it or email it or anything just makes the whole thing more convenient.

I know a contractor who runs his whole business (very successfully) on an ipad, so it’s definitely possible. I’m self employed nd just about to get an ipad mini to carry with me everywhere. I have desktop machines and a notebook, but even the 11″ MBA is overkill and a pain to have with me always when all I really want to do on the move is admin tasks.