The ATO released E-Record in March 2000, they have provided E-Record which is a free electronic record-keeping system, to small businesses as an interim product that would help small businesses move from paper-based record keeping to commercial electronic record-keeping systems.

The ATO state they have recently conducted a review of E-Record and found it to be no longer compatible with current commercial record keeping systems. They also say it would need to be redeveloped to keep up with technology and new business directions. Therefore, they have decided that, from July 2010, E-Record will no longer be available.

So what you can do…

The ATO advise that they encourage companies to move from E-Record to a suitable alternative record-keeping system and to consider commercially available software. Evolution Business Systems can help with this, our range of products are designed to assist SMB and SME accurately keep the required records in an electronic form. Evolution Business Systems have two options in regards to commercially available accounting software, Evolution Business Systems work with Arrow Financials also known as Arrow Software and Microsoft Dynamics NAV also known as Dynamics, NAV and Navision.

So what can Evolution Business Systems do for you…

Evolution Business Systems are a Premier Arrow Partner and a Gold Microsoft Partner with many years experience in implementing electronic record keeping systems (Accounting software).

It is advisable that you have your replacement system in place by 30 June 2010. This means you should be looking to make a decision by early May as you will find many businesses will be looking to implement a new accounting system and consulting companies can only successfully implement so many systems at a time.

In our experience a typical implementation can take anywhere from one week to six months depending on the requirements and available resources at the client end. Remember the team at Evolution Business Systems do this full-time, so we could commit every day of the week to a project, but we find clients don’t generally have that same amount of time to commit to the project so while projects don’t actually take up to six months in working hours, delays in decision making can make a project run for a longer time line.

We have implemented a very simple Arrow Financials systems in a day, we have completed other Arrow implementations in a week, we feel the best time frame is one to two months, as this provides plenty of time for the project.

Evolution Business Systems also have the largest Arrow Financials site in the world and that took around four months to implement mainly due to the complexity and the requirements.

Further information

The ATO advise that you may continue to use E-Record after 30 June 2010 but only to complete your 2010 or prior income year records. You can not use E-Record for your 2011 income year records.

The deadline date here is 30 September 2010… You will need to complete any outstanding record keeping entries for the year ending 30 June 2010 and prior years as there will be no support after 30 September 2010. The ATO also advise you should consider printing any E-Record information that you want to retain.

The ATO go on to say that all support for E-Record will cease after 30 September 2010. If you continue to use E-Record after this date, they won’t be able to help with any problems or questions you may have.

To find out more about Arrow Financials click here, or details about Microsoft Dynamics NAV here. You can find out more about Evolution Business Systems here.