Bookkeeping, accounts, corporation tax, Self Assessment and practice management
Your books, on your own machine.
One Windows application for the bookkeeping, the accounts production, the corporation tax, the Self Assessment returns and the practice management, with unlimited users. Most UK firms buy those as five separate products. The ledger sits in a database on the computer in front of you, and nothing leaves it unless you export it.
Which are you?
Pilot places are open for practices, businesses and group finance teams. What the pilot is
Every licence starts with a free month. Watch it work, request the software, see everything it does, or read where it stands today.
Modules, from the ledger to the practice side. All of them listed.
Reports, each one runnable over any period you choose.
UK bank statement layouts read directly, without rearranging columns first, and the bank's own PDF read off the page it was printed on.
Pages of user manual, shipped with the software rather than sold separately.
What it replaces
Five purchases, one licence
A UK practice normally buys its bookkeeping in one place, its accounts production in another, its corporation tax in a third, its personal tax in a fourth and its practice management in a fifth, and pays for each seat on at least one of them. Murgese is one application that does all five, and it does not count seats.
Bookkeeping, VAT and CIS
Double entry in whole pence, sales and purchases, statement import from a CSV or the bank's own PDF, coding, bank rules, reconciliation. The VAT return on cash or accrual, and CIS at all three rates with the CIS300 and deduction statements.
Accounts production
FRS 105, FRS 102 Section 1A, the Charities SORP and dormant accounts, with the iXBRL. Not a separate product with its own licence and its own set of client records to keep in step.
The corporation tax computation and the CT600
Capital allowances with the pools, the adjustments, the losses, and every box on the return shown with its number and the figure behind it. In the price of the licence.
Self Assessment and the partnership return
The SA100 with the supplementary pages a practice actually files: employment, self-employment, partnership, UK property, foreign, capital gains and residence. The SA800 partnership return with the partners' statements. The income tax computation is shown with the figure behind every box.
Practice management
The job board, the deadlines calendar, records received, approvals, time, work in progress and billing. Unlimited users, so nobody is left off the calendar to save a seat.
What that costs. £9.99 a month, or £99.00 a year, for a business keeping its own books, a limited offer until 31 March 2027. A practice holds one licence for the firm, with unlimited users, covering the client companies it puts on Murgese. What that costs depends on how many. What it costs
And the catch, stated up front. Murgese prepares the VAT return, the CT600, the Self Assessment return and the accounts. It does not file any of them yet: recognition is being worked towards, and until it arrives you file through whatever you file through now. That is set out in full, with everything else it does not do, on the status page.
In the licence
The three that usually cost extra
If you run contracts to a budget, buy or sell in another currency, or need to know which property made the money, these three are worth checking against what you pay for them now. All three are in the licence at every level, with nothing to switch on and nothing more to pay.
Projects
Contracts and sites run to a budget: a contract value and a cost budget per account with the variance against it, variations counted separately until they are agreed, stage of completion, cost to complete and forecast margin, retention held with its release date from practical completion, and work done but not yet billed.
Multi-currency
Sales invoices and supplier bills in a foreign currency, foreign currency bank accounts, realised differences on settlement and revaluation at the period end. The ledger itself stays in sterling throughout, so the VAT return and the statutory accounts cannot end up disagreeing with the books because a rate moved.
Tracking by property, site or department
A second label on a posting beside the account, carried through the ledger into a profit and loss with a column for each one that adds across to the statutory profit and loss. What was never tagged is shown as its own visible total rather than quietly dropped, which is how a tracking report stops adding up.
Moving a client across
The whole history, not a closing trial balance
Most migrations hand you an opening balance and a filing cabinet you can no longer search. Murgese brings a company's chart of accounts, contacts, documents and every posting across from Xero or QuickBooks, then reconciles the result against the source file so you can see where the two differ before you rely on either.
Proving it before you commit
Check it against a period you have already filed
Before you trust new software with a client, you want to know it agrees with the last set of figures you signed. Murgese will take a period that has already been filed, recompute it from the underlying records, and compare it figure by figure with what was submitted.
It is the only honest way to answer the question, and it is the reason the product keeps what the books say separate from what was filed everywhere the two can differ.
Records coming in
The papers arrive on their own
A client's receipts land in somebody's Outlook, get dragged into a folder, and are uploaded to the accounting system by hand a fortnight later. Most software removes the second half of that. Murgese removes the first half as well: the firm points it at a mailbox, tells clients to send their papers there, and the papers file themselves against the right client.
A mailbox you already have
Usually the shared one the firm already pays for. Murgese signs into it on a timer, reads what is unread, and leaves the rest alone. There is nothing to register with anybody, no forwarding to set up, and no third party holding a client's post on the way through.
It works out whose it is
From the sender against the contacts held for a client, which is the address a bookkeeper or office manager actually writes from; from the sender against the client record itself; or from a company number in the subject line. What it files goes into that client's open records period, against the checklist for that period, exactly as if somebody had uploaded it.
And it never guesses
A receipt filed against the wrong client is worse than one that was never filed at all: the missing one is noticed at the next reconciliation, and the misfiled one is a wrong return and a client's papers in front of somebody they do not belong to. Where two clients could plausibly own a message it goes to a tray and a person decides. One address held against two companies is the ordinary case, not the rare one.
The idea
Checked, not guessed.
Written inside a UK practice, for the person who signs the accounts. It keeps what the books say separate from what was filed, explains its reasoning on the screen rather than in a manual, and where it cannot work something out it says so instead of producing a figure somebody has to unpick later.
It runs on your machine
A desktop application for Windows, installed per user, with the ledger in a database on that computer and a server process running locally. Nothing is hosted. Client data does not leave the premises unless you export it.
Two editions, one ledger
The Practice edition runs a firm, with many companies, jobs, deadlines and approvals. The Business edition is the same accounting engine for one company, with the practice side switched off.
Property and construction, properly
CIS costs nothing extra. Deduction on labour, the monthly CIS300 and the domestic reverse charge are part of the ordinary run of work, and so is tracking by property or site. Verification results are recorded and drive the rate, though the request itself is still made through HMRC rather than from here.
What is in it
A complete set of books, and the work around them
Everything below is in the product today, and the full feature list runs to twenty-three modules. The status page sets out just as plainly what is not.
Ledger
Full double entry. Money is held as integer pence throughout, so a rounding difference cannot creep in between two screens.
Sales and purchases
Invoices, bills, quotes, purchase orders, credit notes, recurring documents, contacts and ageing.
Bank
Statement import, coding, matching to documents, transfers between the company's own accounts, payout settlement and reconciliation.
VAT and CIS
The nine boxes on cash or accrual, the CIS domestic reverse charge, postponed import VAT, adjustments, and the monthly CIS300.
Year end and tax
FRS 105, FRS 102 Section 1A, filleted and dormant accounts with checked iXBRL, then the corporation tax computation with capital allowances, loss relief and marginal relief.
Charity
Fund accounting where an entry balances within each fund, the SORP chart, the SOFA across fund columns, the trustees' report, Gift Aid and the examination thresholds.
Records coming in
Reads a bill off a PDF, a scan or a photograph into a draft you review, and takes client records by email from the firm's own mailbox.
Practice management
Job board, deadlines calendar, records inbox, time tracking, fees and work in progress, staff and permissions, approvals.
Reporting
Every figure leads back to the entry behind it
The statements with comparative columns and multi-period runs, ageing, ledgers, and tracking by property or site. From a figure on a report to the account, from the account to the entry, and from a general ledger line through to the document itself.
- Profit and loss
- Balance sheet
- Trial balance
- Detailed P&L
- Cash flow
- Changes in equity
- Aged debtors
- Aged creditors
- Nominal ledger
- Management accounts
Comparatives are a period the company actually had rather than the same dates a year earlier, so a short first period compares against something real. Every report says the basis it was run on, and a figure that could not be worked out is named rather than shown as nil.
Straight answer
What Murgese does not do yet
It is not yet HMRC recognised, for VAT under Making Tax Digital or for the CT600. Companies House filing has been tested only against our own harness, never against Companies House itself. Bank feeds are written but have never been connected to a provider, in a sandbox or otherwise. It runs on Windows; a macOS version is planned rather than under way. Subcontractor verification is recorded rather than requested, so the request is made through HMRC's own service. It does not calculate payroll, and there is no audit functionality.
Every one of those except audit is being worked on, and none of them has a date, because a date we missed would be worse than no date at all. We would rather you read this here than find it out in week three. The status page keeps the position current, and it is the first thing we update when something changes.
Who it is for
And who it is not for
The quickest way to know whether to spend any more time on this. Both columns are honest: the right-hand one costs us enquiries and saves everybody three weeks.
It suits you if
- You are a UK accountancy practice looking after client companies, with deadlines, approvals, time and work in progress to run alongside the books.
- You keep your own company's books and want the ledger, VAT, CIS and the year-end accounts in one place rather than three.
- You work in construction or property. CIS at all three rates, the domestic reverse charge, deemed contractors and profit by site are ordinary work here, not an add-on.
- You act for charities. Fund accounting where an entry balances within its fund, the SORP chart, the SOFA across fund columns, Gift Aid and the examination thresholds.
- Your clients will not have their books in the cloud, or you would rather they were not.
It does not suit you if
- You need to file from the software today. It prepares the VAT return and the CT600; it is not yet HMRC recognised, so you submit them.
- You want payroll in the same system. It posts the journal from wherever you run payroll and checks what was paid over. It does not calculate it, and there is no plan for it to.
- You audit. There is no audit functionality and none planned. The audit trail is a different thing.
- Your whole office is on Macs. The application installs on Windows. A Mac can use it in a browser, on the network or through your own VPN, but somebody has to run the Windows machine it lives on. A macOS build is planned rather than under way.
- You want a bank feed. Statements import from a file. The feed panels are not shown in the software you install, and there is no date for turning them on. The code and its tests are kept rather than deleted.
Editions
Which one you need
Both editions share the same ledger, the same VAT and CIS treatment and the same reports. The difference is whether you are looking after one company or a portfolio of them.
Practice edition
For a firm with clients.
- Every client company in one place
- Job board, deadlines calendar and records inbox
- Time recorded automatically, against the client and the job
- Fees and work in progress
- Staff, permissions and an approval trail
- Client approval packs for VAT and accounts
Business edition
For a single business keeping its own books.
- The same bookkeeping, VAT and CIS
- Practice management switched off, and the wording changed with it
- Management accounts and statutory accounts
- A portable export the business owns
- Supplied direct, or by the firm that looks after you
See it on your own books, not ours
Request the installer and the manual. Thirty days from the day you create your books, with no licence key and no card, so you can judge it on your own figures.
Not ready to install anything? Read where it stands today first, or look at the documentation.