FreeAgent - Expenses & Receipts

[vwdan]

Bit of a bone question, I know - I just wondered if anyone has any clever "hacks" for smoothing out the management of their expenses. Anyone using one of the FreeAgent integrations?

I'll admit I'm one of those contractors that expenses everything when I'm away (Why would I pay for my own coffee!), so yes, I have a lot of receipts. And, naturally, I'm ******* lazy about dealing with them - hence why it's 20:10 and I'm typing this.

I currently just sort of collect them, then eventually I scan them into CamScammer and upload them to OneDrive. When I'm back at my laptop I'll then go through FreeAgent, sync my Credit Card statement and crack on one at a time.

The FreeAgent app seems to be a bit lacking and, in particular, I hate that there's no easy way to store the receipts off FreeAgent. I've got 3 years of receipts stored on OneDrive and I'd like to carry on that tradition for my own peace of mind.

[youngguy]

I 'smoothed' mine a few yrs ago by carrying my business debit card and putting all expenses on that. Paper receipts go in a Polly pocket at the end of each month. I used to scan in as well but no longer bother. After 10 yrs my first lot of receipts have aged well in Polly's so I figured my belts and braces approach was just wasting time.

Most of my expenses are the same each month so FA has learnt them and all I need to do is a quick check and confirm each month when I do my invoice.

If there is a nifty integration I don't know about I'd be interested in improving

[eek]

I just subscribe to Xpenditure.com for £7 a month i get an app take a photo of the receipt and send it off.

Then once a month I run a report and import it into freeagent.

[adubya]

I use the google drive "scan" option to store a receipt scan on google drive and then attach the scan from there to the Freeagent receipt entry.
Doesn't take long and I have my own copy of the scans so wouldn't need to perform a massive image export from Freeagent if I ever stopped using it.
Don't bother keeping the paper receipt.

[grabri]

The FA app on the phone allows you to enter and take photos of receipts 'on-the-go'. Automatically syncs to the cloud - then just stuff the paper copies in a polypocket each month.

[Lance]

spend 10 minutes doing them weekly.

[FrontEnder]

The FreeAgent app seems to be a bit lacking and, in particular, I hate that there's no easy way to store the receipts off FreeAgent. I've got 3 years of receipts stored on OneDrive and I'd like to carry on that tradition for my own peace of mind.

I use the app on android - it stores them in a separate folder. So it should be easy enough to just upload that to OneDrive periodically (or auto sync it - I don't use OneDrive, so no idea if that's possible).

Other than that, why do you think the app is lacking? Personally, I just use the app to take a pic of the receipt as I go along. I don't bother filing the paper receipts.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

IMO, out of pocket expense tracking continues to be the weakest point for FreeAgent.

I have dabbled with various alternatives over the years - for ages I was using a spreadsheet to track all of my individual expenses and then aggregating them into FreeAgent but it was very easy to fall behind on this.

I've tried various other platforms like Expensify but never found anything I really liked that integrated nicely with FreeAgent. Ideally I'd prefer it if FreeAgent just made general improvements to their expense tracking.

I've had very little in the way of out of pocket expenses this year as I've been almost 100% WFH and I've also switched to using my business debit card to pay for train tickets directly which is probably my main out of pocket expense.

One idea might be to have some kind of dedicated pre-paid debit card that I only use for out of pocket expenses which I could then set up as a bank feed in FreeAgent.

[l35kee]

I use the app on android - it stores them in a separate folder. So it should be easy enough to just upload that to OneDrive periodically (or auto sync it - I don't use OneDrive, so no idea if that's possible).

Other than that, why do you think the app is lacking? Personally, I just use the app to take a pic of the receipt as I go along. I don't bother filing the paper receipts.

Do you know the path to this? I'd like to grab them!

[vwdan]

One idea might be to have some kind of dedicated pre-paid debit card that I only use for out of pocket expenses which I could then set up as a bank feed in FreeAgent.

I have a business credit card which I figured would go great with FreeAgent except 1) The Bank Feed doesn't work and 2) It keeps on duplicating entries when I import new statements

Don't get me wrong, I still love FA and it's definitely better/easier than the old SJD spreadsheet but I do feel like I spend more time than I need to messing with receipts.