FreeAgent

[northernladuk]

Hi, after being burned badly by a developer who was supposed to be building us an all singing, all dancing online accounting solution for our clients, we have decided to cut our losses and are considering throwing our hat in the ring with FreeAgent. Do any current users have any comments generally about the system? I'm thinking mostly about the UI and how simple it is for "non-accountants". Is there anything missing that you'd like on it?

Also, for any accountants who use it, how do you find it integrates with AP software and suchlike? Do your clients feed back that the accounting/financial information is what they need, or is it lacking somewhat?

TIA

Have you asked your accou.... ugh.. hang on a minute

[humdinger]

Do they do everything yet?

- Dividends
- payroll
- VAT
- Annual returns
- Corporation tax
- profit/loss

looking to move from my accountants as they are taking the michael now .

thx

[philip@wellwoodhoyle]

We adopted FAC for our contractor clients a few years ago. Clients seem to like it's simplicity for data entry (no accounting jargon) and the tax timelines that give a running list of due dates and amounts that change with each new entry. It's not perfect (what is?) especially for more complicated clients with, say, investments, but for the, I hate to say it, "bog standard" contractor, it's fine. A bit glitchy if you don't use it's built-in payroll function as the import function can be tempremental and strangely the payroll input doesn't feed into the self assessment section but does feed into the P&L and B/S! Overall, we're happy with it, and it gets good feedback from clients. Some parts take a little getting used to as it doesn't always function how an accountant expects it to (eg auto corporation tax calculations that populates the P&L/BS but not the trial balance!), but you soon get used to it, and what's important is that the clients find it easy so they're more likely to keep it up to date!

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

We adopted FAC for our contractor clients a few years ago. Clients seem to like it's simplicity for data entry (no accounting jargon) and the tax timelines that give a running list of due dates and amounts that change with each new entry. It's not perfect (what is?) especially for more complicated clients with, say, investments, but for the, I hate to say it, "bog standard" contractor, it's fine. A bit glitchy if you don't use it's built-in payroll function as the import function can be tempremental and strangely the payroll input doesn't feed into the self assessment section but does feed into the P&L and B/S! Overall, we're happy with it, and it gets good feedback from clients. Some parts take a little getting used to as it doesn't always function how an accountant expects it to (eg auto corporation tax calculations that populates the P&L/BS but not the trial balance!), but you soon get used to it, and what's important is that the clients find it easy so they're more likely to keep it up to date!

How is it with overseas invoicing? We have a couple of clients who bill EU clients. Can it handle this? And specifically the reverse charge and ESL reporting?

[1st Online Support Team]

Accountant using FreeAgent

At 1st Online we only use FreeAgent as our Accounting software and the overall feedback from clients is really positive.

In particular our clients like the automatic bank feeds, easy expense inputting and managing their payroll and VAT through the system.

We chose to use FreeAgent as after reviewing the market, we felt this was the most user friendly software for both our clients and our Accountants.

We also liked the support library available from FreeAgent that makes the system easy to understand by removing the jargon and explaining how to navigate the system.

Positive reviews from us at 1st Online.

[Maslins]

How is it with overseas invoicing? We have a couple of clients who bill EU clients. Can it handle this? And specifically the reverse charge and ESL reporting?

It doesn't do the EC sales list (yet), but is savvy enough to not add VAT to EU sales. Clients do need to take care to ensure they do things in the correct way though...in short making sure the "contact" country is set correctly, rather than them just manually amending the VAT rate to 0% on an invoice FreeAgent incorrectly assumes is to a UK company (mainly causes a problem for FRS clients where then the actual liability is incorrect, rather than just a disclosure thing...as with 0% sales FreeAgent treats as zero rated, rather than outside the scope).

It does collect various bits of info re EU sales (and indeed purchases), so I imagine it's only a matter of time before it'll be able to do the EC sales list itself.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

How is it with overseas invoicing? We have a couple of clients who bill EU clients. Can it handle this? And specifically the reverse charge and ESL reporting?

No EC sales list but it does now handle the reverse charge for services you purchase from outside the UK on your VAT return - only niggle is that you need to select "EC Services" when entering the expense/bill even if the supplier was from outside the EC or it won't apply the reverse charge, which is a bit confusing. It also allows you to not charge VAT to non-UK clients if the place of supply is outside the UK (i.e. when the customer handles the reverse charge).

They've also now announced some support for the new VAT MOSS stuff for those it applies to but I've not looked into it in any great detail.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

So far my only gripe is the expenses inputting. It'd be good if transactions could be batch entered.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

So far my only gripe is the expenses inputting. It'd be good if transactions could be batch entered.

Yes, I'd love something that let me group expenses logically, for instance a single day on-site may have train or mileage costs and subsistence costs. I'd like to be able to enter some basic trip details and keep a record of this.

[Maslins]

Yes, I'd love something that let me group expenses logically, for instance a single day on-site may have train or mileage costs and subsistence costs. I'd like to be able to enter some basic trip details and keep a record of this.

Perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but you can:
- set up recurring expenses (eg if you're travelling the same route each day, mileage/train ticket costs likely to be identical). Obviously be careful with these to ensure you stop them when you stop travelling that route.
- keep a tally of expenses off FreeAgent, and enter perhaps weekly/monthly lumps. Eg Feb total travel £X, Feb total subsistence £Y.