Spreadsheet vs Portal: the ultimate smackdown

[unixman]

I'd stop guessing and start asking

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Been reading up on free agent. Sounds nice. Awful website. All cartoons and pictures of people in hoodies. Users speak highly of it though.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Freeagent is excellent - we're premium partners so as you'd expect we're something of a cheerleader. However, we have a core of clients who, like the op, like the spreadsheet option. In those cases we use FA for the back office and let the contractor continue using spreadsheets. We then slowly feed the benefits of FA into them and they invariably convert. There'd be no problem running both side by side.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Cheers guys. I wonder if keeping track of every payment for X years is part of statutory accounts. I guess not if portals don't offer it. I am sure they have the end of year summaries and finished accounts. But if you need to look at one payment your company made 3 years ago (say), I guess you can't do that with portals.

All transactions are available on Freeagent right back to when you started using it.

[northernladuk]

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Been reading up on free agent. Sounds nice. Awful website. All cartoons and pictures of people in hoodies. Users speak highly of it though.

Ohhh, don't get your knickers in a twist... I was just suggesting that you've said 'I guess' twice in the thread I mentioned about making payments to which I think you'll find are not true. Everything is detailed in the Freeaagent site so easily traceable or whatever.

[JB3000]

I'm about to change accountants, probably to Nixon Williams. However, they offer a "cloud" based accountancy portal, whereas my current lot just use a bookkeeping spreadsheet which I keep up to date. Therein lies the concern. I have read some threads on here about one portal vs another, and I have chatted to NW by phone, but I am more worried about portals vs spreadsheet in general.

Generally, I like, and am used to, "owning" the company books, and having a complete bookkeeping picture available on my PC at all times. I like, for example, being able to double check that bank payment from last year, or seeing how I entered something last quarter. I like having having years of correctly completed books available, should they ever be needed. For example, did I correctly obey the 2 year expense rule in 2012? Yes I did, there it is in the spreadsheet, complete with my cell notes explaining. Could I do that on cloud?

so loss of visibility and ownership are a concern.

Also, with cloud portals:
- who owns the data ?
- where is it stored and under what jurisdiction?
- what is the security level ?
- what if they just up and lose all my data one morning ? No skin off their nose? (NB "They will never lose it" is not an answer.)

(I don't want to open up general cloud arguments, or have people advise that cloud is safer than my PC, or whatever. Let's just say my own PC is as safe as the accountants' corporate servers. It is, but I don't want to have an argument about that)

Two words, free agent,

Accounting software, simplified - FreeAgent

In a few years, i don't think you'll need an accountant, i can do all my vat, payroll and self assessment already. Hopefully they do accounts and corporation tax returns soon.

One other nice bonus is that it makes switching accountants extremely easy and stress free as you have all your data, figures, transactions and submissions in one place.

[Maslins]

One word, FreeAgent,

Accounting software, simplified - FreeAgent

In a few years, i don't think you'll need an accountant, i can do all my vat, payroll and self assessment already. Hopefully they do accounts and corporation tax returns soon.

One other nice bonus is that it makes switching accountants extremely easy and stress free as you have all your data, figures, transactions and submissions in one place.

FTFY

[pr1]

while I really like freeagent, and recommend it - it is not without some limitations compared to spreadsheets

it's hard to batch expenses - there's no easy way (that I've found) at the end of a month to import 20 train tickets all the same price/same description but different dates - this is easy on a spreadsheet

it's hard to project forward (again - prepared to be corrected) - expenses and invoices are only taken into consideration from the date they are for, which is fine and good for "up to date" accounts put you cant, for example, proejct the next 3 months of invoices and expenses and press a "pretend it's christmas 2015" button to see what cashflow position you'll be in, again, easy on a spreadsheet - the only way I've found to do this is to register (& pay) for another addon software for projections

[unixman]

Freeagent sounds attractive. I guess (sorry NLUK!) it becomes an added cost however. Eg. an accountancy firm might offer £95 p/m for basic accounts, but when you add the £30 p/m for the software it is less of a bargain.

I am coming round to online packages, if they offer full visibility and reporting, so I can download the entirety of my accounts any time. It would be great to find a package/company that does that.

SJD page here puffing their spreadsheet and being a bit sniffy about online packages:. I have used their spreadsheet and it's not bad, despite being a bit buggy and having no version control.

[pr1]

Freeagent sounds attractive. I guess (sorry NLUK!) it becomes an added cost however. Eg. an accountancy firm might offer £95 p/m for basic accounts, but when you add the £30 p/m for the software it is less of a bargain.

I am coming round to online packages, if they offer full visibility and reporting, so I can download the entirety of my accounts any time. It would be great to find a package/company that does that.

SJD page here puffing their spreadsheet and being a bit sniffy about online packages: I have used their spreadsheet and it's not bad, despite being a bit buggy and having no version control.

my accountant includes the freeagent subsciption in their £85/mo fee - I guess(!) a fair few freeagent friendly accountants do similar

[Cupid Stunt]

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