1stonline accountants - Any experiences?

**northernladuk** · 5 January 2017, 12:20

IMO there are cut off's where it does appear to be 'too expensive' but I wouldn't be filtering FA accountants based on cost when the difference is only a few hundred per year to be honest. 1k is a little on the high side, 450 appears to a be a little cheap so anything in between is fine for me.If I was happy and full confidence in my 1k setup I wouldn't be tempting fate to save so little TBH.

Up to you though and fair enough for asking if anyone has any experience. Have you spoken to them yourself first to see if you get any happy feeling from them? They could be great for some person but you just don't gel with them personally.

**yasnas** · 5 January 2017, 12:21

Originally posted by Rafd View Post

They look like a very cheap no frills option for freeagent users. Has anyone been with them?

After my first year with a more expensive freeagent accountant I am starting to wonder if I am throwing money away. My accounts are as simple as they come really and I have required very little advice which I couldn't have found on google.

I have also found 'year end only' services offered by other accountants which offer end of year and CT processing from freeagent for £100 to £150. Combined together this means I can get freeagent, vat, payroll and year end accounts for around £450 a year. Well under half what I am currently paying. Am I missing something?

Cheers

Hi Rafd,

I am in the same boat as you and thinking about joining 1stonline, except I am just starting out as a contractor. So if anybody has any experiences to share that would be great!

Question for you though, why do you need to combine packages, is there other accounting etc not included in their package? From what I have seen, they will do annual accounts also in some packages.

**Alan @ BroomeAffinity** · 5 January 2017, 12:41

I think we discussed this recently (but I can't find link) and the consensus from accountants at least was that it'd be very difficult to get a margin and advise properly at these fees. It's almost a DIY option but from your OP you sound like you'd be happy with doing the most of your stuff anyway so it might work for you. The first two options are an effective re-badging of FreeAgent with very little (perhaps none at all) input from 1st Online. You'd need to do all your own payroll and VAT but as I say you seem quite comfortable with that.

I've never heard of y/e only for as low as £100 so I'd be wary of that tbh.

**Rafd** · 5 January 2017, 13:28

Thanks for the replies, yes I guess this is only a small step up from DIY and seems even cheaper assuming you want to use FreeAgent. FreeAgent alone costs £30/month where as it is £20 through 1stonline or £30 with VAT+Payroll processing. To be honest I feel that the price of FreeAgent standalone is extortionate considering its relative simplicity. I assume accountants pay far less for it?

I don't know the ins and outs of year end accounts but I assume that for a simple one man Ltd co. using data from FreeAgent and a linked bank account, the process is not too complex? One accountant I spoke to offered full year end accounts for £400 or the same but from FreeAgent data for £150 which seems to confirm this.

**Maslins** · 5 January 2017, 13:59

Originally posted by Rafd View Post

Thanks for the replies, yes I guess this is only a small step up from DIY and seems even cheaper assuming you want to use FreeAgent. FreeAgent alone costs £30/month where as it is £20 through 1stonline or £30 with VAT+Payroll processing. To be honest I feel that the price of FreeAgent standalone is extortionate considering its relative simplicity. I assume accountants pay far less for it?

I don't know the ins and outs of year end accounts but I assume that for a simple one man Ltd co. using data from FreeAgent and a linked bank account, the process is not too complex? One accountant I spoke to offered full year end accounts for £400 or the same but from FreeAgent data for £150 which seems to confirm this.

I've got a few comments on this:
- yes, accountants will generally get FreeAgent cheaper than FreeAgent's headline price. I imagine the levels of discount vary from firm to firm.
- I was certainly told that we could only provide it as part of a larger service, not just re-sell on the FreeAgent account at under the RRP to make a bit of a profit ourselves.
- I struggle to imagine the support these guys can provide for £20+VAT/month, when the FreeAgent account itself will cost them a large chunk of that...so part of me imagines they're treading a very fine line with my bullet point above.
- doing year end accounts from any data is potentially easy, you can just copy/paste the trial balance figures into year end software. Indeed it'll probably only be a year or so before that's no longer necessary for the DIYer as it's certainly on FreeAgent's roadmap to be able to submit simple accounts/CT returns directly from the software. However, until that happens, we wouldn't want to put our name to accounts that we hadn't checked first. That's where it can be a bit more time consuming, sanity checking the data, asking relevant questions to ensure things are accurate etc. Hence no way would we agree to file someone else's accounts/CT return for £150, regardless of whether they're on FreeAgent or not.

I'm in no way slating these guys. If I was, I'd be no different to the really traditional high street firms who slated firms like ours 5-10 years ago. However I am genuinely intrigued what kind of service you get for £20/month (I appreciate it makes it clear that doesn't include payroll, VAT, or year end accounts...which surely virtually every Ltd Co contractor will want).

We could hypothetically cut our prices, but to keep a decent profit level, we'd need to replace experienced staff where we pay to put them through their exams, with call centre monkeys that get negligible training. Staff is our biggest cost by far. It's also where an accountancy firm adds value over someone simply using FreeAgent on its own.

The world's a fast moving place these days, so for the confident DIYer it's only going to get easier. Some will do a grand job. My concern is that for others, they're going to submit a whole load of tosh, and the role of accountants will drift away from one of helping people submit accurate stuff, to unpicking horrible messes a year or two after the event. Hopefully I'll have retired by that point...also apologies for drifting OT!

**Fred Bloggs** · 6 January 2017, 02:47

None of the people who replied have any idea what using 1st Online is actually like, have you?

I'm not going to make a song and a dance over it, you can see my various posts on this very same topic if you search the forum. Yes, I am a very happy customer of 1st Online. If you want to know more perhaps PM me?

**Fred Bloggs** · 6 January 2017, 02:49

Originally posted by Rafd View Post

Thanks for the replies, yes I guess this is only a small step up from DIY and seems even cheaper assuming you want to use FreeAgent. FreeAgent alone costs £30/month where as it is £20 through 1stonline or £30 with VAT+Payroll processing. To be honest I feel that the price of FreeAgent standalone is extortionate considering its relative simplicity. I assume accountants pay far less for it?

I don't know the ins and outs of year end accounts but I assume that for a simple one man Ltd co. using data from FreeAgent and a linked bank account, the process is not too complex? One accountant I spoke to offered full year end accounts for £400 or the same but from FreeAgent data for £150 which seems to confirm this.

See my other post here and/or search the forum for 1st Online.

**yasnas** · 16 January 2017, 10:57

Originally posted by Fred Bloggs View Post

None of the people who replied have any idea what using 1st Online is actually like, have you?

I'm not going to make a song and a dance over it, you can see my various posts on this very same topic if you search the forum. Yes, I am a very happy customer of 1st Online. If you want to know more perhaps PM me?

Hi Fred,

I'd be interested to know more about them. However I cannot find the option to PM you..is it because i'm a newbie and its not enabled?

**Fred Bloggs** · 16 January 2017, 12:43

Originally posted by yasnas View Post

Hi Fred,

I'd be interested to know more about them. However I cannot find the option to PM you..is it because i'm a newbie and its not enabled?

Yes you need to ask admin to enable it for you. Why not call them? They are very user friendly and you'll get answers to your questions right there and then.

1stonline accountants - Any experiences?