£75 to change FRS category

[d000hg]

Totally. I feel for the old skoolers to a certain extent, as FreeAgent has been a game changer and it must be incredibly difficult to keep up.

It took me a while to take the plunge and move accountants (as I couldn't fault InTouch on service ) but to be honest their tool wasn't up to scratch and having to do my own invoices, dividend vouchers and manual expenses just lost the appeal

I never tried FA but the 5 minutes a month it takes me to do all this doesn't really motivate me to change until the service is bad or the price gets too high.

If I was running InTouch I would certainly have a secret FA-based skunk project in the background though.

[jamesbrown]

I never tried FA but the 5 minutes a month it takes me to do all this doesn't really motivate me to change until the service is bad or the price gets too high.

The portal is fine, but it's "optimized" for the average contractor, and it breaks down when you deviate from that model, hence the comments here about fixed price contracts, invoicing in foreign currencies, invoicing outside of the scope of UK VAT etc. You can never build the required flexibility into a bespoke portal without massively increasing the cost to all clients, which is why outsourced tools like FA are the future IMO. Why would a firm of accountants become a tech company? Difficult to do both well, in the long run, but it's understandable how it all started.

[MrMarkyMark]

The portal is fine, but it's "optimized" for the average contractor, and it breaks down when you deviate from that model, hence the comments here about fixed price contracts, invoicing in foreign currencies, invoicing outside of the scope of UK VAT etc. You can never build the required flexibility into a bespoke portal without massively increasing the cost to all clients, which is why outsourced tools like FA are the future IMO. Why would a firm of accountants become a tech company? Difficult to do both well, in the long run, but it's understandable how it all started.

Seems a fair few "proper" business's on here, I wonder what HMRC makes of it all

[Seahorse17]

Seems to me that encouraging IT techies to move away from the 14.5% consultancy to 12.5% other could be seen as aggressive avoidance. Moot point anyway, as most will be limited cost traders.

[TheFaQQer]

The portal is fine, but it's "optimized" for the average contractor, and it breaks down when you deviate from that model, hence the comments here about fixed price contracts, invoicing in foreign currencies, invoicing outside of the scope of UK VAT etc. You can never build the required flexibility into a bespoke portal without massively increasing the cost to all clients, which is why outsourced tools like FA are the future IMO. Why would a firm of accountants become a tech company? Difficult to do both well, in the long run, but it's understandable how it all started.

Fixed price is now an option on the portal. However, I wouldn't recommend editing your contracts until the bugs are fixed.

[jamesbrown]

Fixed price is now an option on the portal. However, I wouldn't recommend editing your contracts until the bugs are fixed.

Good to know. FYI, if you're registering a dividend and you're wondering why the screen doesn't disappear when you click "save", don't keep clicking "save" to see if it eventually disappears!

[aoxomoxoa]

What a bargain! My accountant has offered to do the change for £150. Have decided to stay put on FRS anyway.