I see FreeAgent announced a relatively big price increase recently. I didn't pay much attention to this as I'm fortunate enough to have a free account (in fact, MyCo gets paid for using it as an affiliate) but it seems to have caused quite a negative response on Twitter at least.
Personally, I think it's better to ask is FreeAgent still good value rather than focus on the increase. For most of us it represents such a relatively small annual cost (less than a single day's work on average rates) that we probably wouldn't think much about it but it has got me wondering: is FreeAgent still the best option these days for small one-man businesses?
FreeAgent does pretty much everything I need it to, but I do feel it has stagnated in terms of feature development and it does still irritate me that small but important accounting features still aren't supported despite being asked for many many years ago:
* No support for small pool allowances meaning anyone with an opening asset pool that has been written off due to it being under £1k will still have the pool showing in their corporation tax calculation, making it inaccurate.
* Still only half-arsed support for the reverse charge on services, requiring any overseas purchases to be marked as "EC services" even if the supplier is outside the EU (also making it impossible to create a reverse charged bill for a contact with a non-EU address).
* Very basic expense tracking system
* Mobile app is nothing special
* Dividend paperwork for multiple shareholder scenarios is a bit iffy at best - inadequate at worst.
These are just some things off the top of my head. But is the grass greener? Is anyone using something else, or have you looked at something else like Quickbooks, Clearbooks etc?
Personally, I think it's better to ask is FreeAgent still good value rather than focus on the increase. For most of us it represents such a relatively small annual cost (less than a single day's work on average rates) that we probably wouldn't think much about it but it has got me wondering: is FreeAgent still the best option these days for small one-man businesses?
FreeAgent does pretty much everything I need it to, but I do feel it has stagnated in terms of feature development and it does still irritate me that small but important accounting features still aren't supported despite being asked for many many years ago:
* No support for small pool allowances meaning anyone with an opening asset pool that has been written off due to it being under £1k will still have the pool showing in their corporation tax calculation, making it inaccurate.
* Still only half-arsed support for the reverse charge on services, requiring any overseas purchases to be marked as "EC services" even if the supplier is outside the EU (also making it impossible to create a reverse charged bill for a contact with a non-EU address).
* Very basic expense tracking system
* Mobile app is nothing special
* Dividend paperwork for multiple shareholder scenarios is a bit iffy at best - inadequate at worst.
These are just some things off the top of my head. But is the grass greener? Is anyone using something else, or have you looked at something else like Quickbooks, Clearbooks etc?
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