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FreeAgent vs the competition

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    FreeAgent vs the competition

    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?

    #2
    The only thing currently irking me is the lack of support for VAT AAS. Oh and sluggish bank feed updates, but I can work around those.

    I would like to see some of the issues addressed as part of the investment / profitability exercise - but I don't think I've seen anything better / truly competitive either.

    Comment


      #3
      Freeagent

      Originally posted by TheCyclingProgrammer View Post
      Is anyone using something else, or have you looked at something else like Quickbooks, Clearbooks etc?
      Having used the above plus Sage and Xero, I'd still say FA is a better option out of the lot of them. Xero is the only one that comes close but that's geared to more complex business structures. Good piece of kit but it's front end needs a lot of work.

      FA does have a few things that need sorting, especially with MTD coming online in a couple of years, we're currently testing the Corp Tax submission module which they're expecting to release next year along with Co House submissions.....it's heading in the right direction.

      Comment


        #4
        Does this mean the FA accountants will be reviewing their pricing fairly soon?
        'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

        Comment


          #5
          Freeagent

          Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
          Does this mean the FA accountants will be reviewing their pricing fairly soon?
          We've not received any notification of price rises just yet......fingers crossed!

          Comment


            #6
            It currently says ...

            US $10 /month
            for 6 months, then just
            US $20 /month

            That's less than I am paying now?! No GBP pricing given.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by TheCyclingProgrammer View Post
              * 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.
              One thing which I appreciate you're probably aware of, but it's very relevant here so should be stressed. Up until about a decade ago, there were two very different things:
              - bookkeeping software. This just did debits/credits, no accounting/tax submissions, not even any tax calculations. It could be pretty simple, and it didn't have to worry about the constantly changing tax world and its complexities.
              - accounts/tax software. Only accountants would pay for and use this kind of stuff. It was complex, and every year, pretty much everything needed to change, as rules, thresholds etc all changed.

              I imagine the FreeAgent owners would admit it was perhaps more naivety at the task ahead rather than anything else, but they decided to try to include the latter stuff in the former.
              - It started with VAT returns, and all other tax bits were just to be considered a "guestimate".
              - Then they implemented RTI payroll functionality, so suddenly they do basically need an all singing all dancing payroll function built in, rather than just expecting the user to tell it what the results were of payroll run independently on some other software.
              - They're gradually rolling out self assessment submissions, to a growing number of users (ie increasingly it won't just be the simplest 10% of users, but drifting towards more like all but the most complex 10% of users).
              - As Darren alluded to they're also working on CT/statutory accounts submissions.

              I do understand the frustration from some users, in that their accountants always had software to deal with the more complex things that can come up (eg a not that complex one being the small pool allowance you refer to)...so it seems like a backward step that it's not included here. Critically though, the difference is it's now all within one piece of software. It's not bookkeeping software does its bit, accountant/their software do their bit, and then they manually adjust the bookkeeping software. Increasingly the bookkeeping software does it all.

              So I guess all I'm saying is that whilst it may appear like FreeAgent isn't releasing that much in terms of new bells and whistles, and most of the things they are releasing is stuff that other software has been able to do for yonks...I still think it's quite significant.

              Even when they're not releasing new stuff, their developers are still shackled by the tax bits and bobs they put in years earlier, as they now have to make the regular changes when tax laws change...so that's a lot of programming effort, just to update basic stuff.

              Anyway, my understanding of the competition is that Xero is great, but realistically overkill for contractors. Clearbooks seems more accountingy (ie perhaps less user friendly). Quickbooks/Sage, they both have huge budgets behind them from old fashioned desktop days...open to debate whether they're still behind the times, or have managed to successfully catch up after sleeping for a while over how much SaaS options would grow. In all honesty, we have only very limited practical experience of anything other than FreeAgent, just being occasional bits when we help a client move from their old package to FreeAgent...but we've got no plans to change.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
                Does this mean the FA accountants will be reviewing their pricing fairly soon?
                You mean upwards because the software's getting more expensive? Or downwards because it may start doing some CT submissions soon?

                In the short term at least, I wouldn't anticipate either. I think many accountants (ourselves included) have let FreeAgent know that even if they release something that can do 90% of cases, it doesn't really save us any money, as we'll still need "proper" accounts/tax software to do the 10% it can't do. It's only when it can do 100% that we can then safely drop whatever other software we were previously paying for...and understandably FreeAgent's view is always to go for the low hanging fruit, meaning the more complex bits they leave for another day.

                FreeAgent put their prices to Maslins up a year or so ago...if I was bothered I'd check the small print, but I think as part of that they guaranteed no further increases for at least a few years.

                Reality of our business is that staff costs dwarf software costs, so it'd be unlikely that a change to FreeAgent pricing would lead to a change to our pricing anyway.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Are you guys (Dynamo, Maslins) worried that if FreeAgent do manage to roll out all this additional stuff correctly (CT, annual returns, etc) that you will become surplus to requirements to a lot of your clients? (some contractors already go at it alone for their accounts with just freeagent, I suspect that number will increase the more functionality freeagent introduces?)

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by pr1 View Post
                    Are you guys (Dynamo, Maslins) worried that if FreeAgent do manage to roll out all this additional stuff correctly (CT, annual returns, etc) that you will become surplus to requirements to a lot of your clients? (some contractors already go at it alone for their accounts with just freeagent, I suspect that number will increase the more functionality freeagent introduces?)
                    It's inevitable that some will...but only the clients who see us as providing no/negligible value beyond copy/pasting their existing FreeAgent numbers into separate software.

                    There's no doubt the easier it becomes to DIY, the more tempting it may be, and some will do so with no/negligible loss...but as with so many things in life, it being possible to DIY, and it being a good idea to DIY, are two separate things.

                    Comment

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