FreeAgent Experience & Code

[tonyjwheeler]

Hello,

I've just started my Limited Co contracting business and created an account with Freeagent It looks good for simple contractor businesses. If you have experience with this online accounting software I'd welcome your views - especially of any pitfalls to avoid or significant limitations. I do have an accountant and hope this will allow me to provide all he needs .

I've noticed various comments spread across the forums but much of the comment quite old.

Tony

Mod - accounting software contacts here: Online Accounting Software for Contractors

[Maslins]

FreeAgent gets a good press on this forum, it's an ideal tool to help contractors.

One thing I'm unsure of from your email, typically you'd want your accountant to be very FreeAgent savvy, so them working closely with it too. Your comments suggest perhaps you've got it entirely independent of your accountant. Your accountant may well know and love the software, in which case great. If they don't, I'd run it by them sooner rather than later, as possibly they wouldn't be happy working with you via it.

[WLB2018]

Do you have an accountant?

I get FA through mine. It is a great app and works really well, takes a lot of hassle out of bookkeeping. I photo my receipts and upload them into FA. Done

WLB

[Falcon1200]

Freeagent Balances

Hi, I've just started using freeagent - which works fine for me apart from one thing.

I guess like lost of you guys I invoice and get invoices paid once a month.

Currently my retained profit is showing as about £200 - this is because although my invoice for January has been paid - my expenses are continuing to mount up through Feb.

Does anyone know if there is a way to put either an "estimated invoice" in so that it's more accurate or can Freeagent be configured to look at transactions for each calendar month?

Thanks

Falcon

[northernladuk]

Your accountant might.

[vwdan]

I guess like lost of you guys I invoice and get invoices paid once a month.

Currently my retained profit is showing as about £200 - this is because although my invoice for January has been paid - my expenses are continuing to mount up through Feb.

Bear in mind this absolutely correct. Until you invoice again your retained profit IS £200 and will decrease until your next invoice - you should be very wary about assuming your next invoice will be made and paid hassle free. But:

Does anyone know if there is a way to put either an "estimated invoice" in so that it's more accurate or can Freeagent be configured to look at transactions for each calendar month?

The only way I know to do this is to create your invoice for your next payment, and mark it as paid and immediately due. You can easily go back in change it to draft and fix it, but don't get into the habit of making and DELETING random invoices as I'm not sure what that does regarding your numbering.

Personally, for similar reasons, I mark all my invoices as due on receipt because I just want to know what my retained profit is in relation to all my invoices and to-date expenses. But, and this is no offence to you, I'm not scratching around in the hundreds so it doesn't really matter for cashflow planning.

[Maslins]

Slight pedant point re vwdan's comments, but profit is recognised based on the date of the invoice, not the date it's paid. Ie you can set the due date to be 6 months into the future, the profit (hence impact on retained profit) will still be the date of the invoice.

Very theoretically each day you work you could recognise it as accrued income (ie work you've done, and expect to invoice and be paid for, but haven't invoiced yet)...but this would be a lot of admin effort for no real benefit.

In practice, just try to live a little frugally for a short while so there's more of a buffer. Otherwise as vwdan said, you run the risk that one client not paying/paying late and you're a bit stuffed.

[Falcon1200]

Slight pedant point re vwdan's comments, but profit is recognised based on the date of the invoice, not the date it's paid. Ie you can set the due date to be 6 months into the future, the profit (hence impact on retained profit) will still be the date of the invoice.

Very theoretically each day you work you could recognise it as accrued income (ie work you've done, and expect to invoice and be paid for, but haven't invoiced yet)...but this would be a lot of admin effort for no real benefit.

In practice, just try to live a little frugally for a short while so there's more of a buffer. Otherwise as vwdan said, you run the risk that one client not paying/paying late and you're a bit stuffed.

Thanks for the info.

Accrual i guess is what I was looking for in trying to balance expenses and invoice due on an almost day by day basis, however as you state i will get an accurate picture once a month when I invoice at the end of the month and the expenses are all incurred at that date.

Thanks for your help guys.

[oilboil]

Personally I didn't take to FreeAgent and prefer XERO - the only problem is XERO isn't free - but It's peanuts in the grand scheme of things so I pay it.

The important thing is to use something like FA or XERO so that you can be as aware of your company finances as your accountant is