FreeAgent Support Trust Worthy? Issues with Lloyds Business Bank Acc Synchronisation

[Sean Key]

My Lloyds .CSV statement download makes no sense at all

Hi I use Crunch and manually upload my .CSV statements and reconcile. I've been a bit remiss recently I am currently trying to reconcile 2 months worth.

I have had problems in the past with the odd line that wouldn't upload and had to be edited (usually just a date change to get round a bug in Crunch). But looking at this recent statement download... it makes no sense. Loads of lines are out by £££ and some payments don't seem to have been added in to the balance, despite appearing in the credit column.

So I googled and found this Lloyds Group’s online banking software update snafu enrages customers | Ars Technica UK

WTF do I do now? How long can they get away without having working .CSV exports?


... well after ranting I cut-and-pasted the statement off of the screen into Excel, fixed the data and saved it as a .CSV

still really annoying though.

[darrylmg]

...I am 100% certain I have entered credentials incorrectly...

I think I've solved your problem?
:beer:

[Archangel]

Indeed. FreeAgent offers so much that is good that for the average contractor with half a dozen transactions a month, then 5 minutes down loading a .qif file and uploading to FA is nothing. I preferred not to share my banking log ins with Yodlee, a company I know nothing about.

+1

I'm not your average contractor (anymore) but use free agent, I have around 100 - 150 transactions a month. I upload weekly and it takes around 5 minutes to explain any that aren't done automatically. I also bank with Lloyds.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Some are moving in the right direction.
https://monzo.com/docs/

Yes, I have a Monzo card. Don't really use it right now and they have no plans for business accounts right now either.

[Fred Bloggs]

I'd be more concerned about what happens if Yodlee themselves are compromised or hacked. The small print of your agreement with your bank means you're entirely liable for fraud resulting from this if you've shared your credentials with a third party company.

Indeed. FreeAgent offers so much that is good that for the average contractor with half a dozen transactions a month, then 5 minutes down loading a .qif file and uploading to FA is nothing. I preferred not to share my banking log ins with Yodlee, a company I know nothing about.

[SuperLooper]

It beggars belief that banks can't just provide some read only credentials with very limited access to data.

Some are moving in the right direction.
https://monzo.com/docs/

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I'd be more concerned about what happens if Yodlee themselves are compromised or hacked. The small print of your agreement with your bank means you're entirely liable for fraud resulting from this if you've shared your credentials with a third party company.

Fortunately the risk is relatively low, especially if your account uses a 2FA device.

It beggars belief that banks can't just provide some read only credentials with very limited access to data.

[dingdong]

I'd be more concerned about what happens if Yodlee themselves are compromised or hacked. The small print of your agreement with your bank means you're entirely liable for fraud resulting from this if you've shared your credentials with a third party company.

[Fred Bloggs]

is this true? how many transactions per week do you have? can't you just upload the statements? (FWIW as much as I love FreeAgent I don't trust giving my bank details away to anyone anywhere, so I do manual uploads)

+1

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Nothing to worry about here. They won't have access to your password of course (this will be hashed), your banking credentials are not stored by them (they use Yodlee) and IIRC they do not store your credentials for any third party systems like HMRC gateways at all.

[SuperLooper]

This is fairly standard. My current client provides a web application in the personal finance sector, and in many cases they can only diagnose a problem if they have full access to the user's data. They have very strict processes and controls, and support staff are only able to access customer data if the customer gives explicit permission on each occasion.

IMO FreeAgent are behaving in a standard and responsible manner here.

[sal]

I am reluctant to allow this if its simply their default fault fixing response (by saying they need to login to see for themselves, is the same as saying 'we dont believe the information you are supplying us').

Not really, this is S.O.P. for dealing with user issues, in many cases the issue can only be reproduced from the user point of view with his/hers credentials. It's not a matter of trust. In that line of thoughts no self-respecting admin is going to take user complaints at face value, until he has seen it for himself...

BTW why is the banking feed a deal breaker? FreeAgent is so useful and without real competition when it comes to ltd. contractors, that even if i had to manually upload statements every day for some reason I would still use it, but YMMV.

[pr1]

I logged a support call saying without this feature FreeAgent is worthless to me

is this true? how many transactions per week do you have? can't you just upload the statements? (FWIW as much as I love FreeAgent I don't trust giving my bank details away to anyone anywhere, so I do manual uploads)

[Maslins]

Not had that specific issue...but by giving them access they'll presumably (warning, non-techy posting here) be able to look at the underlying bits behind the error message which may help them pinpoint what the error is and hence resolve it, rather than just making guesses based on what you've said.

I doubt they'll actually be able to see your banking data (except where it has been pulled to FreeAgent), as I would anticipate that the details you've entered will be encrypted/whatever. I recall in the past a client of ours forgot their HMRC password, and FreeAgent couldn't tell them what it was (despite it being used to file VAT/payroll returns through FreeAgent).

I trust them 100%...but then I've been working fairly closely with them for 6ish years now. I appreciate it sounds like you've only just started with them.

[MikhailCompo2]

Since I signed up to their free trial, I have never successfully synchronised with my Lloyds business account. I am 100% certain I have entered credentials incorrectly (different error msgs when I used different creds).

I logged a support call saying without this feature FreeAgent is worthless to me, and they have simply responded asking for access to my account (and therefore read only access to my business account and a significant amount of personal data too). No suggestions of what else I could try to resolve this myself, or advise that their system/third party is having difficulties with Lloyds or anything to that effect.

I am reluctant to allow this if its simply their default fault fixing response (by saying they need to login to see for themselves, is the same as saying 'we dont believe the information you are supplying us').

Has anyone else had any FreeAgent or Lloyds bank sync. issues?
Has anyone else required support from FreeAgent and is this their S.O.P?