Reply to: FreeAgent vs the competition

[ladymuck]

I use Sage One Accounting and Payroll, having been a Sage customer for yonks.

My only complaints are:
I don't like the presentation of some of the reports (especially Trial Balance);

There is no year end process that clears down the accounts to the P&L account. It's a manual journal I have to input myself (the Sage Instant desktop software used to do this). I raised this with them and they said there was no need to create a closing year end journal. I must be a bit old school as I like to close down all the operating accounts at the end of the year and see a (hopefully) healthy value in the P&L account.

EDIT: and it seems to use transaction reference and description interchangeably leading to very inconsistent data collection, depending on how you input a transaction.

[radish2008]

Happy to hear that, and glad to see my spreadsheet (c.1996) is still keeping people happy

it's not.

[Ascot]

I use Freeagent for my main business and like it but have a couple of sideline businesses that I have been using spreadsheets for (cos I dont want to pay three separate subs to Freeagent) and wondered if there was another product anyone on here could recommend that would support multiple businesses and include the project-based tracking that Freeagent incorporates?

[simondolan]

Uh... I didn't ditch them after 15 years because of their excellent service...

And I'm still getting emails from their masters

Was it the spreadsheet....?

[malvolio]

I'd rather worry about getting the right accountant than the right software. Simon's spreadsheet is still going strong and the service I still get from SJD is excellent. I've heard of people getting unlucky with accountants in a couple of their offices but I've been with their Manchester office for years and always had good service and sound advice.

Uh... I didn't ditch them after 15 years because of their excellent service...

And I'm still getting emails from their masters

[fatJock]

I use Kashflow because I was recommended. About a tenner a month and does everything I need. Keep accountant for annual returns, payroll, CT return and self assessment though I could add the payroll element to Kashflow if I wanted.

Happier with having a professional pick up the bits that need a more qualified view. Saves me time and money in the long run.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

FreeAgent is built around double entry bookkeeping. Not sure where you got the idea it wasn’t.

[css_jay99]

Sage one Payroll & Sage cloud accounting are about £6 each per month which is not bad

I am currently using the payroll and its just a couple of clicks for the monthly run. So much easier that the silly Instant payroll with ever increasing yearly price which was far from instant when it came to completing the year end.

Admittedly I am still on the desktop version of Sage 50 Accounts which means I have to manually journal the payroll entries into the accounts.


I would not have minded giving FreeAgent a try ... but it over simplifies accounting (which is not a bad thing) but I prefer double entry book keeping since it is easier for me to track and trace transactions.

[simondolan]

I'd rather worry about getting the right accountant than the right software. Simon's spreadsheet is still going strong and the service I still get from SJD is excellent. I've heard of people getting unlucky with accountants in a couple of their offices but I've been with their Manchester office for years and always had good service and sound advice.

Happy to hear that, and glad to see my spreadsheet (c.1996) is still keeping people happy

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Thanks for all the input to the thread, good to have some discussion.

I've not tried any of the others out but have spent some time looking over the features they offer and have come to a similar conclusion that FreeAgent still offers the best overall package for the average one-man business/freelancer type.

Xero - looks improved over when I last used it (8 years ago) but still seems aimed at small businesses a bit bigger than ours. Though a freelancer friend is very happy with it and their native mobile apps look much better than FreeAgent's. Doesn't seem to offer Director self-assessment or dividend management.

Clearbooks - seems to cover a lot of what FreeAgent offers and has a nice dividend tool with proper multiple shareholder support, doesn't seem to offer much in the way of employee expense tracking though, or self assessment. Payroll is a paid for add-on, cost per employee.

Quickbooks - looks wise, seems to be the most polished of all of them. Offers self assessment, payroll and VAT. I can't see anything about dividends, I think these need to be journalled in. Seems to have decent expense tracking. This seems to come closest to what FreeAgent offers, if I was going to trial one I'd consider this. Pricing is competitive.

Overall I'd say I'm probably going to stick with FreeAgent. I asked my accountant and his opinion was similar to others on here and he still thinks FreeAgent is the best for his clients.

[saptastic]

FREEAGENT STAYS LOSS-MAKING AS MARGIN TIGHTENS, BUT REVENUE SURGES UP

Alliance News Detail - London Stock Exchange

Not sure the relevance but anyway still to make money.
I imagine there is a huge dev queue keeping the software up to date and secure alongside updates.

[LondonManc]

I'd rather worry about getting the right accountant than the right software. Simon's spreadsheet is still going strong and the service I still get from SJD is excellent. I've heard of people getting unlucky with accountants in a couple of their offices but I've been with their Manchester office for years and always had good service and sound advice.

[pr1]

You certainly get what you pay for

when I started off I was paying £150+vat per month for much worse advice than reading around on here

[Darren at Fox-Bartfield]

Freeagent

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?)

Potentially there will be a few guys that go it alone however most will like the assurance that things are reviewed over by a qualified accountant and also it's an opportunity where we can add value. I think there's been discussions on here before about a reduction in service required from an accountant but from what we're seeing, the data going into the software from most still needs sorting out and organising into a state where it's accurate and ready for submission.

As @Maslins says, it's inevitable but many will still see the value of having a qualified accountant on board.

[Craig at Gorilla]

My understanding is that FreeAgent’s prices are only increasing for direct customers (i.e. those that do not subscribe via an accountant) that did not receive a price increase the last time that FreeAgent changed their prices (sometime in 2015).

We currently have no plans to increase our prices

Hope this helps!
Craig