FreeAgent Software

I don't see any now.

Pros

It looks like it has a lot of features but it doesn't work in a logical way.
The tech support used to be available almost 24/7 but the quality and availability have shrunk down significantly.

Cons

This is the most frustrating of all of the accounting software that we reviewed. Everything (even mistakes) gets locked in and can't be edited or amended. There are so many basic functions that just don't work and all customer services do is give you complicated workarounds, most of which don't actually achieve the required outcome. The bank feeds often don't work and you have to log in daily to manually update them. The price is way to high and not good value. The software is not easy to use and what used to be great customer service is now a waste of your time and call tariff. To add insult to injury, they have just been bought over by a bank that has a terrible reputation for so many reasons and will tarnish the reputation of FreeAgent. I'd steer well clear of this software.

Pros

The end to end connectivity. Booking time spent with a client turns into an invoice turns into a payment at the bank - and all this is tracked. What used to take hours in excel is all at a glance in FreeAgent.

Cons

I wish that there was a way to use their time tracking module as a separate product. I no longer run a business but would love to use their time tracker with my team at the larger org I now work for.

Pros

It's an incredibly easy to use all-in-one accounting solution that's built for freelancers, all the way up to large businesses. Creating and managing invoices is very easy and you can even sync it up to your bank account. Whilst many of the more advanced accounting features go unused by myself I can clearly see the value in them for others.

Cons

It's not the cheapest solution if you're just creating a few invoices each month but for any typical independent professional it's a great solution. I can't think of any real cons to this product.

Pros

I've worked with accounting software before so it didn't need much time to set up. I also like how everything is linked – contacts to invoices to banking feed... lots of the features are automised so you don't have to do everything twice and the system learns and adapts to your set up, e.g. it starts guessing the categories for expenses and other items in your banking feed.

Cons

It doesn't come cheap which for a freelancer is perhaps the biggest hurdle. But it is good value for money.

Pros

We use it where I work as a way to track work hours. Usage is pretty simple and the features are sufficient. If you need to track time precisely, there's a nice start/stop function, and if you don't, there are means to insert a whole week in a row. If you're a developer, you'll appreciate the APIs that allow building customized reports for accounting.

Cons

If you don't need precise time tracking, but need to split hours on different activities, data entering becomes pretty slow. You can generate monthly reports to check what to expect from the paycheck, but checking if you made mistakes in the data entry is as difficult as it is entering it.

Generating reports for financial statement preparation for client's year-ends

Pros

Visually pleasing, generates reports that small businesses require to stay on top of financial performance.

Cons

It probably would not be an ideal software if your business grows as you may need financial reporting needs would be more complex than what this software generates.

Pros

Syncing with your bank accounts allows you to keep track of expenses, income and bills really easily. There is good help in the support section and it is good to be able to get some automated analysis of the figures too.

Cons

The time tracking feature is not very flexible and has caused me issues, I am using a different software to track time now. The design also is quite accountant-oriented

Pros

Easy assess and works great for tracking my time and billing clients. The bank feed works well. I like the overview information of the home screen dash board.

Cons

I have an accounting background and am a bit frustrated with how to pay bills and reconciling an account. It has not been very easy for me to understand how some of the functions work - relative to other software that I have used. Some one with out my background might find it easy to understand.

Pros

We've been using Freeagent for over 5 years. In that time frame my company has grown from being a sole-trader to an incorporated limited company with employees. To say that Freeagent has helped facilitate that growth would be an understatement.

We now use Freeagent for our VAT submission (saving us £200pq accountants fees), Payroll (saving us £10pm per employee), Sending out client estimates/invoices, and what we originally bought it for... Book keeping and accounting.

We have Freeagent connected to our bank feeds, meaning we are only ever 24hrs out of date with our live bank accounts. This is now a common practice with similar software, but for us it came just at the right time.

Their team of inhouse accountancy experts is also an incredible resource that we use around once a quarter, or whenever something new crops up that we might need some help with. We still use the skill of an account for filing our end of year accounts, but we could even do this with free agent.

Cons

The one thing that has been a niggle like a tiny pebble in your shoe, or scratch on the roof of your mouth, is that you cannot send a remittance! Many people have requested this functionality but it has largely been ignored by the freeagent team. I have no idea whether it is a technical or philosophical reason they've just not engaged with it... If they did implement this functionality it would pretty much make it perfect for my companies needs.

Pros

Overall experience is good. It allows to better organised both my bookeeping but as well my employee work due to its usability. Love as well the API integration that allow me to create custom analysis.

Cons

Too much focus on UK client. We are an Italian company and some of the functionality available for UK are really complex to achieve for us and required workaround.
Billing only in 1 currency is crazy, why do you have invoice in multiple currency but billing cannot be done? It should be a simple addition to make but it has been year that people asked for this and still not implementation.
Country specific payroll. Although I am aware it will be impossible to enable payroll for every country out of the box why don't allow customer to customized the payroll functionality to meet payroll requirements or add important deadline for taxing purpose.
Even the export functionality can be improve and should be added to every areas from timesheet to bill, from invoice to expense with filter that allow you to specify the data you want to export.
VAT calculation for Intrastat - due to the internationalisation of business should be easier to export only bill and invoice that are related to country outside your normal business area.
What about language package? Again if not possibile provide an LDK that allow client to customize the interface.

Pros

It just works. The software looks good on desktop and connects to the mobile app well. From invoicing, to time tracking, to payroll, tax returns ... so much functionality and pretty much error free. Unlike other financial software, you don't need to pay more for features like payroll and multi-currency. Win.

Cons

It would be useful to have a few more multi-currency features (e.g. multi-currency bills and expenses).

Pros

FreeAgent is a fantastic product. I have only needed to use support a couple of times and they were more unusual questions.

As a freelancer, keeping an eye on income and expenditure, billing and chasing invoices and recording expenses with my phone is really important. Add to that the easy submission of my tax return and it really is a great piece of software.

Cons

I am a little disappointed that I could not receive any of the discounts offered to new customers. (e.g. 6 months half price).

My accounting needs are quite basic and I haven't used Free Agent for long enough to have found cons yet.

Pros

The visibility it provides me on my business. Easy to use, the link with the bank account makes things very straightforward.

Pros

Love the user interface, which is easily customisable and visually it is really appealing. Makes accounting fun!
Easy to use, once you know how to access some of the features.
I have a straightforward business in private medical practice and this software takes care of my invoicing, accounting and expenses all in one, with automatic updating of all the relevant information at your fingertips.
Both my secretary and I can access the software from anywhere, so it makes for easy team-work.
One of the best features for me is the projects section, where I can keep track of the numerous expert reports that I have on my books at any one time.

Cons

Sometimes working out how to find something, or to alter a document isn't intuitive, and I have had to refer to the website for help, which has always been useful (so far).
(NB I think the user who didn't like being referred to My Business Works is being unnecessarily unfair to this software because they had to go through a Barclays intermediary - Barclays are known for their poor service, but this is not FreeAgent...)

Pros

The ease of use combined of the platform which is exceptionally intuitive, combined with the brilliant customer service.

Cons

FreeAgent appears somewhat UK-centric, although the support is still exceptional. The banking does connect to banks in Canada and I have been able to manage harmonized sales tax in Ontario. It may have some current limitations to make it a credible better substitute for Sage, in respect of the tax nuances across different Canadian Provinces.

Pros

Very easy to use and gives valuable, easy to read information on status of the business.
Easy to set up and monitor invoices and add information.
Excellent automatic calculation of tax liabilities and ability to file through interface.

Cons

The bank feed for importing HSBC bank transactions is terrible and takes an age to import transactions which is disappointing with todays technology. From the forums this appears to be a longstanding issue that should have been fixed by now but isn't and unsure if it will be.
Self-assessment should be updated to include ability to add capital gains and property income.

Pros

I like the simplicity, direct tax sending features and time tracking. App solution for mobile is also very good

Cons

I would like to have my projecta overview on mobile. I dont get why should I write at least one hundred characters here....

Pros

the mobile app is great for tracking time or updating expenses while on the road
Like the time reporting features to report by contact or project
Tax Timeline also really helpful for getting a quick understand of what's owed

Cons

It's difficult to make corrections on invoices, especially if an expense or time item is labeled wrong, requires deleting/creating a new invoice rather than being able to unlock the items associated with it and fix them.
Layout options for invoices are very limiting unless you create your own CSS file.
Can't change account type without contacting admin - ie I mistakenly set up as a sole trader instead of private ltd company and says I have to contact customer service to change it.

Pros

Easy to setup and use - the mobile app is pretty good making it easy to add expenses. Bank feed is handy. I use the API to import expenses.

Cons

Expensive compared to competitors like Xero, bank feed is slow. Perhaps you can add integrations for credit cards too to automatically pull in expenses.

Pros

Easy to use with a good range of functions and fantastic customer support. Regularly updating with new features. Weekly emails with tips are helpful too. Excellent tax reporting features.

Cons

Bill feature is limited. Often I want to split an invoice between multiple ledger codes so I have to create it twice.