Essential accounting software for any growing business

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We have Freeagent connected to our bank feeds, meaning we are only ever 24hrs out of date with our live bank accounts.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.

Overall

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.

Makes bookkeeping easy for a novice, and still keeps an accountant happy

Saves me a whole lot of time, and helps me keep clear records for my accountant.

Pros

At the moment it's free through my business banking account - I tried it because of this but it would definitely be worth paying for. I am relatively new to running a business and the software is very intuitive for a novice. My accountant is pretty happy with it too, so that's a big thumbs up!

It makes invoicing and payment of exenses very easy, and is great for keeping track of money coming in/out and keeping an eye on invoices due for payment.

Payroll is incorporated (you can file it with HMRC through FreeAgent or let your accountant do it separately).

I also like the fact that it reminds me when my corporation tax and annual accounts are due.

In a few clicks I can see my profit & loss account and my trial balance as well as spend in the different (customisable) categories. Really helps me keep on top of everything.

The Android app is also great for reconciling payments and recording expenses on the move.

The help files are fantastic, and the clear accounting descriptions and explanations make them a great resource for a small business even if you don't use the software.

Cons

Exporting information is a bit tricky in some areas - you can get a pdf out quite easily but an xls or csv would be more useful (you can export the entire company dataset as a csv, but not filtered individual elements such as unpaid expenses or balances within individual accounts). In some cases you can get round this by cutting and pasting, but it's a bit fiddly.

Exporting all company data does not export attachments - so you need to keep a separate copy of scanned receipts etc outside FreeAgent.

It is one of the more expensive cloud accounting software packages out there, but I have looked at a whole range and you can't beat the functionality, so that's what you are paying for I guess!

Great accounting software

Very clean app gives good insights from the overview page.

Pros

It's just so easy to use. We run our plumbing business with this app and it integrates well with Commusoft our field service management software reducing time spent double entering information and doing tasks like invoicing. Now we invoice and complete the job in Commusoft and it pushes al the relevant information to Freeagent.

Cons

It only does CIS one way. As we have grown from a subcontractor into a contractor that now employs subcontractors we need a simple way to process CIS invoices from our SC's

Magnificent Customer Support, Good Accounting System

Pros

FreeAgent is more advanced than my previous service provider, Freshbooks. It allows me to handle the split between personal/business bank accounts and their expenses better and even submits my tax return to HMRC for me. The few times I've contacted their support, they have responded quickly, actually understood what I've asked and provided a detailed response, specific to my issue.

Cons

As a sole trader working on various contracts for 7.5 hours per day, I need to be able to track my time and bill my clients based on it. This is the only area where I found Freshbooks to have the edge—it provided a daily timeline where I could click on my start time, enter the duration, client and project and track my time visually. This meant that I could tell at a glance where there were gaps in my day and correct them accordingly.

FreeAgent allows me to add Timeslip entries, however it can get confusing quite quickly as there is no start time and no visual timeline. I have to rely on the running total of hours shown per day and try to work out the amount of hours to submit per task. So the interface isn't as intuitive as I would like, but the wealth of other extra features I have access to with FreeAgent does go some way to making up for it.

FreeAgent does also work out at around double the monthly subscription price of Freshbooks, which isn't ideal in my circumstances, but I do feel I am getting a better all-round product for the money.

Good product, good UI, good customer support, a bit pricey but worth it for my business.

Pros

FreeAgent is a fully-featured accounting and invoicing web app that comes with a great little mobile app too.

It has a really clear and easy-to-use interface, making it easy to navigate and produce invoices, check your accounts for selected periods, track your time, manage projects... the list goes on. But for all the functionality, it never feels cluttered.

I've experienced great support whenever I've asked for it and it hasn't ever produced any unexpected errors or bugs. It just works.

Cons

I wanted to recommend this product to my wife for her business but it's just a little bit too expensive for a startup small sole trader company like hers. A reduced cost account type for single users would be great.

Perfect Companion for Accounting

I was introduced to Freeagent by my accountant, Balance Accountants. My business needs are met very easily with Freeagent, I have a small company which is Residential Care and Home Care business. The cloud base system allows my accountant to access my work and I'm able to have meetings with bank managers etc without having to lug lots of paperwork about, everything is at my fingertips. Also im based in the South and my business and accountant are in the North, so logistically it works very well for me. The system I have found very easy to use and if I have ever got stuck, my accountant can sign in and talk me through it. Once you get yourself set up and familiarised, you won't believe how much simpler accounting gets. I use for all bookkeeping and invoicing. I would use it for payroll but hey....my payroll lady would be out of a job! But I reckon she uses it as she's always smiling never stressed.

Pros

Live bank feeds, easy to use, perfect for invoicing, accounting for small businesses, keeping the accountant and bank manager happy with the efficiency! It does everything (for me and my business needs) apart from making me coffee :-) Always a pleasure using freeagent, it's really fun to use!

Cons

Ive been using it for nearly two years....
Can't fault it!

Not sure if I could add a further business to the platform, for example: using same login details but be able to switch between businesses?? That would be really good.

Painful to use, Clunky and not great

Using the software was very awkward and restrictive. I lost confidence in it very early on. My experience has been years of utter frustration. Regular promises of fixes and upgrades never materialised over the last 3 years and despite sticking with it, and getting the software for free, I ended up having to opt for better software. Customer services are quick to respond but they tend to misinterpret your issue. Their idea of helping is sending you a link to a long drawn out document that frustrates you even more than the original issue. Most of the issues can't be resolved by sympathetic customer support reps because they are hard-coded into the software as basic incapabilities.

Pros

It's a Scottish company, albeit taken over by an anti-Scottish UK bank.
Customer services are relatively quick to respond but don't often understand or resolve your issue.
They do send you a Monday motivator which is useful.
It's now free if you bank with RBS/Nat West, but I'd rather not bank with either and even at £0 it's not worth it. I'd rather pay for a decent software and save the cost of hours of inefficiency and extra accountancy fees later.

Cons

It is very clunky and awkward to use.

It is very expensive for what it is and definitely not even worth using for free.

Several essential basic functions are missing and it is very restrictive/prescriptive forcing you to work their way or not at all.

Customer services regularly have to fudge "workarounds" to fill the gaps in FreeAgent's basic functionality and often these "workarounds" make more mess than doing nothing, leaving you with more to pay your accountant to fix it.

FreeAgent does several things in very unusual ways and then doesn't allow you to fix them.
Payroll does post journals into your ledgers but even the best accountants can't make any sense of them.

This software tries to be all things to small businesses giving tools that quite frankly are dangerous to unqualified accountants. It allows you to do your own VAT, Corporation Tax and Self Assessment wrongly, without any tax planning advice which could cost you tens of thousands of pounds in VAT/tax that isn't due, not to mention HMRC penalties etc. I know of several clients who have overpaid an absolute fortune and had seriously damaging run-ins with HMRC as a direct result of trying to DIY using this software.

Buyer BEWARE!!!

Exceptionally Poor Customer Support

I originally found Freeagent around three years ago. I was very excited when I found I could use Freeagent through "My Business Works", a service offered by Barclays, at a reduced rate - except nobody decided to make it clear support is outsourced to "My Business Works" - perhaps the most key feature of freeagent. For around three years I have always been in contact with friendly, kind and lovely staff at Freeagent who have always been happy to provide us with support - I have always avoided "My Business Works Support" as their staff are especially unhelpful, condescending and rude. That was until today. A stubborn, although polite lady refused to give us support despite my explanation of the poor support "My Business Works" offers. Quite simply her unkind, unfriendly action has lost a customer, we are moving to a far more powerful and equally easy to use software called Xilo, with much better support in January. I used to think Freeagent was an actual service whereby one might not be bound to the selfish red-rape rules of the world, and was instead a friendly platform with every customer's interest at heart. I would recommend all to consider Xilo over Freeagent. That is of course unless you want a kick in the teeth for being a long-term loyal customer!