FreeAgent Erfahrungen

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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!

Vorteile

The billing and invoicing functionality is a key feature of the product and works very well. They send a Monday motivator email summarising your agenda for the week on Monday mornings. This includes items such as unbilled hours logged, payments to approve and bills to chase or pay. MFA is supported for increased security.

Nachteile

There are few things that I don't like to be honest, the only one that can be annoying is the bank feeds can sometimes be a little slow to show items. A manual refresh option for bank feed data would be useful.

Vorteile

We receive free access to FreeAgent as part of our bank account package. It makes accounting for our club so much easier than the previous excel sheets

Nachteile

It’s not quite as good as Xero, but it’sa fraction of the price. For a non-profit it’s a winner

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Xero

Gründe für den Wechsel zu FreeAgent

Ultimately cost, as a free to us package, it can’t be rivalled

Vorteile

Free for users of certain banks and they get access to it all not just some features.

Nachteile

That the bank options when reconcilling aren't very flexible or obvious as to which category.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Xero

Gründe für den Wechsel zu FreeAgent

Used it as a sole trader for client then they continued to use it when they changed to a Ltd.

Vorteile

It basically does all the required accounting without having to pay for an accountant to do it for you. The biggest benefit when it comes to tracking business tax and completing a tax return as it pretty much does it all for you.

Nachteile

Sometimes it's tricky to work out how something works and you have to go and get help from customer support, but this may be more user incompetence than anything wrong with the software!

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Xero

Warum FreeAgent gewählt wurde

I was getting to the point of needing to pay for some of the options (I honestly can't remember the name of the software used previously and don't want to put the wrong one in!)

Gründe für den Wechsel zu FreeAgent

NatWest provided the service free and it appeared to have everything needed.

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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.

Vorteile

The software is easy to use, and once you understand it very powerful. It makes submitting your tax return very, very easy. I like how it can take you from being self-employed to being a LTD company. The way that it recognises some transactions and automatically categories them is great too.

Nachteile

There are two things I don't like about the software. There isn't an easy way to record simplified expenses. You have to add them manually, which isn't ideal for how it should work. The second is that if someone pays by card, it doesn't carry all the info from FreeAgent to Stripe. For example, email address so they get a card receipt instantly.

Vorteile

It's very intuitive and has amazing support and training for us and our clients. We use this software for our smaller sole traders who find it really easy to use. We do most of the setup and they basically just invoice their clients using the mobile app :)

Nachteile

Integrations are pretty non existent for a lot of apps. For example merging eBay or most till sales with FreeAgent can be quite difficult however this is overcome by using Zapier

Vorteile

The software has all the features I need to run my business. It has helped me save so much time preparing self assessment filings.

Nachteile

The support documentation does contain some out of date screenshots and instructions.

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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.

Vorteile

Cheap depending on your business needs or the size of the business.
Famous for its incredible invoice templates
Shows your real-time profit position and it automatically updates your accounts.
Cloud-based, so there is no software to download or install
The interface is very friendly and lovely.

Nachteile

Online help, known as My Business Works Support has been known to be rather unhelpful and excessively rude
Tends to receive bugs or glitches that often take time to repair, if fixable at all
Even though this program offers Multiple Currency options, the proper support for this feature is seriously lacking
Not very quick with software updates (some have been waiting years for new and desired features)

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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.

Vorteile

Great customer support- all from trained accountants in the UK that are able to walk you through any problems you might encounter when doing you tax and vat returns

Nachteile

None- inpeciable and consistent service at all times.

Vorteile

FreeAgents offers a lot of features for a very low price and the customer service is good also. I have used them for 3 years and there are other programs that may be a little better, but they are also a lot more expensive.

Nachteile

I wish that recurring billing was a little easier and the number of integrations is good, but it does not integrate with one of my core programs which is a bummer.

Vorteile

Super responsive customer support
Most day to day business transactions covered well
Generally clean design

Nachteile

The expense handling suite is quite poor (both mobile and web)
e.g. Does not have the following
- Sortable columns in the expense listing table (e.g. list by highest value descending, or name)
- Ability to filter by type or project
- Drag and drop receipts into web interface (you have to upload through file navigation)
- Quick take photo for expense button (mobile)
- Ability to email expense emails or pics of receipts to an inbox

Timesheet feature set also rather basic

Vorteile

Integrates with my bank accounts and PayPal.
Does bookkeeping without me having to know how to do bookkeeping.
Great referral program!
Good support when I've needed it.

Nachteile

Reports and accounts set up is skewed to the UK market (my American CPA is used to seeing certain things set out differently).
Bank feeds can be slow to update.

Vorteile

FreeAgent has enabled me to free up so much of my time because i can schedule and manage invoices individually or on repeat. Also helps when preparing tax and vat returns.

Nachteile

The function to connect credit card accounts does not always work that well but i think we have cracked it.

Vorteile

FreeAgent is great in January when I can file my tax return directly to HMRC. The form is also filled with data I've entered throughout the year so self assessment time is pretty hassle free, which s unusual for a freelancer. I've just started using the mobile app and find that this is really is good too. I can take care of all the day-to-day stuff, like explaining bank transactions and entering mileage, when I'm out and about on business to stop it mounting up.

Nachteile

The mobile app is really great, but doesn't yet have the same in-depth functionality as the desktop app.

Vorteile

The bank reconciling makes marking off transactions and paid invoices so easy. The ability to resend email reminders and show whether an email has been received by a customer is great.

Nachteile

More template options would be good and the ability to put terms and conditions into the back of a invoice.

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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.

Vorteile

Fantastic software for your company. Easy to use and complete. You can manage your customers, raise invoices and do your payroll.

Nachteile

The software is improving over the years, but you might have some issues when it comes to make payments and raise invoices in other currencies.

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

The software was easy to learn and very user friendly. This software has freed up a lot of my time and made our entire organization for efficient and effective. One of those programs where you start using it, you don't know how you ever were able to run your company without it.

Nachteile

Nothing. I have been impressed with all the features. It was easy to learn and their customer support team was there to help me with everything along the way.

Vorteile

The software is access able over the internet, the front end looks OK and the and set up is fairly quick.

Nachteile

When i was in dispute with my accountant after they missed my annual return date I decided to change accountants. The accountants were able to cut off my access until I had paid their bill, including the cost of my annual return and pay roll which they didn't even perform. Needing access I had to pay rather than wait the two week period as stipulated by FreeAgent. I have since changed to a software where I am in control of access to my accounts.. All the customer service team could do was argue with me...