When you appoint Gorilla Accounting, you receive full access to FreeAgent Accounting Software free of charge inclusive in our great-value fixed-fee accountancy packages. In this post we examine what FreeAgent Accounting Software is, the reasons why you need it and the many ways that online accounting software can benefit you and your business.
What Is FreeAgent Accounting Software?
FreeAgent is cloud accounting software that’s used and trusted by over 100,000 UK businesses to record, interpret and analyse their financial transactions and information, making it easy to manage their accounting and tax obligations.
FreeAgent is multi award-winning and is widely considered to be the industry benchmark when it comes to accounting software. It’s designed specifically for contractors, freelancers and small business owners whether operating through a limited company or as a sole trader.
FreeAgent has a powerful mobile app that enables you to run your business on the go from anywhere that you have an internet connection. Through the app you can get an overview of key financial metrics, manage invoices and payments, track your time, reconcile your bank transactions, log expenses and much more.
The benefits of FreeAgent are wide-ranging, so let’s break down how it can help you.
What Are The Benefits Of FreeAgent Accounting Software?
Your Tax Obligations Made Easy
FreeAgent makes self-assessment a breeze as it calculates your self-assessment liability and prepares your return automatically in the background while you work based on the information you input throughout the year, and you can submit your returns directly to HMRC. This is a huge time saver and takes the heat off when submission time is looming.
If you’re VAT registered, FreeAgent will generate your VAT returns automatically then allow you to directly submit them electronically to HMRC with a single click. Your Corporation Tax and year-end accounts are also auto-generated.
With a real-time overview of your tax liability, you can plan ahead and set aside funds accordingly. It goes without saying that FreeAgent is fully Making-Tax-Digital (MTD) compliant.
Reconciliation With Your Bank
Bank reconciliation is the process of matching your accounting records with the transactions in your business bank account and FreeAgent makes this a breeze. FreeAgent connects with your bank account to automatically import your bank feed. You can configure custom rules and criteria to automatically match and categorise the transactions that have been imported.
Once your transactions are matched and categorised you can verify and confirm them and then your bank reconciliation is complete. Bank reconciliation is key for accurate business accounting and this automation significantly reduces the chance of errors and is also a huge time saver.
Track Your Expenses in Real-Time
FreeAgent’s expense management functionality enables you to record your business expenses easily and accurately on the go. Using the FreeAgent app you can scan and upload expense receipts as and when the expenses are incurred, whether they are paid from your bank or with cash.
FreeAgent can also extract the date of the receipt and the expense amount for you meaning these details don’t have to be manually entered. Recurring expenses for costs such as subscriptions can also be configured meaning you don’t have to enter them each month. Your expenses can be categorised which can provide insight into your outgoings and potential cost-cutting measures.
Uploaded receipts are digitally stored meaning there’s no possibility of them being lost, and keeping on top of your expenses as and when they are incurred means there’s no backlog when your tax returns are due.
Organised Invoicing
There are various inbuilt features in FreeAgent that simplify the process of invoicing your clients and customers. Custom branded invoices can be easily created and sent through the app while you’re out and about. FreeAgent can automatically chase unpaid invoices and send late payment reminders, as well as thank you emails after your clients have settled up with you.
FreeAgent’s invoice timeline allows you to keep track of overdue invoices as well as what’s been paid so you can easily keep a handle on things and eradicate missed payments. Efficient and accurate invoice management is key to keeping your cash flow consistent and this is much more challenging, not to mention time-consuming, using a paper-based system.
Your Clients Can Easily Pay You
After you’ve invoiced your clients, you need to get paid and FreeAgent makes it easy. FreeAgent integrates with many online payment gateways meaning your clients can, quickly, easily and securely pay you. There’s support for various payment methods such as debit and credit cards, bank transfer and PayPal. Payments you receive are reconciled under their respective invoices in FreeAgent so you can easily keep track of things.
Comprehensive Reporting and Analysis
It’s vital as a small business owner to keep a close eye on your key financial reports; your balance sheet, profit & loss statement and your cash flow. FreeAgent enables you to quickly and easily generate real-time balance sheet reports and profit & loss statements which give you an at-a-glance overview of the financial health of your business.
Insightful reporting enables you to understand and analyse any patterns or trends that are affecting your business and a cash flow forecast allows you to confidently predict what’s around the corner. Inbuilt alerts can notify you if there are potential cash flow issues on the horizon.
FreeAgent’s configurable dashboard collates key financial information including cash flow, a profit & loss snapshot, tax timeline as well as recent invoices, bills and expenses. This allows you to see at a glance how your business is performing in real-time.
Having your key financial metrics readily available means you can confidently make informed decisions about your business based on accurate, current financial data. FreeAgent generates these reports automatically giving you the key insights you need without having to spend time doing manual calculations, reporting and interpretation of your data.
Track Your Time
FreeAgent includes time tracking functionality so you can easily keep track of the hours you’ve spent on a job. Time can be tracked against projects using a stopwatch or daily or weekly timeslips. By logging the time you’ve spent on particular tasks or projects you can invoice your clients accurately. This reduces the risk of under or over-billing and can also help improve your budgeting accuracy by facilitating comparison of the hours you actually worked against the budgeted hours using FreeAgent’s inbuilt reports.
Gorilla Accounting & FreeAgent
Since our inception in 2015, we have been partnered with FreeAgent and from day one have provided full FreeAgent access to our clients as part of our service inclusive in our monthly fees. We have achieved FreeAgent Platinum Partner status and as forward-thinking, technology-focused accountants, we’re passionate about how FreeAgent helps our clients.
As well as the multiple benefits covered in this post, your dedicated accountant at Gorilla also has access to your accounts in FreeAgent and this collaboration is a huge advantage for both parties.
In addition to FreeAgent, with Gorilla all your business and personal accounting requirements will be expertly handled and you’ll benefit from unlimited support and advice with a same working day response guarantee to queries submitted before 3pm, thanks to our Client Service Guarantee. We believe in transparency and honesty and our accounting packages have fixed fees with no hidden costs or nasty surprises so you’ll always know exactly where you stand.
If you’d like a FreeAgent demo or have any queries about our service, please call us today on 0330 024 0406 or request a call back.
