FreeAgent vs Saasu vs KashFlow vs Xero vs AccountsPortal

[hackeron]

Having not found anything suitable for Mac, I decided to look at Cloud solutions.

I did not use each package extensively so I may have missed certain things, please post corrections if any. Also I'm not an accountant and everything here should be taken with a grain of salt, this is simply my personal attempt to find an accountant package to help me run my company: xanview (dot) com

There are also other cloud solutions that you may want to look at that for me personally are either too expensive, feel alpha grade or too complicated to use. They may however be right for you: CODA 2go, BionicBooks, Netsuite, Inttact, Arithmo, Marchant's Mirror and others.

In short, so far FreeAgent seems significantly better than the rest, by quite a huge gap.

In KashFlow,
1) I can't take a transaction and tell KashFlow it's dividends for me.
2) There is no support for car mileage and you need to enter this as purchases separate from the fuel receipts? - basically, not good for those of us without company cars.
3) I can't attach receipts (it tells you to write a reference code on the paper receipt!)
4) Dividends are handled by creating a new Transaction Type, and I guess if you want to track them by name, you will need to create a transaction type per person?

Xero is a bit better and seems more of a solid package but:
1) Still nothing about car mileage expenses
2) I can't even seem to add transactions manually?
3) I tried to import but it said I have locked my account period and there is no way to unlock in the settings or help manual - great...

I didn't try AccountsPortal very long, but the documentation doesn't even mention dividends and it's strictly double entry from what I can tell and feels a bit "old school". Not much help in doing your taxes either - many times you are simply told to speak to your accountant instead of telling you how to use the software. Don't believe it does much to help with corporate tax, vat or payroll either - very basic stuff here.

Saasu also didn't seem to have bank statements or anything like that - it had "Items" though whatever that is, inventory? - Again no mention of dividends and their help section is powered by google search - not a great sign.

FreeAgent on the other hand, had some things I really liked that I don't think any of the others have:

1) Expenses and Car Mileage Claims - I can not only enter miles per person per trip and let FreeAgent figure out the rest (even shows the 40p per mile in the calculation with separate VAT), I can see reports on who in the company expensed what and even see things like mileage per project.

2) Receipt attachment - I don't want to write a reference code on each receipt and file it in folders, why doesn't anyone else let you upload the receipt and throw it away? - FreeAgent does.

3) Managing bank transactions - I import all transactions, then I get a list of anything "unexplained" and I can then do things like - hmm, mcdonalds, right that would be dividends to me as I forgot my personal card - or that was a part purchased for project b - and FreeAgent figures out the VAT based on date and category type and figures out how much of that is can be taken out of corporation tax.

4) Built in support for dividends - sure I can create a separate account for every share holder, but built in dividends support is great especially when I can select a transaction, then set type: Payment Made To User -> Shareholder Name -> Dividends (or Expense Payment or Benefit in Kind, etc) - the categories change depending on type and fill in people's names where applicable, brilliant!

5) I really like the flow of FreeAgent - everything is so beautiful and easy and explained to you. I click on the Taxes tab and it shows Self Assessment, Corporation Tax, PAYE & NI, VAT all right there with due dates and values.

Please share your experiences

[gavcooper]

hackeron,

Similar story to me and I went down the same road as you over a year ago. After testing most of the software you have mentioned, I ended up using FreeAgent and never looked back. They are always improving the software and the referral programme means you can end up using their service for free. Make sure you signup through another user so you get 10% off the monthly fees, then you only need 9 more referrals to get a completely free accounting service.

FreeAgent 10% off link below in signature if you require it.

PS. My advice is to get a accountant who knows FreeAgent. I ended up moving to Chris @ Maslins and the level of knowledge and customer service has been brilliant. Because all your company accounts are online and you can give special access to the accountant, so there is no need to use a locally based accountant anymore. If you are interested in using Maslins, tell Chris you have been recommended by Gavin @ Red Square Creative.

[garyk]

What I do for expenses is I have set myself up as a supplier and just raise a purchase invoice each month with all my expense items on it, mileage, subsistence, sundry items etc.

[hackeron]

Originally Posted by garyk

What I do for expenses is I have set myself up as a supplier and just raise a purchase invoice each month with all my expense items on it, mileage, subsistence, sundry items etc.

That means managing receipts separately and managing expenses separately, then maybe putting a reference in your accountant software for every "purchace invoice" to know where to find details of the expense.

Why put up with these messy workarounds, 3 separate systems to manage your accounts and not being able to get stats about expenses (like expenses per project or employee) when something like FreeAgent gives you all this?

[MyAccountantOnline]

As an accountant I think it's great that there is so much choice availiable now with many really good packages on the market.

It means business owners can choose a package which fits their requirements rather than the posistion many found themselves in a few years ago with the market dominated by Sage.

I actually really like Accounts Portal - I find it easy and quick to use and pricing is very competitive (but it's personal preference).

As an accountant I do find, although attitudes are changing, that small business owners often dont wont to pay a large monthly fee for accounting software, which is where Freeagent becomes unattractive at almost £30 per month for a limited company.

Its certainly changing the way as accountants we work

[MyAccountantOnline]

Originally Posted by hackeron

I didn't try AccountsPortal very long......Don't believe it does much to help with corporate tax, vat or payroll either - very basic stuff here.

Accounts Portal does actually deal with VAT very well including Flate rate VAT which not all packages do

[elainec100@cheapaccounting]

Originally Posted by Nicola J

AFreeagent becomes unattractive at almost £30 per month for a limited company.

Good lord - our fees start at £44.99 plus vat including the free Agent software!

http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/ind...pfreeagent.php

and for Kashflow even cheaper at£41.99 plus vat including the software:

http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/ind...upkashflow.php

That includes your year end accounts, CT600, self assessment etc

So yes it is changing the way accountants work!

[hackeron]

Originally Posted by Nicola J

As an accountant I think it's great that there is so much choice availiable now with many really good packages on the market.

It means business owners can choose a package which fits their requirements rather than the posistion many found themselves in a few years ago with the market dominated by Sage.

I actually really like Accounts Portal - I find it easy and quick to use and pricing is very competitive (but it's personal preference).

As an accountant I do find, although attitudes are changing, that small business owners often dont wont to pay a large monthly fee for accounting software, which is where Freeagent becomes unattractive at almost £30 per month for a limited company.

Its certainly changing the way as accountants we work

Heh, us small business owners are a pain in the arse, I know

This is true, but it's £25 and 10% discount if you use a code. The referral system also allows you to pay less than that. So from day one it's £22.50 per month or £26.44 with VAT. So around £320 a year inc VAT.

That is a bit steep and I'm a bit hesitant about signing up just yet but it seems to give a lot and they hold your hand and give you advice from start to finish. Other packages expect you to ask your accountant how to set things up and get going. I believe it should save more than it costs on accountant fees (currently paying around £1200 per year).

At the moment I use one of those accountancy services where I drop of an assorted bag of all my invoices, receipts and statements and they do the rest. That's convenient but I have no idea what's happening in my business and would like to change that. So far this seems like the only all in one solution unless I've missed something.

I looked at AccountsPortal and they actually just emailed me, their support appears top notch! Also their pricing is certainly attractive. However then I'd need to manage a mileage log separately, I'd need to manage my receipts separately, I'd need to use workarounds like separate category per director and employee if I want to track expenses separately. Seems FreeAgent saves a lot of time for me here.

[MyAccountantOnline]

Originally Posted by hackeron

I believe it should save more than it costs on accountant fees (currently paying around £1200 per year).

At the moment I use one of those accountancy services where I drop of an assorted bag of all my invoices, receipts and statements and they do the rest. That's convenient but I have no idea what's happening in my business and would like to change that. So far this seems like the only all in one solution unless I've missed something.

You certainly should see a significant saving on your annual fees with your accountant doing considerably less work.

Originally Posted by hackeron

I looked at AccountsPortal and they actually just emailed me, their support appears top notch! Also their pricing is certainly attractive. However then I'd need to manage a mileage log separately, I'd need to manage my receipts separately, I'd need to use workarounds like separate category per director and employee if I want to track expenses separately. Seems FreeAgent saves a lot of time for me here.

I agree Accounts Portal support is absolutely fantastic (I'm not on any commission by the way!) but I agree it doesnt suit all. You can certainly deal with the expenses in Accounts Portal but if you prefer Freeagent that seems the one for you. Its certainly a great package - I spent quite some time testing it myself along with various others.

[Malarky]

Having recently set up as a sole trader under CIS I am currently researching both FreeAgent and KashFlow.

So far I have found FreeAgent to be perfect for my needs except for a couple of things with the main one being no CIS support. Although there is a workaround for receiving CIS payments, I feel that it is more of a band aid than a proper solution.

I have only started researching KashFlow tonight and it was good to see that it supports CIS! However, the main issue for me is that it does not appear to have an easy method of keeping mileage and expense tracking as mentioned previously. This is a big one for me as my mileage is a daily occurrence and I do not want to run 2 systems. I also didn't 'gel' with it as easily as FreeAgent.

Therefore I am at an impasse with neither fulfilling all my needs. I have been told that KashFlow is looking at implementing expenses and mileage soon. Unfortunately FreeAgent doesn't appear to be offering CIS support in the near future. I will be looking at KashFlow a bit more as my accountants have suggested it.