FreeAgent

As a small business I have to do everything. From marketing my services to working on the projects themselves. One thing I have a kind of love-hate relationship with is invoicing, bookkeeping and accounts.

I enjoy tidiness and order, which is one of the reasons I enjoy coding websites, but there seem to be so many things to keep on top of with the accounting that the tidiness and order are goals, rather than realities. The truth is, I just don’t have the time to keep my books in the pristine order I’d like.

Which is where accounting software enters the frame. I’ve had a few different brands suggested to me but none more so than FreeAgent.

I signed up for a month’s free trial at one point in 2011 but didn’t find myself with the time make the most of it. My free period expired and I didn’t want to pay to try the product out. One of my Twitter contacts mentioned how well he was getting on with it (he signed up at a similar time to me) and how it was freeing up so much time for him to get on with other things, like running his business and spending time with his family. Unsurprisingly this appealed to me and I decided to send an email to FreeAgent asking if they could help.

Their support team were great and reset my trial period so I made a point of finding the time to spend finding my way round the product.

Now I have all of my business contacts, projects, invoicing and expenses in the same place and they integrate with each other nicely, so I can find out how my cashflow’s looking, what my current tax liability for the year is, what payments are currently outstanding and when they’re due and so on.

The invoices that are sent are based on templates but the great news is, they’re customisable! You can even write your own! The templates are written using the same languages that web pages are written in, so if you’d like me to design your ‘stationery’ for you I’d be happy to give you a price.

There are a bunch of features I haven’t explored yet so I’ve got a feeling that I’ve only scratched the surface and my workflow is already much more streamlined! Imagine how slick things are going to be in another couple of months once I’ve delved deeper into the software!

What’s even better is that, since I was referred by someone I get a 10% discount on my monthly fee! The chap who referred me also gets 10% discount, as he would for every referral, and the best thing is these discounts are cumulative! Better still, once you’ve got 10 referrals in the bag the product is free! Any referrals after that actually earn you money! So you get paid to do your accounts! Have a look at the website using this link to earn us both a 10% discount if/when you sign up. Happy accounting :)