Free Agent Central
Freeagent Central has been adopted by some of our clients that have Nat West Bank accounts. This is because it is given as a free benefit for those using Nat West business banking. The transactions feed from your bank to the software without too much drama. It remembers transaction coding with
dependent on the bank payment memos. The bank import rules are not straightforward to use. There are some serious problems with its coding for the unwary. It has no easy way of recoding transactions to the balance sheet, nor to accruals, nor to drawings. It is surprisingly hard to recode transactions to dividends or drawings if you do not want to claim them. It is also tricky to code transactions to the balance sheet.
Like many online packages it is quite difficult to find a report which will give you a running total bank balance.
It is tricky to run a report which shows dividends and drawings from profits, capital, interest and taxation, separate from the normal expenses of a business. This is a pity because the reporting otherwise works quite nicely.
It has a highly restricted control on VAT. It has a tight link to the balance sheet and the instalments. This means that it is very difficult to use for existing VAT registered businesses that have existing VAT accounting periods and balances. The arrangements for declaring VAT are too mechanical to be easy. This requires you to have a great deal of trust in the bookkeeping software – VAT is a very expensive tax to get wrong.
Pity this software is so inflexible.