All new invoice and estimate building

Some of you have said it takes too long to build estimates and invoices. For these 'time poor' individuals we've improved the way invoice and estimate items are added, speeding up the process considerably.

You can now add or edit invoice items via a pop up, or delete items directly from the invoice preview. We've run a battery of tests, independently adjudicated by Carol Vorderman, and can confirm that the billing process is now 4.35 times faster than ever before. Go try it!

Introducing your Price List

If you tend to sell the same product and service again and again, you'll find the Price List a real life saver. Simply define the items that you commonly sell (think 'Web Hosting', 'On-Site Training' or even 'Kitchen Sinks'), and these can be added instantly to your estimates or invoices.

You can add items to your Price List as part of the normal Invoice creation workflow or view all Price List items from the Settings > Price List section.

Contact Statement of Accounts

We know how long some people have been waiting for this, so we're delighted to be able to finally release it: Statement of Accounts for Contacts.

When you view a Contact you'll see a new Statement of Account tab. Just select the date range you want the statement to cover and we'll build the Statement of Account, which you can print as a PDF or send by email.

The statement covers invoices you've sent and any bills that are owed, and we even handle the weird and wacky situation where you've billed a client in multiple currencies. Worth the wait we hope.

Online VAT filing

After a successful trial period we're pleased to enable Online VAT filing with HMRC for our UK users.

Full details can be in our File your VAT Online article on the Knowledge Base.

Anything else?

Well, now you ask:

• You can now add your Project name automatically to Estimates
• You can now add an expense from the Project details page
• We've added a referral notification system, but it's a secret and you'll need to find it out for yourself :)
• We replaced your old referral links with shorter, snappier ones, which will make pimping your discount code that bit easier. Thanks for all the suggestions on Twitter everybody!
• We've added support for Chartered Bank of Singapore CSV, the new Co-op CSV format and German iBank QIF format
• We've added support for the Turkish Lira

And Finally

A huge thank you to everyone who nominated us in the .net magazine Awards 2010. FreeAgent made the shortlist in the Web App of the Year category, and we'd love your vote if you're that way inclined. Thanks!

Until next time,
Roan & The Team at FreeAgent.

We know most of our users aren't accounting experts, and helping someone overcome any trepidation or confusion they might have is crucial for a good user experience, and therefore our success.

We've recently introduced a new series of 'blank slate' designs throughout the app, which we hope will help users as they get started with FreeAgent, and possibly educate into the bargain.

Blank slate?

'Blank slate' is a phrase used to describe the empty state of a section in an app: when it's yet to contain any data. Like a message board with no messages, or an address book with no contacts. Creating a good blank slate can dramatically improve first impressions of an app; helping the user understand what they can do and how they can do it. With so much time spent developing new features and testing them with plenty of data, blank slates are often created as an afterthought.

We were pretty guilty of this, here's what our old blank slates looked like:

Not especially helpful or pretty, unless you're totally comfortable with our concept of a Bill. When we wanted to improve this, we had a clear idea about what was needed:

• Explain what that section of the app is for
• Explain what isn't it for - often just as important
• Clear up any confusion with similar terminology
• Provide examples of when you would use this part of the app
• A main call to action

Define the problem

If I had one hour to save the world I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem
- Albert Einstein

One of the biggest barriers when it comes to understanding accounting is the jargon: it's confusing and people can have different ways of saying the same thing (is it invoices or accounts receivable?). One of the things that sets FreeAgent apart from our competitors, I believe, is the lack of "accountantese".

With this in mind we thought the metaphor of the dictionary was a relevant and fun concept: define the "thing" in question, along with synonyms, and then a breakdown of when it should and shouldn't be used. For many sections of the app, this is probably overkill but for areas like Bills and Expenses, where it's often not obvious when one should be used over the other, the new blank slates set a positive tone, with informative examples and use cases.

Here's the new blank slate for Bills, one of the parts of the app people struggle with understanding when to use:

Much better don't you think? Visually more appealing and informative with a clear call to action. We've also linked relevant articles in the Knowledge Base in case people need more information.

Getting touchy feely

The primary driver here is quickly getting people comfortable and productive with the app. The secondary benefit is less tangible, but arguably just as important: making people feel cared for as they take their first few steps throughout the app. Hold the user's hand through those first awkward steps and you're much more likely to win a customer out of them.

It's as much about setting a tone and character for the app as it is getting someone through a series of steps, and when you're dealing with the intimidating world of accounts, having a welcoming first experience is key.

We've started implementing these blank slates throughout the app, but we'll be adding more in the thornier areas, over the next few releases.

This means that, apart from numerous other factors, it can have its own address. This is called the "registered office address".

Why is this important?

A company can't keep its registered office address private. The address will be available for anyone to buy it from the Companies House website for a few pounds.

The registered office address must, by law, also be put on a company's website and all its correspondence, including, for example, invoices and e-mails.

If your company's registered office address is different from its correspondence address, you can use the default text feature in FreeAgent to include the registered office address on your invoices and estimates.

Companies House and the tax authorities will write to the company at its registered office, and send documents, such as reminders to file an annual return, to the registered office.

I work from home, I don't want my home address splashed all over the web!

In that case, or if for any other reason you want to keep your business address private, you can choose another address for your company's registered office address.

The registered office doesn't have to be where your company actually carries on its business, but it must be a real physical address to which documents can be sent and where legal documents can be served on the company if it's unlucky enough to get sued. 

What alternatives are there?

There are businesses which do offer a registered-office service, where they will allow you to put their address forward as your company's registered office, and forward all documents on to your correspondence address.

The fees for this will vary depending on where the registered office is. Some businesses sell the prestige of an office in Mayfair!

Search for "registered office address provider" in your web browser to find a selection.

Be aware that some serviced office providers won't let you use their address as your company's registered office. Check carefully when you're choosing a serviced office provider.

Many accountants do also offer a registered office service to their clients, so that your accountant's office will be your company's registered office. Some accountants have a preference for your company's registered office to be at their office, so that they can deal straight away with documents that Companies House and the tax authorities send to your company.

But if your accountant works from home as well then they might not offer that service!

You can't use a PO Box address as your company's registered office.

Why can't I use a PO Box address?

Because the registered office address must be a real physical address.

What about where in the UK the address can be?

If your company is registered in England and Wales, then the registered office address must also be in England and Wales - for example, an English company can't have a registered office address in Edinburgh.

If your company is registered in Scotland (in which case it will have the prefix SC in front of its company number) then its registered office address must also be in Scotland.

What about the directors' own addresses?

Until 1st October 2009, the company's directors' own addresses were also available to buy for a few pounds from the Companies House website.

Since that date, directors still nearly always have to tell Companies House what their "usual residential addresses" are, but they can opt to have a "service address" too, and keep their home address off the public website.

The service address can be the same as the registered office address.

The only snag with that is that if you were a company director before 1st October 2009, before the Companies Act 2006 came into force, your address will be on the public record from old Annual Returns - and you won't be able to take it off! 

Why do directors still have to tell Companies House their home addresses?

Companies House will give directors' home addresses to credit reference agencies and certain public authorities.

I don't want them to do that!

Companies House specify that you can apply for your home address not to be given out only if you're "at serious risk of violence or intimidation because of the activities of" the company.

Disclosure of your addresses is one of the legal quid pro quos for having the protection of limited liability. If the privacy of your address is a serious concern for you, then you might decide to trade as a sole trader or partnership instead. 

If in doubt, as always, seek professional advice!

All new VAT returns

You'll first notice your VAT returns now have a completely new design. It'll look more familiar to those of you who've filled in one of the old paper forms.

As mentioned previously, changing the status of a VAT return automatically changes any older ones, so if you mark a return as 'filed', all earlier ones will also be marked as filed too.

Buying and selling within the EU

Lots of our customers buy and sell goods and services to countries in the wider EU and FreeAgent is now able to give you more help to record these transactions on your VAT return.

All the information you need is in the Knowledge Base:

• Create an invoice to sell goods or services to a customer in the EU
• Record a bill for goods or services bought from the EU
• Enter an EU bank transaction, receipt or payment
• Record an out-of-pocket expense for costs incurred in the EU
• FreeAgent will now fill in boxes 2, 8 and 9 on your VAT returns where HM Revenue require it.

Online VAT filing

The big announcement is that FreeAgent now supports online filing of VAT returns to HMRC!

Before you rush off, be aware that we are rolling this feature out gradually to make sure there are no bugs, but all being well this will be available to everybody soon. When that happens, we'll publish full details about how it all works.

It's not just VAT though

Actually, it mostly is, but we also:

• Added support for next year's 20% VAT rate
• Added support for next year's Flat Rate Scheme rates
• Allow you to add default Additional Text to recurring invoices, just like normal ones.
• We've added support for the Vietnamese Dong, Latvian Lats and Egyptian Pound!

If you’re a freelance web designer, that’d be your computer, desk and chair.

If you’re a dressmaker, it’d be your sewing machine.

This equipment is sometimes called “fixed assets”, or, as we call it in FreeAgent, “capital assets”.

Why “capital assets”?

Because, when you spend money on these assets, HM Revenue calls that “capital expenditure”, as distinct from the day-to-day running costs of your business which are called “revenue expenditure”.

Why do I have to separate these out?

They’re treated differently from day-to-day running costs, both for tax purposes and in your accounts. More about that in a moment.

Is there a lower cost limit for when an item becomes a capital asset? 

HM Revenue haven’t set one. If you have an accountant, he/she might have a set limit.

But usually it’ll depend on your business’s size. For example, a £25 phone would almost always go into Internet and Telephone as a day-to-day running cost. A £250 phone system would be a capital item for a small business, but probably a day-to-day running cost for a larger one.

How are capital assets treated in my accounts? 

Because the asset’s going to be useful to your business long-term, it goes on to your business’s balance sheet.

But every year, the business will use some of the asset’s value up, and if you try and sell the used asset, you won’t get as much for it as you paid for it when it was new.

To allow for the using-up of the asset’s value, a bit of it has to be deducted from your business’s profit each year.

This is called “depreciation”, and in FreeAgent it’s worked out for you automatically.

That’s accounts, what about tax? 

HM Revenue say that depreciation isn’t an allowable expense for tax, so you have to add it back when you’re working out the profit that your business will pay tax on.

So don’t I get any tax relief for buying assets? 

Yes you do. It’s just handled differently.

HM Revenue call it “capital allowances” - a tax allowance for your capital expenditure.

What are capital allowances, and how do I claim them? 

Let’s start by looking at new assets your business buys.

Currently there is an Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) available, which from 1st April 2010 (for companies) or 6th April 2010 (for sole traders and partners) is £100,000 a year.

How does that work? 

Your business can spend up to £100,000 a year on most new assets, and deduct the cost of the assets from its profit before working out tax on the profit.

When you say “most new assets”, which ones can’t I claim AIA on? 

Here are the main exceptions as outlined by HM Revenue:

• Cars
• Assets your business buys in the last accounting period before it stops trading
• Assets you’ve introduced into the business from another business - for example, if you traded as a sole trader and bought a computer through your sole trade, then incorporated your business as a limited company and transfer the computer into the company, you can’t claim AIA on the computer at the point it transfers to the company, because you’d have already claimed capital allowances on the computer when you bought it for your sole trade
• Personal assets you’ve introduced into the business, such as an office chair you already owned when you started your business
• Assets that are given to your business - no cost = no allowance!

What if I’ve spent more than £100,000 in a year?

I’m not going there in this blog! Remember we’re writing for small businesses here :-)

Are there any other allowances available for new assets?

Yes.

Certain assets attract a 100% first year allowance (which means you can deduct the full cost of the asset from your business’s profit before working out its tax due), no matter how much they’ve cost.

Assets that qualify for this are mainly those that help the environment, such as energy-saving equipment or environmentally beneficial equipment.

What about assets I already owned, do I get any relief on those?

Yes.

Before the AIA was introduced, assets would be divided up into “pools” and then, on the balance of each pool, a Writing Down Allowance (WDA) would be given.

That’s now 20%.

So if you have old assets in a pool brought forward, and the pool at the start of your accounting year came to £2,000, then the amount you could take off your business’s profits as WDA on those assets would be £400.

HM Revenue give additional advice about capital allowances for companies and other businesses.

Capital allowances are a very complex area and unless your business has only one or two assets, you’d be well advised to talk to your accountant, or ask him/her to work them out for you! This article is no substitute for professional advice.

Lots and lots of limited companies don’t have an office outside the home. After all, if you don’t need an office, why take one on and have to pay rent, electricity, and so forth.

Are there any tax reliefs available when you work from home for your own limited company?

Yes there are, and the situation is different from sole trades, because when your business is a limited company, it has its own legal identity. The company is the business and your employer, you are an employee (whether or not you’re a director).

Here’s what you need to consider:

• The equipment you use to work at home, such as your computer, desk and chair. Who owns it - you or the company - and how much non-business use, if any, does it get?
• The costs of running the company from home, such as your broadband and telephone line. Are they in your name or the company’s? Who pays for them? How much do you use them for company business and how much, if at all, do you use them privately?
• The costs of running the home, such as your mortgage or rent, electricity, gas and water bills, and council tax. Can the company cover any of that for you?

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Equipment

It’s usually a good idea for the company to own any equipment you use for work, because then it can claim tax relief on the cost of that equipment in the form of capital allowances.

So if you’re a web designer with your own limited company, and you buy a new Mac to use for design, pay for that Mac using a company credit card.

Or, if you don’t have a company credit card, pay for it with a personal credit card and then claim it back as an expense. That way the computer will belong to the company.

What if I already owned the computer when I set up the company?

Here’s how to deal with it in that case.

Business and non-business use

If you use your company’s equipment all, or nearly all, for business, then there’s no issue with taxable benefits. HM Revenue’s expression is if the private use is “insignificant”.

If you use the equipment privately more than this, so for example you regularly let your 5-year-old nephew play games on your company iPad, then there’s a taxable benefit issue and the company must report it on form P11D and pay class 1A National Insurance.

Costs such as phone bills

Again, ideally the phone line should be in the company’s name (i.e. the contract will be between the phone line provider, e.g. BT, Carphone Warehouse, and your company) and should be used for business calls only, or just a few private calls.

Otherwise you’ll run into all kinds of issues with taxable benefits.

So have a separate business phone line installed for the company, or alternatively use a provider such as Skype.

This applies to mobile phones as well as landline phones.

Be warned though, that a BlackBerry, iPhone, or similar doesn’t count as a mobile phone when we’re looking at taxable benefits.

It’s a computer!

So if your company buys you an iPhone 4, don’t use it for personal calls or playing games if you can help it - buy yourself another iPhone 4 for that!

What happens if I have only one broadband line installed and use that for both business and private use?

The best way to avoid taxable benefit implications is to have the broadband line in the company’s name, then you pay the company back for any private calls.

It’s a flat rate - I pay the same for broadband no matter how much I use.

My own opinion in that case is that you shouldn’t have to pay anything back because you don’t pay extra for private use. But that’s a personal opinion only. Be prepared to argue this with HM Revenue if they come knocking.

Home running costs

When you’re working from home, you’ll be incurring extra costs, such as electricity, gas and water - because you’ll have to keep the lights on, heat the house, and make yourself cups of coffee - during the working day.

But the building isn’t the company’s.

It’s yours (or your landlord’s, if it’s a rented property).

So can you claim relief on these costs like a sole trader can?

What many accountants advise their clients to do is to work out how much relief you could claim if you were a sole trader - then charge your company rent for that equivalent amount.

Have a proper legal rent agreement in place between you and your company.

The company can then put the rent as a cost in its accounts and claim corporation tax relief on it.

The rent does count as income from property received by you, so you’ll need to put that on the property pages of your tax return.

BUT you can then set off the costs of running that part of the property against the rental income, and guess what, the two figures will be exactly the same.

So there’s no additional cost to you except for the time spent putting two more figures onto your tax return.

Just be careful though if you have any other property income. Here’s a tip from one of our affiliates on how to deal with that.

And make sure your mortgage, or tenancy agreement, allows you to effectively sub-let part of your home in this way.

What about the legal issues from Companies House?

More on that soon!

Disclaimer: This article is written on a general basis and is no substitute for specific advice from your own accountant about your own business situation.

It’s called Accounting.

If you know what a profit and loss account is, know how it can help you in your business, and understand all its contents, then you don’t need to read this. But if you’d like to find out more about what it’s showing you, read on.

Why would I want to know that?

The P&L contains information that’ll help you make important decisions about your business. For instance, it’ll help you decide if and when it’s time to put your prices up, or start selling a new range of services or goods.

OK, sounds good. Tell me more.

The profit and loss account (or P&L for short) shows your business’s income and expenses, over a given period of time. That’s usually a year, but it can be a month, or the year so far.

Income

A business’s income is usually made up of the following:

Sales invoices and when they show up

First and foremost, it’s all the invoices that the business has issued to its customers during the period covered by the profit and loss account.

The invoices will appear on the P&L whether or not you’ve been paid for them.

In accountantese that’s called “accruals accounting” because in the UK you have to show the invoice in the P&L for the period when the income accrued, i.e. when you did the work and issued the invoice.

Strictly speaking, that also means that if you’ve done some work right at the end of your accounting year and not invoiced your customer till the start of the next accounting year, you should do journal entries to show the income in the earlier accounting year. Sticky stuff.

In the US and Canada, businesses are allowed to track their income and expenses on a cash basis, that is they’d only show invoices in the P&L (which they call an income statement) when the invoices were paid for. Much easier in some ways, but sadly not allowed in the UK, no matter how small your business is.

Other income

There are some other items that’ll appear in income, such as bank interest you receive, but by and large it’ll be your sales invoices.

Expenditure

Now we come to the business’s expenditure.

Depending on your business, this might be broken down into the immediate cost of making your sales (or “cost of sales” in accountantese) and the business’s day-to-day running costs (or “admin expenses” in accountantese), such as staff wages, telephone bills and so on.

Tell me more about cost of sales please.

I have a client who’s a jeweller, making jewellery from wire and beads. Her “cost of sales” would include the cost of the wire and beads, plus the cost of having those materials delivered to her.

Do all businesses show cost of sales?

No, they don't.

Many service-based businesses don’t have a “cost of sales” area, because their only immediate cost of making a sale is the business owner’s own labour.

For example, if you’re selling your services as a computer consultant, all it costs you to actually make those sales is your own time. You don’t have to buy anything in to make the sales - you’re selling your own expertise.

Gross Profit

If you do have a “cost of sales” section in your P&L, that’ll come just below your income, and then you’ll see the word “profit” for the first time - because income less cost of sales is called “gross profit” in accountantese.

How is this figure useful?

“Gross profit” helps you work out how much you’re earning from your sales. If your direct costs are eating up too much of your business’s income, then you need to put your prices up to make sure you have enough to cover the rest of the running costs.

Accountants often take the gross profit and divide it by the sales figure to work out what’s called the “margin” or “gross profit margin”.

For example, a business with sales of £10,000 and cost of sales of £4,000 would have a gross profit of £6,000 and a gross profit margin of 60%.

Why’s that important?

Because it means you and your accountant, if you have one, can check how profitable your business is compared to other businesses in the same industry, or compared to how your business did last year.

If your margin has dropped year-on-year, it might be because one of your suppliers has put up their prices, but you haven’t passed that cost on to your customers.

Should I consider doing that?

That’s up to you, but if you hadn’t compared this year’s margin to last year’s, you might not have picked it up.

It might also be because your customers are going elsewhere because everyone who’s going to buy a bespoke IT system, has one. You might need to start selling a service to repair and maintain systems as well as install them.

OK, I get the picture. What are the rest of the expenses on the P&L?

Under the gross profit come all your business’s running costs that aren’t directly related to actual sales.

Often these will be “fixed” costs, which are costs that you’d have to pay exactly the same amount for no matter how many sales your business made. That might include wages for salaried staff, or office rent.

“Variable” costs are those that go up or down with your business’s sales income, for example the wages for a team member who’s paid on commission, or the cost of buying materials to sell.

What costs aren't here?

What the P&L won’t include is the cost of any large items you’ve bought for your business’s own use which are going to be useful for more than about a year, for instance a new iMac to design your customers’ websites.

These are called “capital assets” and they go on your business’s balance sheet rather than its P&L, for two reasons.

Firstly, they’re treated differently for tax, and secondly, because they’re going to be useful to your business for more than a year.

More about capital assets in a later post.

When do costs show up on the P&L?

Costs that go in both cost of sales and expenses will be entered as the cost is incurred, not when it’s paid.

So if your P&L runs to 31st March 2010 and you enter a bill into FreeAgent dated 25th March 2010, then pay that bill on 1st April 2010, the bill will show in the P&L to March 2010 - not to March 2011.

This is to make sure the costs match the income that they were helping to earn.

Profit or loss figure

Then at the bottom of your P&L comes the profit, or “net profit” to distinguish it from the gross profit.

The profit figure is simply all the income less all the expenses, both cost of sales and admin expenses.

If your business’s expenses are greater than its income, it’s made a loss. If the business’s income is greater than its expenses, it’s made a profit.

Why’s that important?

Because you pay tax on profit, after some adjustments. FreeAgent helps you by working out a ball-park projection of your tax, which is income tax if your business is a sole trade or a partnership, corporation tax for a limited company.

If you want to raise cash for your business, a bank will look to see whether your business is making a profit.

And, while losses at the start of your business are almost inevitable, if your expenses outweigh your income you won’t be in business very long!

Also, particularly if none of your expenses count as “cost of sales”, you can use the final profit figure to work out a margin and consider, using that figure, whether your business is making “enough” profit.

So the profit is what I pay tax on, right?

The profit on your profit and loss account isn’t necessarily the profit figure you pay tax on. Some expenses aren’t tax deductible.

What does it mean to say an expense is “tax deductible” or you “get tax relief on it”?

If an expense is not tax deductible, e.g. business entertaining, you can include it when you’re working out the profit and loss account profit figure, but you’ll have to add it back when you’re working out the profit figure to pay your tax on.

If an expense is tax deductible, you don’t have to add it back!

If you're confused about any of this, please post a comment below or talk to your own accountant!

Disclaimer: This article is written on a general basis and is no substitute for specific advice provided by an accountant.

It's probably not our core market, but we were pleased to hear that e2cargo, an online logistics app for the haulage and freight industry, now integrates with FreeAgent.

Billed as "Your online logistics office on the web" e2cargo is a web app which combines quotes, shipments and invoices in one easy system.

The integration allows you to export all invoices generated in e2cargo into FreeAgent. Any changes you make to draft invoices in e2cargo will be automatically pushed to FreeAgent as well.

So, if you're looking for the missing link between haulage, shipping and accounting then look no further than e2cargo with FreeAgent.

That's a big 10-4 partner.

There's some big stuff coming to FreeAgent soon, but we've also been clearing our decks of smaller to-dos that have been lingering on the back burner for ages.

Notes

You can now add Notes to Contacts and Projects, which is useful if you want to add additional information about the status of a project or lead. You, and your team, can add multiple notes to a contact or project, and edit these at a later date if you wish.

It's not exactly full-on CRM functionality but it should help you be a bit more organised. More information in the Knowledge Base as always.

Additional Text on Invoices and Estimates

We've made it easier to set the default text that appears at the foot of your estimates and invoices.

When you add/edit an estimate/invoice you'll see the option to Add default Additional Text, which lets you store text to appear on all future estimates/invoices. Another little time saver.

Custom themes for invoices

We've had this in beta for a while, so we thought it was high time to open it up to everyone. You can now create your own invoice theme with CSS.

This does require a good knowledge of HTML/CSS so it's mainly for the web designers out there, or those of you who've got a geeky nephew or niece handy.

Take a look at the Knowledge Base article on Creating Custom Invoice themes with CSS to get you started, and do send as any examples of your results. We're always up for drooling over a tasty invoice or two. Yeah, we don't get out that much.

Import from Basecamp

We've completed an integration with everyone's favourite project management app Basecamp.

You can now import both Contacts and Projects from Basecamp, decide which ones you'd like to keep in FreeAgent and assign which Project is related to which Contact.

You'll need to add your Basecamp credentials into the Settings section and make sure you've enabled the API in Basecamp first. Then select Import Contacts or Projects from the relevant section and away you go!

A detailed guide on importing contacts and projects from Basecamp can be found on the KB.

Google Apps integration

We mentioned this a couple of weeks back, but if you didn't see it, then you can now integrate your Google Apps account with FreeAgent, allowing single sign-on from your Google Apps account.

Full details on the Google Apps integration blog post. If you get a moment please do leave us a review on the Google Apps marketplace.

There's more? Seriously?

Unbelievably yes, here's a few other bits and bobs:

• New project tasks are now Billable by default
• We've added support for Serbian Dinar, Polish Zloty and the Saudi Arabian Riyal
• You can now send invoices and estimates in Serbian
• We now support bank imports from Sparkasse Aachen bank

And finally....Automatic PayPal import

Hands up who wants to beta test automatic import of PayPal statements into FreeAgent? Thought so. We're looking for a small number of people to test this out, so get in touch if you're interested.

Until next time,
Roan & The Team at FreeAgent.

I know that, but what am I supposed to do in FreeAgent?

Firstly, you need to make sure you're up to date with your books under the old system.

That means:

1. Invoices

Make sure you've created, and marked as sent, all the invoices that you want to send under the GST/PST regime.

2. Bills, expenses and bank payments

Make sure that you've entered all the bills, expenses and bank payments that you need to claim purchase tax on using the old method.  If you can't upload your bank statement yet, then put the bank transactions in manually.

3. Change tax settings

Once you're confident that all the transactions with GST and PST have been entered, go to Settings and click Sales Tax.

Change the settings to the new HST.

Save your changes.

Any invoices that are in draft status, and any invoices you create from that point, will be issued showing HST.

I'm stuck!

Please e-mail support[at]freeagentcentral[dot]com and we'll do our best to help you!