Jason's dashboard

Jason asked a question in FreeAgent Central on October 30, 2009 09:21:

Could a charity fund raiser be treated as a benefit in kind?

Not a specific FAC question, but hoping one of the accountants out there might give us a steer. We are putting together a team to participate in a charity bike ride form Bristol to Bordeaux next year. We need to register each team member be paying a sum up front and then all sponsorship goes to the good cause rather than for a weekend break in the south of France. However, we'd like the business to pay for our employees, but wouldn't want them to get stung at the end of the tax year if this could be treated as a benefit in kind.
Any thoughts welcomed...and sponsorship, but that can wait until next year! ;-)

moresoda replied on October 01, 2009 14:45 to the question "Should I sack my accountant?" in FreeAgent Central:

Lee,

Reckon that's a difficult one. If they were more proactive, you could probably expect a lot more regular contact from them via invoices for their time.

We're in a similar position to you, I guess, and I was after the same kind of proactive service. I think you should expect them to get involved at certain tax calendar dates, but otherwise, they won't bother unless they know something is wrong which will probably involve a prod from you when you notice figures not adding up.

We have just started using an accountant (who was very impressed with the power of FAC and its functionality) but despite being able to provide them with the info easily accessed in FAC, they still had to do their due diligence and check official bank statements etc... Consequently we still got a hefty bill.

I think what I'm trying to say is that having an accountant look at your books every month will be costly and probably unnecessary as they will review your accounts in their entirety at year end and charge you accordingly.

We have agreed a more formal arrangement whereby we can have a little 'health check' with our accountant each quarter to make sure we're doing everything right if we think its needed. To be honest, being able to see everything in FAC means we wont need to do this unless something goes horribly wrong.

If you go down this route, you won't then be frustrated if you find your bean counter hasn't been logging in every morning to check your sums!

Hope thats of some help

Jason

moresoda replied on October 01, 2009 14:32 to the idea "Get back to the contact you just invoiced" in FreeAgent Central:

Thanks Roan, appreciate its under consideration. Notwithstanding clutter and dev work, I think it would be a very useful addition.
Cheers

moresoda shared an idea in FreeAgent Central on September 30, 2009 16:03:

Get back to the contact you just invoiced

Would like to be able to return to a 'Contact's' activity page once you've created a new invoice. To expand: if you view a contact, go to an active project, then edit that project by adding an invoice. Once you have exported your pdf and marked the invoice as sent, you currently have to go back through 'Contacts' to get back to the client. A few extra clicks granted, but feels like the long way around.

moresoda shared an idea in FreeAgent Central on September 30, 2009 15:59:

Expand the Invoice Payment Timeline

Would be great to be able to expand the invoice payment timeline so you can easily see what has been billed / paid / is expected. You can obviously sort your invoice view by date, but then you have to do the math between the dates you're interested in.

moresoda replied on September 08, 2009 10:08 to the problem "VAT payment due dates" in FreeAgent Central:

Cheers. I knew it would be straight forward.

moresoda reported a problem in FreeAgent Central on September 07, 2009 23:20:

VAT payment due dates

Its late so I apologise for any oversight on my part. sure there's a logical explanation, but just noticed that the due date for payment given in FAC for the VAT period 08 09 is later than that stipulated on our return from HMRC which states it as the 30 09 09. Any idea why they might differ?

moresoda started following the question "Can I View/Print a Client's Statement of Account?" in FreeAgent Central.

moresoda replied on September 02, 2009 22:00 to the question "Option to not automatically explain bank transactions" in FreeAgent Central:

We've encountered this problem too. Just registering an interest in this and look forward to seeing it implemented soon.

moresoda replied on July 31, 2009 12:59 to the question "Bringing old invoice into freeagent problem" in FreeAgent Central:

I've been here with VAT values being rounded up differently. I just manually added the VAT as an 'amount' rather than using FAC to calculate 15% or 17.5%. Make sure the payment for the old invoice isn't linked as a bank account explanation, you wont be able to edit the invoice.
hope that helps

moresoda gave praise in FreeAgent Central on July 23, 2009 14:24:

Finding your way...

The answers are generally all there, you just need to think logically and have a poke around. If you want to do something, then FAC has probably thought about it too. Learning new bits all the time and getting more from FAC as our knowledge grows. Thanks.

moresoda replied on July 23, 2009 14:19 to the idea "Business Log/Diary" in FreeAgent Central:

I like the diary idea. We keep a communal Google calendar, but that's just another destination to log into and keep updated. Would be good to have that functionality in FAC, consolidate everything, so everyone knows who's doing what. wouldn't need to be very deep, just appointments / meetings etc but i'm sure once you started to dig you could tie it in to all sorts - expenses, mileage blah blah blah...

Jason Bye replied on June 25, 2009 14:34 to the question "Purchases prior to self employment" in FreeAgent Central:

what does the process of 'bringing it into the business' entail? appreciate this is professional advice that i should be paying for ;-)

Jason Bye asked a question in FreeAgent Central on June 25, 2009 14:24:

Calculating Director's NICs

Can you switch between cumulative and non-cumulative NIC calculations for Directors?
Our payroll used to be handled by an external agent. We want to bring it in house, but have already had payroll calculated for a couple of months. Since updating the payroll functionality, the directors NICs are zero for much of the year until the hit the ET and then there are 2 or 3 larger payments for NICs. I'm sure it all evens out, but I'm under the impression that once you've started with monthly deductions you have to continue?
As a work around, we use the HMRC cd-rom to make calculations then manually edit the payroll / payslips in FAC. Would be interesting to know if you were going to make this different NIC calculation possible in the future?

Jason Bye replied on June 19, 2009 13:48 to the problem "NI calculation problem?" in FreeAgent Central:

Hi all
We want to start using the payroll functionality. Our NICs have been calculated monthly previously. Interesting to note that you say FAC only starts to make deduction when, as a director, you hit the threshold. Is it okay to have started the tax year paying monthly contributions and then to switch to pay after earnings hit the threshold. I've got all the gumf from HMRC to do the calculations, but would obviously rather use your system - far less hassle!

Jason Bye replied on June 19, 2009 11:56 to the question "How to account for Petty Cash?" in FreeAgent Central:

Just found an entry under 'cashpoint withdrawels' that pretty much answers this.

Jason Bye asked a question in FreeAgent Central on June 19, 2009 11:32:

How to account for Petty Cash?

We cash the occasional cheque for petty cash use in the office - milk, biscuits, tea, that sort of thing. What is the best way to account for this? Office costs? Sundries?

Jason Bye asked a question in FreeAgent Central on May 28, 2009 14:53:

Payroll - deductions to date

We want to use the payroll system in FAC, but have begun doing so a month into the new tax year. Consequently we have already paid some deductions in April salaries. I can't find a field to add in the deductions already paid. Is the best bet to post-date previous payslips and manually edit them to reflect payments? or is there a quicker, easier way?

Jason Bye replied on April 27, 2009 14:32 to the question "Debtors setup" in FreeAgent Central:

I think its in the first drop down of 'other money in' as opposed to 'other sales income' but then you lose the VAT amount. Not sure if that will be reflected in your VAT due or not? Can't speak from experience. But if you're bringing in all outstanding invoices anyway, then shouldn't be an issue as you can just reconcile the payments as normal.

Jason Bye replied on April 27, 2009 14:16 to the question "payment for credit card from main business account" in FreeAgent Central:

Brilliant! this question just popped up for me and here's the answer! thanks.