tony cook's dashboard

Rachel replied on November 11, 2008 09:09 to the idea "quotation functionallity" in FreeAgent Central:

Hmm i've just been looking at cashboard as well, I like that it has basecamp integration. Please implement this now! :)

A comment on the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

I only just saw this response, spam filter must have munched the alert. Ed and team, FA is fantastic software, am really enjoying using it, as a software dev myself I can really tip my hat to this product. – Demian Turner, on November 11, 2008 00:11

Phil Norton replied on November 10, 2008 12:02 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

Thanks Olly!

Olly replied on November 10, 2008 11:58 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

Hi Phil,

Thanks very much for your feedback, it's really appreciated. We're aware that this sort of access is becoming increasingly important for our customers and we'll do our best to provide a suitable solution as soon as we can.

Phil Norton replied on November 10, 2008 11:55 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

I'm a sole trader at the minute, but that may change in the (near or maybe far) future. At present, I work with another sole trader who gets a lot of sales for me, and does project management with the client. We have a Blinksale account, and him and I can both add invoices, add payment dates etc. Which takes that away from my workload.

However, with the current permissions in FAC, if I gave him "employee" access, then he'd be able to see all of my financials, which isn't something I'd be comfortable with (cos he'd see how often I buy diamond shoes and bars of gold!! ;o) ). For me, the permissions could be simplified on a user-to-user basis, using the top nav of FAC as the basis.

So, for example, an employee/associate/whatever would have access to:

Home, Contacts, Projects, Time, Invoices, Expenses

Leaving the more sensitive aspects of the app to those with more access rights.

As a web designer/developer myself, I know that this is no small change, but it's certainly something that would not only benefit a lot of existing users, but could be a real selling point for new customers too, in turn making FAC suitable for more than just small businesses & freelancers.

Phil

Stuart Jones replied on October 13, 2008 10:52 to the question "EU purchases and VAT" in FreeAgent Central:

Boxes 2 and 4 have the same criteria as boxes 8 and 9 i.e. they are for goods and related services.

Should have said this in previous post - sorry, familiarity breeds contempt!

tony cook replied on October 13, 2008 10:15 to the question "EU purchases and VAT" in FreeAgent Central:

In that case was are boxes 2 & 4 for? VAT relating to acquisitions for the EU...

Stuart Jones replied on October 13, 2008 09:31 to the question "EU purchases and VAT" in FreeAgent Central:

Tony,

This is why everyone hates VAT:-

1. Only goods are shown in boxes 8 and 9 on the VAT return (even though it mentions supplies!)
2. You can't reclaim VAT paid in other EC countries on a UK VAT return.

tony cook marked one of Ed Molyneux's replies in FreeAgent Central as useful. Ed Molyneux replied to the question "EU purchases and VAT".

tony cook replied on October 13, 2008 08:08 to the question "EU purchases and VAT" in FreeAgent Central:

We are paying Skype for using the VoiP services.

Stuart Jones replied on October 11, 2008 10:07 to the question "EU purchases and VAT" in FreeAgent Central:

Tony,

Are you paying Skype or receiving money from Skype? There is a reason why I'm asking this!

Ed Molyneux replied on October 09, 2008 13:30 to the question "EU purchases and VAT" in FreeAgent Central:

Tony,

We don't currently break out EU acquisitions so as to calculate those boxes, sorry.

Theoretically you can arrange with Skype not to pay the VAT (see this article on the Skype Knowledgebase and this is how business-to-business transactions within the EU should happen - no VAT charged. Hence the way FreeAgent currently works.

We do plan in the future to include a 'EU VAT' checkbox on the relevant screens of FreeAgent to allow you to handle this properly. I can't say when just at the moment, though.

tony cook asked a question in FreeAgent Central on October 08, 2008 14:39:

EU purchases and VAT

We use Skype who are based in Luxemburg and their VAT rate is 15%, I can set this out under the 'Edit Explanation' within Banking when I upload the statement and manually change the VAT amount.

BUT how to I then get these transactions to appear in the relevant EC boxes on the VAT return?

Roan replied on October 03, 2008 17:48 to the idea "A few tweaks after a month of use..." in FreeAgent Central:

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the suggestions! It sounds like most of your comments involve improved flexibility with your data. This is something we're really keen to do, and it's going to be a priority for us in the coming weeks.

Our philosophy involves giving you the tools to be able to order and sort the data in anyway you want, so we'll be introducing the ability to filter projects by active/complete, or see only overdue invoices from the last 6 months for example.

We'll be rolling out this functionality across the app a section at a time, so expect to see some changes for the better in coming releases.

Your point about completed project in the time slips drop down is a good one too, and we'll take this on board.

tony cook shared an idea in FreeAgent Central on October 03, 2008 13:49:

A few tweaks after a month of use...

Contacts tab:
Archive old project names. Separate out completed/invoiced/paid for projects somehow. I'd imagine most users are only concerned with active projects on a day-to-day basis.

Projects Tab:
Either list these alphabetically of group via client

Archive old project names. Separate out completed/invoiced/paid for projects somehow. I'd imagine most users are only concerned with active projects on a day-to-day basis. This would seriously de-clutter this list. I've only been using this for one month and our company is only one month old - what this list will look like after 12 months and we are creating projects quicker.

Time Tab:
Remove old project names. Why does it list all completed, invoiced and paid for projects still in the drop down menu when you are adding a time slip. We have only been using FA for a month and 3/4's of the projects listed are now finished - never to be touched again.

Invoices:
The ability to group multiple projects into one invoice (Ed - you have already told me how I can achieve this), to save you sending out multiple invoices. This can be done but it currently lists only the last project you add to the invoice as having a net £ total against it. All the other projects have £0 invoiced listed.

Eg: Project 1 = £10, Project 2 = £5 and Project 3 = £20 but under Projects>Completed projects they are listed as Project 1 = £0, Project 2 = £0 and Project 3 = £35. So at a glance you can't see the values of each project you have to open the communal invoice.

Thanks

Demian Turner replied on September 08, 2008 16:48 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

I just noticed there *is* a password create option, which I thought I remembered, but *only* on user creation, not user edit. This is confusing.

Demian Turner replied on September 08, 2008 16:44 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

Hi Olly

Well, the only way I could create a login for an employee was

1) set employee's email to mine as i suspected perms might be an issue
2) go to 'forgot passwd' screen
3) login as 'employee' with newly created user/pass

Yes indeed the current state of permissions for employees is a problem in freeagentcentral. Don't you think? I can't think of a single company where the director would be happy for any employee to see the entire financials of the business.

Having said this I've been reviewing financial software for some time and yours is by far the best I've found. Which is why I was surprised by the perms oversight, given the attention to detail on everything else.

I'm curious what is the implementation language of the platform?

Olly replied on September 08, 2008 16:28 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

@demian

Individual employees can add their timeslips in FreeAgent. Or is the issue more to do with the overall permissions which employees are given in FreeAgent right now?

Demian Turner replied on September 08, 2008 15:32 to the question "Employees can access everything?" in FreeAgent Central:

I tried Timepost2.com, it's not really what's needed and not good value for money, web-based multi-employee time logging would be the minimum.

Ed Molyneux replied on September 08, 2008 11:21 to the question "Two projects on one invoice?" in FreeAgent Central:

Tony,

Re-select the 'Edit' button once you've created the invoice (adding the first project's unbilled items while you were at it).

Change the project on the 'Edit Invoice' screen and choose your 'Add Unbilled Time and Expenses options, which will now relate to the project you just switched to.

The new tasks etc will now appear on the invoice.

Of course you can add additional invoice items at anytime.

Does that make sense?

We're looking hard into 'Client-level' invoicing, in which case it may be that the Unbilled Time and Expenses will relate to all that client's projects, as well as expenses that might be rebilled to a client directly. Still some work to do there...