I would like to know when the US version is available. It looks good. I also use Slim Timer, but to have a program track time along with the invoicing, ect. might be good to have.

This looks like a pretty sweet little tool! I can’t wait for the US/international version to launch so that I can try it out!

Finally! I’ve been hunting around for a tool like this which caters to UK freelancers - i’ll definately be checking this one out later

Looks almost perfect. I was looking to go to ‘Billings’ in April but this has caught my eye. Such a shame that the timing slips aren’t more sophisticated though.

Billings does not have the expense & tax support that FreeAgent does but it does have very good time slip management.

Neither Billings nor FreeAgnet have the ‘design your own invoice layout’ support that Studiometry has which allows the import of the data via formattable XML.

One day we will have the prefect solution!

Collis - I’m Ed Molyneux, Founder and CEO of FreeAgent Central - thanks for the review and your feedback.

Regarding that usability issue: the payment details displayed on the invoice are the same as the primary bank account (so you can change them with the Edit button on that Bank Account page). I think we need to make that a little more obvious, because if it stumped you and your staffer it’ll stump others too. It’s always useful to get a fresh pair of eyes to point out this kind of stuff, so thanks.

There are some important things about FreeAgent which I wanted to add, if I may:

We built FreeAgent for ourselves, being UK-based freelancers and consultants. There are quite a few great apps out there, but they all seemed to stop short of what we wanted for ourselves. So, fantastic time- and expense-tracking but no invoicing (Harvest), great Time-tracking and Invoicing but no Expenses (Freshbooks). Sweet money-tracking tools (Wesabe, Mint) but not for business. Streamlined online accounting (Xero) but not for the UK and not for freelancers.

If you don’t cover all these bases, you can’t do what we _really_ wanted: to know how much we owed the taxman, and when? Still nobody else is doing this, but it’s arguably the most important question to answer.

There’s still a heap of cool stuff we have lined up to add, and your point about AJAXifying various areas is well made. We’re developing very fast, not necessarily adding more and more features but simplifying and streamlining too.

Firstly, though, we’ll be launching our ‘Universal’ version in mid-February. It’ll be just like the UK version but, obviously without the UK-specific localised Tax calculations (UK VAT, Income, Corporation and Payroll taxes). You’ll still be able to set it up to handle your own rates of VAT or GST though.

Once that is done, we’re going to see where demand is greatest and start to write tax engines for other countries, probably beginning with Australia, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand (but not necessarily in that order). These are all similar to the UK, simpler if anything.

Of course users will be able to upgrade from Universal to country-specific pricing plans seamlessly.

I hope this answers some questions about what we’re doing and why. Looking forward to letting you all know about our Universal launch in a few weeks’ time (sign up on our mailing list at http://www.freeagentcentral.co.uk to get first notification).

Wha? Sponsored review? Purchase an impartial review? What the hell is this? I’m confused but I feel like I’m being pitched.

Re: Sponsored Review

Guys, I know what you mean, but for us at FreeAgent Central it does make sense. We know we have a great product and we want to tell everyone about it.

The ’sponsored’ bit comes from helping Collis to find the time to take a look when he could otherwise be writing articles.

The ‘impartial’ but comes from the fact that he can write whatever he likes, good and bad. It’s up to us to be sure that what we’re offering is good enough, and to take the hit if it isn’t.

Actually this is more transparent than a lot of what passes for ‘impartial reviews’ out there…

I am running a few businesses but lack of money means I cannot get properly established until later this year at the earliest. Which ever money management tool I use, I’m sure I’ll need a different account for each business, but with about two dozen services to choose from, I have been sitting on the fence for a while. Currently my turnover is only £100 per month so £15 is bit of a chunk out of that! I think there should be a free or £5pm option for those with turnover of up to £150 per month so as to support freelancers just starting out and getting used to running a business.

I want to pick one and go with it soon, and I’ve decided I’m going to go for the FreeAgent trial. I am interested to know how it compares to kashflow.co.uk which is the one reccommended by the Federation of Small Businesses. I haven’t yet tried the trial Kashflow yet.

BTW, it’s great to find a tool like this that for once is keeping the Americans waiting to use it, I’ve been waiting ages for Mint.com to get to the UK, but that’s an issue never mentioned in the Mint reviews.

Oh and what I would really really like to see, but which appears not be available yet, is a Mac widget to track time and to get a quick look at payments due. The best examples of such a widget come from BillQ and Cashboard (look them up).

@Ian,

Hard to say whether you’ll need multiple accounts without know how your businesses are structured. We can also talk about free trial lengths etc. Drop me an email ed at freeagentcentral dot co dot uk.

Do have a look at Kashflow - they do some ’small-business’ rather than ‘freelance service business’ stuff that we don’t. No tax calcs or statement upload yet, though.

Re: Mint. Yeah, nice to be doing it the other way round! Plus the US tax system is fiendishly complicated - some rules vary by city let alone state…

A Widget is in our roadmap. We’ll be building an API to FreeAgent during this year, and we already have a lot of people wanting to build apps and widgets against it.

Ryan - we’re tackling both sides of the problem, both the money coming in (clients, projects, time, invoices) and money going out (expenses - by analyzing bank statement data).

This means you can build a set of proper accounts in real-time, which you can give your accountant/advisor without having to resort to Quickbooks or Excel.