By Ed Molyneux on Monday 01 December 2008.
Comments (0)
What's New?
In 'Pouilly-Fuissé' we've updated FreeAgent to handle the recent UK VAT rate changes which are effective as of today, and made some improvements to Invoice Emailing.
UK Accounts: VAT Rate Changes
As announced in last week's Pre-Budget Report, the standard rate of VAT has been reduced from 17.5% to 15% as of today.
FreeAgent will now:
- Allow you to select both the new 15% rate as well as the old 17.5% rate throughout so you can continue to manage previous expenses, bank account entries and bills.
- Use 15% as the standard rate when selecting 'Auto' VAT for normally VAT-able categories for expenses, bills and bank account entries dated on or after 1 Dec 08 (but still use 17.5% for older items)
- Automatically use the revised Flat Rate Scheme percentages according to the invoice date.
- Automatically use the new VAT rate on Fuel Scale Charge calculations.
- Appropriately adjust future recurring invoices and expenses which use the standard rate of VAT to reflect the lower price (NOTE: this assumes that you and your suppliers lower the charged prices on the basis of reduced VAT).
You might need to check any invoices, bills or expenses that are in FreeAgent which you created in advance and have the incorrect VAT rate set on them: we haven't assumed these should be updated.
You'll also need to check that your invoicing for November and December correctly reflects when services were actually provided. A full guide to all the implications - very worthwhile bed-time reading indeed - can be found here.
Finally, if we're charging you UK VAT for your FreeAgent subscription (because you're based in the UK) we have of course updated your payments to reflect the lower rate.
Emailing Invoices
You can now enter multiple email addresses in the 'To' field to send the invoice to several people at once.
You can now also write [contact_first_name] and [contact_last_name] in the email message text - they'll be replaced with the appropriate names when the email is sent.
Other Changes
We've:
- Fixed a problem whereby a newly-created expenses would start out locked (if the most recent expense had already been rebilled).
- Tweaked the auto-complete on Expenses and Bank Account Entry descriptions to show unique matches only.
- Fixed a problem which occurred when explaining a bill payment transaction and also explaining matching similar transactions.
- Fixed a problem where unbilled time was displayed incorrectly in certain circumstances.
- Ensured the correct months are selectable on the Bank Statement pages even if you've entered future transactions.
- UK Accounts: Corrected the display of National Insurance on payslips.
Cheers until next time...
Ed & The Team at FreeAgent Central.
Comment ››
By Ed Molyneux on Tuesday 25 November 2008.
Comments (1)
Changes to UK VAT
In yesterday's Pre-Budget Report, seen as historic by many, UK Chancellor Alastair Darling announced widespread changes to many areas of the public finances.
Of some concern, because of the short-notice given, is the 13-month temporary reduction of the standard rate of VAT from 17.5% to 15%. The new rate comes into effect on the 1st of December, only 6 days after the announcement.
A potential administrative nightmare in the making! Unless, that is, you've stepped into the world of online accounting tools like Kashflow, Xero or of course our very own FreeAgent!
OK, so we're not dealing with the intricacies of retail pricing and cash sales to consumers, but all the same we're working hard to make sure our users - primarily service-based business owners - have an easy life next Monday.
Our next bite of crisp accounting freshness - "Pouilly-Fuissé" - will be deployed on Sunday 30th Nov and include full support for the new rate, including our usual automatic handling of VAT invoices & purchases and support for the new Flat Rate Scheme rates.
To take advantage of the revised software, you'll need to:
- Check the advice here if your invoices cover work that spans the 1 Dec 2008 changeover date, ensuring you set the VAT rate accordingly.
- Er...
- That's it.
There. That wasn't so difficult was it?
Comment ››
By Ed Molyneux on Thursday 13 November 2008.
Comments (0)
Just a couple of changes this time round. In release 'Champagne' we've added our new Accountant Dashboard, plus we've started to change the way we handle locked items and of course continued to polish and tweak here and there.
Accountant Dashboard
We've built a new area of FreeAgent where our Accountant users with multiple FreeAgent clients can view all of their clients in a single page.
Clicking on a client company row will take you over to that company's FreeAgent account without any separate login being required.
It's also possible to add new client companies from the Dashboard, and we'll soon be adding customized views of relevant accounting data to the dashboard view itself.
We'll also be introducing our traffic-light exception reporting (as shown in the screenshot above) to provide a handy overall view of client company status.
If are interested in finding our more about the Accountant Dashboard, whether you're already a FreeAgent-Friendly partner or not, do feel free to get in touch.
Loosening off Locking
OK, so previously a locked item, whether an Expense or a Bill or a Bank Account Entry, was not editable at all. Not too bad, but it also meant that attachments could not be viewed or changed on locked items. Not great.
Well, we've started to address that: this week we've changed the way Expenses are locked so that you can still click through to edit some parts of the expense and also add, view and remove attachments.
Next release it'll be the turn of Bills and Bank Account Entries to get the flexible-locking treatment.
Fixed!
We've:
- Made sure changing a Journal Entry correctly updates stored accounting period calculations.
- Fixed a problem with the filenames of emailed pdf invoices.
- UK Accounts: Fixed incorrect handling of bills where entered under the VAT Cash accounting basis.
- UK Accounts: Tweaked the accounting engine so that 'Stock' correctly appears on the Balance Sheet.
Cheers until next time...
Ed & The Team at FreeAgent Central.
Comment ››
Archives
Central Feed