The FreeAgent start date; existing business

When you first set up your FreeAgent account, one date you need to put in is what we call the 'FreeAgent start date'.

To find your FreeAgent start date go to 'Settings' in your account, and choose 'Accounting Dates'. 

What is the 'FreeAgent start date'?

This is the date as from which your books on FreeAgent will start - which isn't necessarily going to be today's date. You might decide, today, to start using FreeAgent as from an earlier date.

Let's say today's date is 30th November. You've decided to start keeping your books on FreeAgent as of 1st October. So any invoices you issue dated on or after 1st October will be created through FreeAgent. And you'll put all the opening balances on to FreeAgent as they were at the start of the day on 1st October.

If your business has only been trading for a couple of months or so, you might decide that you'd prefer to start your record-keeping afresh and put all its transactions into FreeAgent, going right back to the business start date.

But if you decide not to start afresh, then your company start date, the day your business began trading, or for a limited company the date on its certificate of incorporation from Companies House, will be earlier than your FreeAgent start date.

Opening Balances

Put in all your business's opening balances as at the FreeAgent start date.

Transactions before the 'FreeAgent Start date'

We strongly recommend you don’t post any transactions dated before the FreeAgent start date.

What if you have transactions such as expenses, invoices that customers owed you money for, bills that you haven’t paid to suppliers yet, capital assets that you bought, or even bank transactions, that are dated before your FreeAgent start date but you want to record in your FreeAgent accounts?

Expenses 

If you have out-of-pocket expenses that you paid for before your FreeAgent start date please see our guide to expenses dated before the FreeAgent start date.

Unpaid Invoices or Bills

If any of your customers owe you money as at your FreeAgent start date, or you owe money to your suppliers, please see our guide to initial money owed.

Bank Transactions

If you want to upload bank transactions dated before your FreeAgent start date then we recommend you change that start date to before the date of the first transaction you want to record.

You can undo your last import or delete any individual transactions dated before your start date. To delete a transaction, remove the explanation so the transaction returns to unexplained. Then go back to the transaction and select the delete button.

Capital Assets

If your business is new, and you bought an asset such as a computer before your business began trading and you now want to treat that as an asset of the business, please see our guide to the purchase of Capital Assets before the company start date.

If your business has been trading for some months or years, and part of your opening balances include capital assets, those would go in with your other opening balances – see our guide to the purchase of Capital Assets between start dates.