Skip to main content Product spotlight: building FreeAgent for every business
Craig Clarke
Director of Product
FreeAgent has changed. And it’s because of you.
For years, people knew us as the friendly, easy-to-use software that was amazing for freelancers, sole traders and the smallest businesses. But practices told us - fairly - that they needed more. You wanted more capability, more control and more scale - and all without losing the ease of use that you and your clients love.
So we set out to build a FreeAgent that works for a much broader range of small businesses and for the practices supporting them.
Building on our top-tier MTD offering, we’ve added much deeper landlord and CIS workflows, introduced robust review and reporting tools, expanded our practice controls to be the most granular on the market, and substantially increased the number of our integrations.
Practices now have the depth they need but can still offer the same easy experience to clients who are scaling and becoming more sophisticated without moving them onto a new platform.
This time, I want to share how we’ve extended FreeAgent’s capabilities through the whole client journey. From day-one onboarding, through automated data capture, to simplified review, filing and long-term support and guidance. Here’s how to start well, stay in control and go further with FreeAgent.
Start well: fast-track your clients into digital readiness
Onboarding is too often where good intentions hit hard reality. So, we focused on the unglamorous parts to help with getting clients set up properly, especially for those with existing data to transfer across.
Bulk imports for invoices, bills, transactions and contacts now make moving to FreeAgent easier than ever. Add new flexible account manager roles and a dedicated team to support the move to FreeAgent, and setting up stops being a chore. Plus, FreeAgent is free for clients with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank, or Mettle business bank accounts.*
Then comes the daily rhythm of gathering the business data needed to fuel the compliance engine. Our focus on using AI and automation in the right journeys with the right level of control make this powerfully helpful for clients with a high volume of data. Smart Capture, our easy-to–use mobile app, automated bank feeds across UK bank accounts and rental statement import and categorisation for landlord clients without a bank feed all pull records in as business happens. Across that rich source data, our AI categorisation simplifies the everyday task of maintaining accurate accounts.
Stay in control: submit at scale, with real confidence
Once the data starts flowing in, the focus moves to spotting and fixing errors quickly and controlling workflows easily.
In the past year we’ve launched a wave of new features all focused on making it easier for you to spot gaps, manage approvals and give your team one clear view of who needs attention:
- Dashboard MTD bulk view, approvals and full client control
- Find and Fix: correct common bookkeeping mistakes in bulk instead of line by line
- VAT Checker: flag likely errors automatically before you file
- Granular permissions and bulk approvals to control workflows
We’ve recently launched Tracking Groups for deeper control and insights as your clients grow and their businesses become more complex.
When it comes time to submit, we’ve doubled down on keeping compliance easy so you can file directly to HMRC, manage clients in bulk and automate routine submissions where it fits your workflows:
- Direct bulk filing to HMRC via desktop or mobile app
- Tax, payroll and compliance filing in one workflow
- Automatic submission saves practice time
- Built-in tax timeline keeps every deadline visible
Go further: from compliance to proactive advisory
Compliance isn’t the finish line. It’s the foundation you can build on to help advise and guide clients to reach their goals. Management reports, business performance benchmarking and cashflow forecasts move you beyond year-end tasks into timely advisory work.
Underneath it all is automation we’ve been refining since 2020. Trained on a wealth of verified transactions, our AI auto-explains over 80% of bank transactions whilst maintaining 90% accuracy without overreaching into the unknown. AI also powers our Radar system which surfaces key financial insights alongside the Admin-To-Do list which turns insight into guided action.
With the control and context you need, you can build the confidence to choose automation to handle much of the daily admin so that your team can focus on making the judgement calls together with your clients. And when you need a human, our award-winning UK support team is right there.
What’s next?
FreeAgent has changed. Yet it stays the same.
Our roots are in making bookkeeping effortless, and we’re proud of that. For sole traders, FreeAgent has always been the go-to choice. It keeps bookkeeping simple, clients love using it and practices get cleaner data with less chasing. But FreeAgent has grown up. The product now supports more complex workflows, richer reporting and deeper integrations.
FreeAgent has changed. And people are noticing.
There’s a piece of feedback that’s always stuck with me - “I love FreeAgent. I put most of my new business clients on FreeAgent, but when they register for VAT, they move off.”
This wasn’t a complaint about a missing button or any single missing feature. It just reflected the perception that FreeAgent simply wasn’t a fit for that type of business.
So whilst all eyes have been on MTD, we’ve also been quietly focused on upping our game for VAT-registered businesses - as you can read in our blog, which highlights no fewer than seven ways we’ve improved the VAT functionality - from a dedicated tax rate column in the VAT return to granular access and filing controls. VAT shouldn’t force you to move a client to new software, and we’ve ensured you don’t need to.
And people are noticing the shift. We’re now hearing feedback from Partners regularly about the change they’ve noticed over time, particularly from people who have come back to FreeAgent after a few years and are shocked by how much has changed. Read more of our Product Spotlights for some of the biggest recent changes.
FreeAgent has changed. Our goal remains.
Of course we aren’t finished yet. On our roadmap are e-invoicing, client health insights, flexible reporting and wider tax coverage. Everything aims toward one goal: financial confidence for every small business and the experts who power them.
If we’re getting that right, we’d love to hear it. If we’re not, we want to hear that even more.
*Clients can access FreeAgent at no extra cost if they hold an eligible business account with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle, for as long as they retain the account or make Mettle their primary account in FreeAgent. Optional add-ons may be chargeable.
