Benefits of integrating TradeBooked

TradeBooked helps keep your accounts up to date without double entry. When you send an invoice to a customer, a copy is created in FreeAgent automatically so your accounts stay aligned with the jobs you have completed.

It is built around the way trade businesses work. VAT rates, including 0%, 5% and 20%, are carried across from TradeBooked to FreeAgent based on your invoice settings, and a CIS deduction at 20% or 30% appears as a deduction line on the FreeAgent invoice so the figures match the invoice your customer holds. Customers are matched by email address to help avoid duplicate contacts.

As TradeBooked also handles bookings, quotes, customer details and trade compliance records, your job admin stays in one place while FreeAgent stays current in the background.

How TradeBooked works with FreeAgent

You authorise the connection once from your TradeBooked settings and once connected, TradeBooked refreshes its access tokens securely after that so you do not have to reconnect manually.

The integration is a one-way sync from TradeBooked to FreeAgent:

• The first time a customer appears on an invoice, TradeBooked creates or matches the contact in FreeAgent by email address.

• When you finalise and send an invoice in TradeBooked, it creates the invoice in FreeAgent with the customer, line items, VAT rates and any CIS deduction carried across.

• Invoices arrive open, carrying your TradeBooked job reference. The payment is settled in FreeAgent from your bank feed, or your Stripe feed if you take card, which keeps one record of the money and books your card fees correctly.

Before creating a record, TradeBooked looks for a matching FreeAgent contact and an existing invoice for the same job, so a repeated action does not normally create a duplicate. Every sync attempt is logged on the TradeBooked side. Edits made in FreeAgent do not flow back to TradeBooked, and expenses, bank feeds and VAT submissions remain inside FreeAgent.

How do I get started with TradeBooked?

You can connect TradeBooked with FreeAgent by following these steps:

1. Sign up for TradeBooked on the Pro or Autopilot plan. The FreeAgent integration is included on both.

2. In your TradeBooked dashboard, open ‘Settings’ and find the FreeAgent section.

3. Select ‘Connect FreeAgent’, sign in to FreeAgent and approve the connection.

4. Choose the FreeAgent income category your invoices should use and then save your settings.

5. Send invoices from TradeBooked as normal. They sync to FreeAgent automatically and arrive open, ready to settle against the payment when it reaches your feed.

6. If you take card payments, connect your Stripe account to FreeAgent as well, so those payments and their fees reach your books.