This morning I listened in on Emily Coltman, chief accountant at FreeAgent, delivering a quick tour through the solution. It is a long time since I took a look so the opportunity to refresh my memory was well timed.
Aside from the EasyJet style opening (‘My co-pilot today on the flight deck is the wonderful Janice’) which I wasn’t over keen on (flying EasyJet is never a pleasant experience, being reminded makes me think of a living nightmare – sorry Emily) the delivery was fast paced, crisp and with just enough detail to tempt me into saying: ‘Yep, I’ll have a go at that.’
Emily has been perfecting this for some years now and is among the best ‘demo dollies‘ I know. She held my full attention for the whole 30 minutes which seemed to fly by. The best is Ian Kimbell but that’s a whole other story. Anyhoo…
As she went through the screens, I saw a few things where I instantly thought – that could be better. The screen in question is the one where FreeAgent shows all the people who owe you money and all those that you owe out. It’s a sensible idea where you have relatively few customers and suppliers. But…it could use a few tweaks:
- Why not colour code debtors and creditors to make identification easier?
- How about hiding those accounts that have a nil balance thus reducing screen clutter?
- Why do I have to use a separate email client when preparing a PDF, why not simply have it as another mechanism within the system like Blinksale?
The screen grab tells the story.
These are little things but they make an enormous difference to user experience.
One thing I REALLY liked – locking down each quarter’s VAT return. Good thinking.
Side note: the latest FreeAgent user review.
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Feature requests for FreeAgent: This morning I listened in on Emily Coltman, chief accountant at FreeAgent, deli… http://t.co/4Yu0LeiX
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for your time this morning and thanks for the compliment!
To clarify your queries:
1) & 2) I take your fair point about colour-coding but you can filter the contents page to show just customers, just suppliers, just customers with open invoices, just suppliers with open bills…
3) You can save the invoice as a .pdf but you can also send it straight from within FreeAgent. That’s how you can also upload and send other files with it.
Thanks again!
M
@dialm4accounts just to be clear then -
1. Can you display both suppliers and customers with open items on the same screen?
2. Can you save as PDF AND send from within FreeAgent? If so that wasn’t entirely clear to me during the demo.
@dahowlett 1. Yes you can but you will also see any other active customers / suppliers who don’t have open items.
2. Yes, you can do both (admittedly not at the same time, it’s one click to save the .pdf and another to send the invoice).
M
@dialm4accounts 1. right – I was hoping that only accounts with open items show up.
2. that’s fine then. I was slightly confused, assuming that you step outside FreeAgent to get the PDF sent on the basis of what I heard.
@dahowlett You can do one of two things:
1) Create a PDF (by clicking Save PDF) which you can then save on your computer and send using a separate e-mail programme.
2) (quicker), Click Send by E-mail which automatically creates a PDF of the invoice and sends it from within FreeAgent.
You can also send invoices (as PDFs) automatically.
Make sense?
M
@dialm4accounts ….aaaah – now it does. Maybe next time make the distinction clearer for thickos like me.
@dahowlett If you’re a thicko, Dennis, then heaven help the rest of us
Thanks, glad that’s clear!
M
Feature requests for FreeAgent – This morning I listened in on Emily Coltman, chief accountant at FreeAgent, deliver… http://t.co/6KK1kf85