Just to chip in, I thought it might be worth pointing at some details from the full, and quite comprehensive city announcement that might help address some of the points raised in this thread, and also covered in Ed’s blog from earlier this week:
It is really important to FreeAgent and RBS that we continue to operate as a independent member of the larger RBS group, but at the same time giving us access to much greater financial resources and other wider opportunities to grow the FreeAgent proposition and business faster.
Also the three founders, Ed, Olly & Roan, have rolled over a fairly sizable chunk of their shareholding in to the new entity, so they are not going anywhere for a while!
Happy to answer any other questions either here or feel free to email me on [email protected]
... from the FreeAgent side, I do feel comfortable to say that we listen to our customers, both accountants and non-accountants, and strive to prioritise the most useful "next thing" to deliver.
By way of example, I've just sent out a product update to our FreeAgent Friendly practices announcing, amongst a few other things, some significant improvements to our journal entry process which is of most value to our accountant partners.
Specifically on the question around payments on account, retainers and deposits, this has come up, but is not the most frequently requested improvement. That said it is absolutely in our plans to deliver this capability in the near future. We are currently working on supporting client-level account balances, which is a prerequisite to enabling us to support this properly, and I can assure you we will make sure all interested parties know as soon as this is available.
Just to clarify our position on the retention of data.
We do retain user data for a number of month after accounts have been cancelled, after which point the data is deleted. This is actually a data protection issue, and we believe users would not expect data to be retained indefinitely after an account has been cancelled. We inform users of this at the point of cancellation.
I believe Xero and Clearbooks both have similar policies for what it’s worth.
We also can put accounts into a read-only format, and we do this in occasional situations, like when a customer changes business type and needs to maintain historic accounts, but I would stress that this is the exception rather than the rule.
Supporting an official read-only mode is a user request we do hear, so it’s something we’ll consider for the future.
My answers
Just to chip in, I thought it might be worth pointing at some details from the full, and quite comprehensive city announcement that might help address some of the points raised in this thread, and also covered in Ed’s blog from earlier this week:
https://www.freeagent.com/central/freeagent-recommended-takeover-offer-b...
It is really important to FreeAgent and RBS that we continue to operate as a independent member of the larger RBS group, but at the same time giving us access to much greater financial resources and other wider opportunities to grow the FreeAgent proposition and business faster.
Also the three founders, Ed, Olly & Roan, have rolled over a fairly sizable chunk of their shareholding in to the new entity, so they are not going anywhere for a while!
Happy to answer any other questions either here or feel free to email me on [email protected]
Kevin McCallum
Chief Commercial Officer
FreeAgent
Just to contribute...
... from the FreeAgent side, I do feel comfortable to say that we listen to our customers, both accountants and non-accountants, and strive to prioritise the most useful "next thing" to deliver.
By way of example, I've just sent out a product update to our FreeAgent Friendly practices announcing, amongst a few other things, some significant improvements to our journal entry process which is of most value to our accountant partners.
Specifically on the question around payments on account, retainers and deposits, this has come up, but is not the most frequently requested improvement. That said it is absolutely in our plans to deliver this capability in the near future. We are currently working on supporting client-level account balances, which is a prerequisite to enabling us to support this properly, and I can assure you we will make sure all interested parties know as soon as this is available.
Kevin McCallum
Business Development Director
FreeAgent
FreeAgent user data retention
Just to clarify our position on the retention of data.
We do retain user data for a number of month after accounts have been cancelled, after which point the data is deleted. This is actually a data protection issue, and we believe users would not expect data to be retained indefinitely after an account has been cancelled. We inform users of this at the point of cancellation.
I believe Xero and Clearbooks both have similar policies for what it’s worth.
We also can put accounts into a read-only format, and we do this in occasional situations, like when a customer changes business type and needs to maintain historic accounts, but I would stress that this is the exception rather than the rule.
Supporting an official read-only mode is a user request we do hear, so it’s something we’ll consider for the future.
Kevin McCallum
Business Development Director
FreeAgent