I was so sad to hear this terrible news. As a number of people have said already, John was such a central figure in our industry that it seems difficult to think of him not being there.
I first encountered John a little over 20 years ago, and since then I've always very much enjoyed whatever polite grilling I was getting, and there was always a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and his journalistic instincts kept him digging.
A true one-off, and he will be hugely missed. I would agree that Legend sums it up nicely.
I'd agree with you Charlie, on both points. We wouldn't say price, or lack of one, is the principle driver here, but it can help in a number of cases.
On your second point, we're certainly focused on improving efficiency and saving time for our users, and as mentioned in the article, now we exist within the wider bank group, we will have some head start on delivery in these kinds of capabilities.
I'm sorry to hear that Sarah, and I like to think we are normally very responsive and helpful in our interactions with our customers and partners.
I'd be happy to meet with you at our offices if you are Edinburgh at some point in the future and we could maybe discuss this further?
Your understanding with regards to the data sharing agreement is correct, and whilst we always look to be clear and transparent in everything we do - as well as in our t&cs - we will continue to make sure this is laid out in the necessary detail, especially for our accountant partners.
Just to address some of the points raised in these comments, FreeAgent will continue to operate on an operationally independent basis, and there will be no changes to our brand, to our existing management team or our approach to business.
As we do now, we will continue to focus on both customers who come to us directly as well as our accountancy practice partners, and we will absolutely continue to provide the best possible experience and support for any customer or client whether they bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or any other bank.
In fact with the advent of Open Banking we will soon be able to support even better bank transaction feeds than we do now for all of the major banks - and likely every UK bank in the not too distant future.
Specifically on the points relating to access and use of data, there will be no financial information shared with RBS without prior explicit consent from the user, and this will not be a requirement to use FreeAgent.
With the new GDPR regulations coming into force in May of this year, users will be able to choose to share financial data or not, know how that data will be used, and how they can stop sharing data should they wish. We've been working towards this over the past few months and are on track to deliver these capabilities in advance of GDPR coming into effect.
Shared data will not include personal details of customers and suppliers as we cannot be sure the necessary consents will have been obtained for that data itself to be shared.
I hope this helps, but we would of course be very happy to answer any other questions either here or feel free to email me on [email protected] directly.
@Char, from the FreeAgent side, we've always attempted to be as accessible as possible to all users, be they clients or accountants, wherever they come into the process.
This means not making clients feel distanced in their understanding of their business finances, but still making all the necessary tools and functionality available to accountants.
We're of the view that engaged and happy clients who take an interest in maintaining their banking, invoices, expenses etc are easier to manage at a practice level, and are more likely to have up to date and accurate data.
This can be a fine balance to strike, and is something we spend a great amount of time and effort on. In our experience and from the feedback we receive this approach is recognised as a genuine positive by thousands of users and hundreds of practices.
There is a lot of SME accounting software out there that claims to be simple yet powerful. For at least a few of these, this is at least stretching the meaning of the word "simple" from my point of view.
On the subject of deferred tax codes specifically, our corporation tax codes can be (and indeed are) used by many accountants to post deferred tax provisions.
Do let me know if you'd like us to take you through all of features and benefits of FreeAgent, beyond the compliance side, from both the client and practice viewpoint in more detail.
My answers
I was so sad to hear this terrible news. As a number of people have said already, John was such a central figure in our industry that it seems difficult to think of him not being there.
I first encountered John a little over 20 years ago, and since then I've always very much enjoyed whatever polite grilling I was getting, and there was always a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and his journalistic instincts kept him digging.
A true one-off, and he will be hugely missed. I would agree that Legend sums it up nicely.
I'd agree with you Charlie, on both points. We wouldn't say price, or lack of one, is the principle driver here, but it can help in a number of cases.
On your second point, we're certainly focused on improving efficiency and saving time for our users, and as mentioned in the article, now we exist within the wider bank group, we will have some head start on delivery in these kinds of capabilities.
I'm sorry to hear that Sarah, and I like to think we are normally very responsive and helpful in our interactions with our customers and partners.
I'd be happy to meet with you at our offices if you are Edinburgh at some point in the future and we could maybe discuss this further?
Your understanding with regards to the data sharing agreement is correct, and whilst we always look to be clear and transparent in everything we do - as well as in our t&cs - we will continue to make sure this is laid out in the necessary detail, especially for our accountant partners.
Thank you for the feedback.
That's exactly right, and we do look to very transparent with this for all users, even in advance of the GDPR changes in May.
Just to address some of the points raised in these comments, FreeAgent will continue to operate on an operationally independent basis, and there will be no changes to our brand, to our existing management team or our approach to business.
As we do now, we will continue to focus on both customers who come to us directly as well as our accountancy practice partners, and we will absolutely continue to provide the best possible experience and support for any customer or client whether they bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or any other bank.
In fact with the advent of Open Banking we will soon be able to support even better bank transaction feeds than we do now for all of the major banks - and likely every UK bank in the not too distant future.
Specifically on the points relating to access and use of data, there will be no financial information shared with RBS without prior explicit consent from the user, and this will not be a requirement to use FreeAgent.
With the new GDPR regulations coming into force in May of this year, users will be able to choose to share financial data or not, know how that data will be used, and how they can stop sharing data should they wish. We've been working towards this over the past few months and are on track to deliver these capabilities in advance of GDPR coming into effect.
Shared data will not include personal details of customers and suppliers as we cannot be sure the necessary consents will have been obtained for that data itself to be shared.
I hope this helps, but we would of course be very happy to answer any other questions either here or feel free to email me on [email protected] directly.
Kevin McCallum
Chief Commercial Officer
FreeAgent
Balance
@Char, from the FreeAgent side, we've always attempted to be as accessible as possible to all users, be they clients or accountants, wherever they come into the process.
This means not making clients feel distanced in their understanding of their business finances, but still making all the necessary tools and functionality available to accountants.
We're of the view that engaged and happy clients who take an interest in maintaining their banking, invoices, expenses etc are easier to manage at a practice level, and are more likely to have up to date and accurate data.
This can be a fine balance to strike, and is something we spend a great amount of time and effort on. In our experience and from the feedback we receive this approach is recognised as a genuine positive by thousands of users and hundreds of practices.
There is a lot of SME accounting software out there that claims to be simple yet powerful. For at least a few of these, this is at least stretching the meaning of the word "simple" from my point of view.
On the subject of deferred tax codes specifically, our corporation tax codes can be (and indeed are) used by many accountants to post deferred tax provisions.
Do let me know if you'd like us to take you through all of features and benefits of FreeAgent, beyond the compliance side, from both the client and practice viewpoint in more detail.
Kevin McCallum
Business Development Director
FreeAgent