Replies (8)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
Hi John, can you please expand on what this means please: "Accountants will be able to join the NatWest/FreeAgent “advisory eco-system” by paying a £3.00 monthly subscription per client."
Surely this is the sentence that is likely to be of most interest to your site's audience?
FreeAgent is free to the small business (via Nat West). Why are accountants picking up a £3 tab here?
You pay £3 per month to have the client added to your FreeAgent Practice dashboard.
It makes no sense to me either, and for these clients I just login via the client's portal as 'The accountant'. Cost £0.
We already have some of our clients using FreeAgent.
As with any software it needs hand holding and support.
Which we provide to our clients, some needing more than others.
Are NatWest/RBS going to do this?
It will be a lot cheaper for us and if the banks are effectively picking up the bookkeeping support, it could be a good thing.
Really?
This is the last thing I would want to do, if your client has stuffed up their bookkeeping it will set off alerts bank side and they will be jumping through expensive hoops before you can say "blimey enforced factoring is expensive"
I always recommend clients keep their loans and transnational banking apart, the less the banks can see the better.
This must be all about risk assessments for the bank and trying to get out if they perceive a risk. Exactly the opposite of what is good for your client, what they want is to get through a bad patch before the bank notices and withdraws funding / ramps up their fees.
You are probably right IRSKTB.
Luckily most of my clients take my advice not to borrow and to keep away from the likes of RBS/NatWest.
But I am sure a few will be caught by these salesmen.
I'm the treasurer of a sports association which is a NatWest customer. Can't see a downside for us; free accounting software and presumably integration to automate transaction downloads from the bank statement. Sounds pretty good to me.
Probably in your case coops it will work because you know what you are doing. Many small business clients will not be as IT/Accounting savvy and will expect their accountant to sort the mess.
So new contractor start up client comes to me, I form his company and get him to open an account with NatWest instead of another high street bank.
NatWest give him Freeagent for free saving me £300 as I would normally pick up tab for the software.
Am I missing something?