Comments on: Accounting for freelancers: I can be my own accountant!

By: Sheila

Sheila — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 09:09:25 +0000

Hey Fiona,
This was interesting. Any chance of an article on tax considerations for freelance journalists? Does one need to charge VAT, etc?
Thanks.

By: john

john — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:48:20 +0000

Good review. I think your and Ralph's comments about the benefits of your accountant being able to login are so important. I think the days of downloading an accounts package are numbered – in particular for freelancers and SME's.

By: Burton Haynes

Burton Haynes — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:08:16 +0000

I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!

By: wagster

wagster — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:59:59 +0000

I used Freshbooks for a while – it seems to be the market leader at the moment. It was most impressive with more than enough features for most freelances. Unfortunately, the only way of adding another currency is to start a second account with a second currency, which makes it impossible to manage. I switched to Curdbee, which allows multiple currencies and is easy to use and really cheap! It lacks a few features such as decent reporting, but they are in the pipeline apparently. If they show up I'll stay there.

By: Fiona White

Fiona White — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:22:30 +0000

Thanks for your comment Ralph. I think that that’s a great idea i.e. your accountant being able to log in and access the same figures you are seeing, it makes things much simpler. Free Agent Central offers an accountant login to their customers also.

By: Ralph Smith

Ralph Smith — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:28:02 +0000

Good Article Fiona, We are accountants based in Galway and we sell a comparable product called Xero. Which is a full accounts package online. The beauty of Xero being there is no sending Data to your accountant. Your accountant can access the data live.

Ralph
Do My Books

By: Anthony Casey

Anthony Casey — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:18:54 +0000

Good article Fiona, we are about to launch a new accounting product on the market for Freelancers and consultants. This is a managed acccounting and tax service whereby you provide the timesheet, we invoice on your behalf, arrange all salary/money transfers in the most tax efficient manner. All compliance issues are also looked after; VAT, PAYE, CRO etc. Have a look http://www.i-finance.ie – intelligent financial solutions.

By: Fiona White

Fiona White — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:35:40 +0000

Hi Janine, Thanks for your comment! The extra info is very helpful.
Fiona

By: Janine

Janine — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:27:04 +0000

Thanks for the roundup Fiona. I find Freshbooks invaluable for tracking my time on projects. It’s great being able to just click a button to see how long I spent on various tasks – very handy for working out estimates for new projects as well as accurate invoicing. I actually just use a free a/c for time tracking though, and still use Quickbooks for my accounts (similar to Big Red Books) as I’m old skool and like to have full accounts in the traditional ledger, Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet format. You don’t need any accounting knowledge to use it though – it’s just money in and money out. I use a free version – Quickbooks simple start – it seems to be limited to 20 clients these days but is still available if anyone’s interested: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/free-accounting-software.jsp (note that it isn’t localised for Irish tax settings etc, so investing in software tailored for the Irish market is advised if you need this).

Just one point for freelancers to be aware of regardless of what accounting method they use. Sole traders are supposed to keep 6 years of financial records on file. So, if you’re using an online only solution, it’s best to save exports to your computer, and with any computerised option it’s best to print a hard copy of vital records to fulfill this obligation.