In an effort to ensure Into the White is all prepared for the incoming Make Tax Digital changes, and to streamline some of the day to day administration tasks we’ve trialled quite a few online accounting solutions before finally ditching the Excel spread sheets and folders full of expenditure receipts.

For invoicing and time tracking we’d previously used, and liked a lot, Billings Pro and would still recommend it for freelancers if you don’t have many overheads and aren’t sending out a high number of invoices. However if you want a more joined up admin process tracking client spend / expenses / invoices and provide an overall picture of your business finances you’d need a more heavyweight solution.

There are many leading providers in the online accounting software space but for features and UI we liked Free Agent best. The integrated bank feed makes reconciling expenses and invoices painless and the ability to generate and submit VAT returns within the software is a serious time saver (good riddance to Government Gateway).

Its client / project management features for invoicing and expenses are also very good though I personally still prefer to use Toggl for live time tracking as their desktop App is hard to beat.

Watch the videos below for a brief introduction: