What Clear Books accounting software is all about

Today I was asked in an email what Clear Books is all about. Here is my answer:

What is Clear Books?

Clear Books is an online accounting system for small businesses.

Goals of the accounts system

Clear and Simple: We are developing a system that will not overpower small businesses with accounting jargon. We want to keep things simple and guide the user through the often baffling experience of maintaining accounts and keeping on top of the bookkeeping.
Easy and Time-saving: We are developing a system that utilises the functionality of the web to make processes easy and quick. We aim to save our users time so that they can get on with running their business.

Flexibility

The system is ‘On Demand’ / ‘In the Cloud’ / or more simply ‘Online’. It can be accessed anywhere and at any time.
e.g. at work, at a client, at a supplier, on holiday, in a cafe or on the train.
Multiple users can access and use the system at the same time. For example you could be logged in at the same time as your accountant to review and discuss particular reports or issues.
Most incumbent accounting systems are constrained to the desktop the software is installed on. Clear Books has a flexible advantage.

Updates and upgrades

The solution is online which means we can update and upgrade the system without the user requiring the need to install critical patches.
We have many ideas for new features and benefits to extend the core accounting system. These will be rolled out as and when completed. The user will benefit immediately.

Free in Beta Testing

Clear Books is due for an official launch in the coming months. It is currently in beta and free for anyone to trial. What is more, when subscriptions are introduced, all users may begin on our “Clear Books Start-up” package for free until the usage limit is exceeded.

Free: Helping start-ups in the recession (and always)

“Clear Books Start-up” package is completely free.
Small businesses will never have to pay to use the system providing they don’t exceed the usage limits.
This is an effort to help new businesses and small businesses use an accounts package to keep on top of their bookkeeping and ensure better financial controls over their business activities.
Clear Books will help small businesses manage and grow their business successfully.

Paid Subscriptions

For the larger businesses placing demands on the system with the volume of transactions, a subscription fee will be charged.
Clear Books aims to be competitive if not cheaper than the competition, offering value for money.

Cool Features

Import Tool Used to speed up entering and managing data from your bank statement. The tool learns to recognise recurring transactions. It really does make keeping your accounts up to date a breeze.
Email Invoices Email your customers a link to a statement of all their activity so that they can view and print off any quotes or invoices.
API Our API allows a user to feed in accounting data from another system to quickly populate the accounts.
Projects The projects feature allows a user to track the profitability of events, divisions or projects. This gives a better understanding of the profitability on a project by project basis and therefore to isolate successes and failures.

Import Tool Screenshot

Standard Features

Security

Data is backed up every night so that our users can be confident their data is safe.
We use 256 bit data encryption, the same used for Internet banking.
Each customer account has a segregated database installation.

I've always been interested in computers and finance. I started out as a PHP developer and later qualified as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG.

Programming and accounting came together when I co-founded Clear Books online accounting software back in July 2008.