All The Books Are Back Up
To all our faithful users, we are truly sorry for any inconvenience caused on Tuesday 31st August 2010. Believe me, there is no one more frustrated than the team at Clear Books and Fubra right now. Our reputation and our business is dependent on providing a fantastic service and we fell short of the mark on Tuesday. 
CIS Business Prefers Online Accounting Software
Marble Construction very kindly gave up some of their time to do the following customer video testimonial. Marble Construction operate in the building trade and are subject to the Construction Industry Scheme. In this short video they discuss how Clear Books has helped their company grow.
We are looking to do further testimonials covering a range of organisation types and industries. If you are a user of Clear Books and interested in participating then please contact support@clearbooks.co.uk outlining:
1. Organisation Name
2. Organisation Type (Limited Company, Charity, Sole Trader)
3. Industry
4. Number of Employees
5. Location
Proof read your CV before you apply for a job
Clear Books is recruiting for a Sales and Marketing Manager at the moment. We have started to receive a few CVs but it is amazing to see how many candidates do not proof read their CV properly.
Here are some mistakes that I have noticed in the first few CVs:
- Leaving out degree classification (the first thing I scan for).
- Basic grammatical mistakes such as the difference between “where” and “were” and the use of “have” and “has”.
- Leaving out date of birth (which puts achievements in context).
- When using bullet point lists inconsistent use of full stops e.g.
- bullet 1
- bullet 2.
- bullet 3
- Randomly capitalising words in the middle of sentences that should not be capitalised.
- Strange ordering of academic subjects (either order alphabetically or by grade, but not randomly).
A CV is a one page opportunity for a candidate to sell themselves. There are no excuses for missing information, grammatical mistakes or inconsistent presentation no matter how minor the details.
Clear Books: About as good as you get when it comes to an entry-level online accounting system
It’s official, Clear Books is “About as good as you get when it comes to an entry-level online accounting system” according to the Software Shortlist. It was great to see Clear Books going toe to toe with the likes of Clarity Accounting, KashFlow, MoneyWorks Express, MYOB AccountRight Standard v19 (nee MYOB Accounting), Peach First Accounting 2010, Quickbooks Accounting, Saasu, Simply Accounting and Xero. We got 4 stars out of 5 which put us joint second in the ratings.
Product Review
About as good as you get when it comes to an entry-level online accounting system, with some great additional features on the way. Hard to fault, really. Remember, though, it is very low end.What we liked: The first thing that stood out was the simplicity of product and the clean design of the user interface. We particularly like that it retained some ownership of accounting terms that are quiet often ignored in small business products. The simplicity of getting started was a highlight, only a minute after registering we were able to get a sales invoice emailed off. While Clearbooks has all the necessary features for an accounting system, you can simplify it further to be purely a basic invoicing system. This strips out the functions associated with purchasing. We really like that when you email an invoice to a customer, they have online links to view it easily- including their statement.
What we didn’t like: We are not that keen on transaction-based pricing models, as we don’t feel that a business can be defined by the number of transactions they complete. But, in saying that, their unlimited package is very cheap, so difficult to complain on that front. Another point is that, for customers outside the UK, there doesn’t appear to be tax reporting. You can fudge the VAT system to work for you but you can’t change VAT to your local tax label (eg. GST). Finally, the support option is good but it is through a third party, and you have to setup an account to access it- you can’t use your Clearbooks login.
Point taken about the labelling of the VAT - we’ll get that sorted. Although our support is in house and if you phone or email our support team, a support rep in our London office will pick up the ticket. We do, in addition, use a third party piece of software called Get Satisfaction which brings our community of users together for collaborative ideas, problems and questions.
I picked up this story from Xero who posted a similar analysis of their review.
Clear Books ‘shoots’ through the 500 milestone
We’ve been a bit pre-occupied of late! So much so that we haven’t yet officially announced our exciting news. We’ve surpassed the 500 customer milestone!
Less than a year ago we had zero customers (and just less than two years ago we didn’t exist) so we are extremely pleased with our progress to date. As we continue to add record customers each month, the next 500 should be reached even faster.
So a big thank you to our loyal gang of Clear Books users, you know who you are, the 500 (and counting) best small businesses in the world!
GQ937DT43RBT
Reaction To Online Accounting Report
We have had a rather Over The Top reaction to our UK Accounting Software Market Report from one “industry expert” in particular.
It’s a real shame because the article written by accmanpro is full of inaccuracies and more alarmingly some rather aggressive accusations. What’s more disappointing though is that this project was a genuine attempt to get involved with a group of young students to produce an interesting report that would be beneficial to the online accounting industry.
Originally we had planned to redact the report to remove all reference to Clear Books specific action points, but in keeping with our normal approach to business we published the report in its entirety.
Clear Books 2010 Cloud Accounting Survey
We emailed 4000 accountants across the UK to get a feel for current attitudes in the profession towards cloud or online accounting software.
Below are the results of the survey.
1. ‘Cloud Computing’ is a buzz word for accounting software accessed on the internet (online accounting software). Did you know this?
Yes = 64%
No = 36%
2. ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) is a buzz word for accounting software provided on demand (Pay As You Go). Did you know this?
Yes = 39%
No = 61%
3. How many clients are in your practice?
1 = 0%
2-10 = 5%
11-50 = 30%
51-150 = 23%
150+ = 42%
4. What percentage of your clients do you estimate are using Cloud Computing (online accounting software)?
Less than 1 = 80%
1-5 = 12%
5-10 = 4%
10-15 = 2%
More than 15 = 2%
5. What is the biggest benefit of Desktop accounting software (e.g. Sage) over Cloud Computing (e.g. Clear Books)?
Security = 16%
Pricing = 12%
Reliability = 5%
Knowledge of how the system works = 35%
Service and support = 0%
Usability = 9%
Not heard of Cloud Computing = 23%
6. What is the biggest obstacle preventing the uptake of Cloud Computing within your practice?
Security = 12%
Pricing = 19%
Reliability = 9%
Knowledge of how the system works = 26%
Service and support = 2%
Usability = 6%
Not heard of Cloud Computing = 26%
7. In 5 years time what mix of Cloud and Desktop accounting software do you envisage amongst your clients?
Majority using cloud = 9%
A 50:50 Split = 33%
Majority using desktop = 58%
8. How long has your current practice been running?
Less than 1 year = 7%
1-3 years = 7%
3-5 years = 11%
5-7 years = 7%
More than 7 years = 68%
9. How will the result of the 2010 election affect your clients?
Positively = 39%
No Affect = 39%
Negatively = 22%
10. What impact has the recession had on the number of clients in your practice?
Positively = 28%
No Affect = 32%
Negatively = 40%
For more information on the survey please feel free to email us on support(at)clearbooks.co.uk.
Clear Books Newsletter – May
Software Satisfaction Awards
We are very excited about entering the Software Satisfaction Awards for the first time this year, the most widely regarded awards in our industry. We would really appreciate it if you could spend a few minutes answering five quick questions to give us a chance of winning. A big thank you to all those who have already completed the survey!
If you would like to take the survey please email support@clearbooks.co.uk and we can check you are a current user, send you the link and pass on our gratitude 
Click to post
For PC users (sorry Mac users… for now) who want to send invoices in the post automatically we now have a very simple integration with a company called Webpost.
Full details about this service here.
Very briefly, sign up to the Webpost service, install their software and then for 40p you can print a black and white invoice in Clear Books and instead of it coming out of a printer it will get sent off to Webpost who will then print it, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and send it in the post for you.
If you are interested in this service please contact support@clearbooks.co.uk for more details.
Surveys are like buses…
We got involved in helping a group of students from Cambridge University with their final year project by setting them the task of investigating the online accounting market. As part of this they have created a bespoke survey to analyse our customers’ requirements to then feed this information back to us so that we can improve our service.
If you would like to help them and us then please take the survey:
Camrbidge University Clear Books Survey
Clear Books updates
Some of the things we have been working on…
- Multiple email addresses enabled
- Manual EC VAT rates on import tool
- Analysis report of expenses per employee (useful for P11D)
- Ehanced statement page to show payments allocated against invoices
- Introduced K codes for payroll
- You can now delete multiple products form your sales and purchases list.
- Supplier statement page updated.
- Entity ID added to exported general ledger
- Fix for filtering recharged expenses
- Payment methods can now be deleted
- PAYE refunds accepted in payroll module
- Month one basis added to payroll
- Alphanumeric VAT numbers allowed for non-UK companies
Company news
We moved offices on Monday in preparation for two new developers we are taking on over the summer. We should be able to start implementing features faster with the additional help. Also keep an eye out for new team member, John, who has joined our support team and will be answering some of your getsatisfaction and zendesk questions.
Feature of the month: Bank Import Tool
The bank import tool allows you to upload a copy of your online business banking statement and quickly check through all your transactions before confirming them to Clear Books, saving you the effort of having to manually enter them in. For more information on the import tool please see the Online VAT Filing Help Article.