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.

All The Books Are Down

On my return from a relaxing bank holiday weekend, the one brief smile I allowed myself was when someone tweeted:

@spyou unfortunately @clearbooks is down too. so I can’t invoice the people I know not on #facebook. All the #books are down.

Not only was Clear Books down, but so was FaceBook. No matter the size and clout, all web services are susceptible to unexpected downtime.

Admittedly our downtime was longer and where we monumentally went wrong was not having a satisfactory recovery procedure. We thought we did, but we didn’t. It took too long to implement and due to a number of complications, we had to recover data from Saturday.

It was unfortunate that the server failed, but we should expect servers to fail and be prepared accordingly.

Judge Us On How We respond

Please judge us on how we respond to this incident and the steps we take to significantly improve the recovery procedure. This is what we will be doing:

• To regain your confidence we will start documenting regular recovery drills and announcing the results.
• To be completely transparent about our recovery procedure we will set up a thread on Get Satisfaction to outline and discuss our intended setup.

Thank you for your continued support and once again, sorry!

Tim Fouracre

—- Update 2 September 2010 —-

Action Plan

Whereas previously we were using a dual redundancy system (RAID + off site backups on Amazon) we will be putting into place a 5 level redundancy system:

1) RAID on all servers
2) Master / Slave replication – slave will replicate in realtime from master
3) Cold spare database server – will provide a full set of spare parts in the event of a failure of master / slave
4) On site daily backups (dedicated box in our main DC for faster restore in the event of problem with 1 & 2)
5) Off site daily backups (on Amazon EC2 / S3)

For transparency and to show evidence that our new recovery procedures are in place and working we will publish reports of recovery drills in which we replicate a server failure. Additionally, for your peace of mind, we will improve the tools that let you get hold of your own data:

1) We will implement a tool that sends you your backed up data on a regular basis. There will also be the ability to resurrect your own backups so that you can use these as restore points.
2) We will improve our CSV export tools so that you can export the entire Clear Books system to CSV and then import these back into Clear Books.

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

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.

VAT Return

Our VAT return report has changed. We now break down how each box of the VAT return is calculated by itemising the constituent transactions. The system also has a new input box called ‘VAT Treatment’. This only affects users invoicing internationally and has been introduced to better handle VAT.

Mass Update

When explaining your imported bank statement use the Mass Update button to update all similar transactions in one go. This will speed up the time it takes to explain your imported bank statement.

Dividend Vouchers

We have introduced automatic dividend vouchers for limited companies.

CIS Online Filing

Following on from our online VAT filing, our first few CIS returns have been successfully submitted online from Clear Books to HMRC.

User Backups

We have disabled our emailed user backups for a number of reasons. Of course we still continue to store backups of your data internally, but in terms of an emailed personal backup we will be implementing a new process in the future.

iPhone App

Progress continues with the iPhone app and we hope to have something to show next month.

Company News

This month we have taken on three new developers so a big welcome to Alpha, Ed and Matt.

If you use twitter then please give us a prompt and tweet…

We use @clearbooks accounting software and it is brilliant

…or some other superlative and we will add you to our new Clear Books users list so that we can keep track of all our users on twitter and interact with you better.

You suggest the ideas and we implement them

Three highly voted ideas were implemented this month. The bank reconciliation tool and the ability to send remittance advice to suppliers have both been implemented as a direct response to you voting these ideas up in Get Satisfaction. We have also redone our aged debtors and creditors reports, which had been requested by our accounting partners. So if you have an idea that you would like to see implemented in Clear Books please vote it up on Get Satisfaction.

We have some good news on the development front too which should see more ideas come to fruition. As of 5th July our dedicated development team will be four people strong.

We can win an award with your help!

Thanks again to all of you who have completed the Software Satisfaction Survey to give us a shot at an industry award. If you haven’t yet you still have until the 14th July to make your vote count. You can take the survey here.

Construction Industry Scheme

Our CIS reporting feature is now live with the ability to send your CIS return online to HMRC from within Clear Books. If you need help with the CIS feature take a look at our Online CIS Filing Help Article. As far as we know we are the first and only online accounting system to support online filing of CIS returns to HMRC.

Some of the other things we have been working on…

• Unit prices can now be hidden on invoices
• Date & time shown on printed PDF reports
• Pro forma invoices are available
• VAT101 EC sales report added

Company news

You may have seen in a recent blog post that we have broken through the 500 milestone. In fact in June alone we are on target for a record month of 100 new subscribers. This is fantastic! We are really pleased to be gaining traction so thank you for your support!

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.

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

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.

Now to set accmanpro straight on a couple of points.

“Their goal is to explore the online accounting market, its size, how quickly it is growing and to compare it with the traditional accounting software market…It turns out that was at best a misrepresentation and at worst a lie.”

All vendors were emailed by me and told, “All those who particpate will receive a copy of the finalised comparison report. And to be completely open, the students are doing a separate section specific to Clear Books which you will not be receiving, but this is not relevant to the comparison or the data you provide anyway.” In the end we decided to just published the entire thing.

“It now turns out that ClearBooks is a JBS client.”

We did not pay the students [Edit: or anyone at the University ] - they are students after all! They were our clients in as much as we set their objectives and that much was obvious from my original post.

“you can be sure that ClearBooks agenda figures into the equation”

Untrue. We set the objectives and let the students get on with it. We gave them access to data and customers but had no impact otherwise. It’s not in our interest and this is where a fundamental point is missed about the nature of our business. We are interested in feedback to improve the system not in any hidden agenda.

“Furthermore, while the report singles out Xero, Kashflow, FreeAgent, Winweb and FreshBooks it says nothing about ClearBooks financial performance.”

We have been open about our performance since we launched so there is nothing afoot here. As a reminder our user numbers are here [Edit: To calculate our financials you need to perform the simple calculation of user numbers x average subscription price]. Fair enough that Clear Books wasn’t included in the report, but I guess the students expected us to know our own numbers! As I have already mentioned, Clear Books had no input aside setting the objectives and marking a presentation at the end of the project.

“That might be because there is no entry under that name at Companies House. I could go on but we’ll leave it there for the moment”

This is now starting to get ridiculous. Try searching for ”Clear Books Limited” instead of ”ClearBooks”.

“ClearBooks knew the research was underway, knew the terms under which it was being conducted and probably provided considerable assistance in framing the research. It doesn’t take a genius with knowledge of web stats more than 2 seconds to figure out that setting up a bot to drive traffic would be the obvious next step.”

I had to laugh out loud at this one! The truth of the matter is that we had a very large survey conducted which was responsible for the spike.  As outlined here 37,459 people took the survey but in the end more than 50,000 did. Again, we had no input on the students’ research.

[Edit: Look at this screenshot of our monthly unique visitors from google analytics to see that we did actually get 30k unique visitors in the month of May despite the spike caused by our survey in April].

“It is far from clear whether Google ranking alone let alone page views is any indicator of popularity or – as the report states – ‘fairing well.’”

A lesson in SEO is required here.

“In all the years I have been conducting and poring over research, I have never seen a radar diagram of the kind that is shown at bottom left.”

Apart from the perfection arrow being pointed at the wrong diagram, am I the only one that can see that, yes, Clear Books did very well in some areas but also worse in others? I hope I am not sounding like a broken record but again we had no input on these studies whatsoever… we are too busy trying to develop an awesome online accounting app and fending off rogue articles.

“Given they were MBA students”

Not that it is really here nor there but they were actually MST students, a slip up I made and corrected in my original post.

“The bigger problem is that ClearBooks will use the kudos of an academic institute to add gravitas to something that I see as of questionable value and worth.”

Kudos to us then, I suppose :)

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.

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.