Frequently Asked Questions

An internet connection and a few spare minutes to get signed up and logged in. There are no lengthy downloads, critical updates or patches to install. The first 30 days are completely free with no obligation to pay. This gives you the opportunity to explore the system.

Clear Books accounting software has been accredited by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. To read more about the accreditation please visit accounting software review.

The Internet continues to become increasingly accessible whether from the office, home, a coffee shop, or even on the train so there is always an alternative option in important circumstances. If your primary Internet connection is disrupted then, as with all Internet dependent tools such as email, this would affect your ability to use Clear Books.

On the other hand, an advantage of web hosted accounting software is that if your desktop computer capitulates and you lose everything on your machine, your online accounting data will be safe as it is stored on Clear Books servers and backed up regularly.

Clear Books is backed by a successful company, Fubra Limited, which has been operating since 2000, has a strong balance sheet, a history of profitability and runs a large number of websites with more than 3 million subscribers to its network. Read more about Clear Books and the team behind the software.

Clear Books can be configured to work in all countries. We have a multi currency option which will allow you to set up your account in the home currency of your choice and create bank accounts, invoices and bills in multiple currencies. You can also set up a custom tax rates.

Clear Books is easy to use online accounting software. What makes our system different from your typical desktop accounting software is that Clear Books is accessible online, anywhere with an Internet connection and at anytime.

Head to Reports > All and click on the Void Sales report under the ‘Exceptions’ header.

Click on the appropriate invoice number and hit the ‘copy’ button. This will create an exact duplicate of the invoice you have voided. Click ‘confirm invoice’ to return the invoice back into your sales ledger – Sales > Invoices > Unpaid.

Head to Purchases>Suppliers and add a new supplier to represent your shareholder. When creating the new supplier click on the ‘More Settings’ link and update the ‘Employment Status’ to director.

If you have already created a supplier to represent the shareholder, head to Purchases>Suppliers and click on the ‘edit contact’ icon under the options column for the appropriate supplier. Hit the ‘More Settings’ link and update the ‘Employment Status’ to director.

A recurring invoice allows you to account for a regular purchase or sale for the same amount without having to create an invoice on each occasion.

Navigate to either.

“Sales > Invoices > Recurring”.

“Purchases >  Bills > Recurring”.

Select “New Recurring Invoice” or “New Recurring Bill”.

Enter details of the recurring invoice. The recurring invoice form is similar to the usual Clear Books invoice form except there are some added fields:

Frequency.  Select the frequency you want the recurring invoice to be sent out.

Occurrences. Enter the number of times the recurring invoice should be sent out.

Here you can choose whether to create the recurring as a draft or as an approved invoice to go straight to the customer (if customer emails are enabled) and into the Clear Books system.

Select “Confirm Invoice”.

Navigate to recurring invoices under either “purchases” or “sales” and check that the new recurring invoice has been created.

This can be editted by navigating to Settings > Periods.

Simply navigate to Settings > Toggle Features > Invoicing & Expenses > Tick ‘Email with Attached PDF’.

The default text can be editted by navigating to Sales > Email > Templates.

There are two methods to setting Discounts, details for this can be found on the ‘Applying a Discount’ Help guide.

Navigate to money> banking and click on new account. Select the account type

from the list and fill its details, settings and payment methods. Once that’s done click save.

You can reset your Clear Books data by navigating to:

Settings > Reset

In our Reports section there are a number of exports available including contacts, invoices and transactions. These files can be downloaded in CSV format at any time.

For peace of mind there is an additional option to receive an email on a periodic basis with your full accounts data attached, or alternatively you can create a data restore point and manually download a copy of your data.

Our servers run the Linux operating system, which is generally regarded as one of the most stable and secure platforms for hosting websites. We install the bare minimum of required software to reduce the risk of being infected with viruses, and we use secure connections for all backups and server administration tasks. Our systems are monitored and audited by our dedicated server administration team who regularly apply security patches to keep our software up to date.

Your data is backed up regularly and stored in multi-site locatons. We aim to have a minimum of 7 daily snapshots of your data at any one time, whereas with traditional accounting software you are confined to the one installation on your desktop. So unless you regularly backup your data at least seven times a day, run no other software on the machine and keep your OS fully up to date with the latest security patches you’re better off using Clear Books.

The Data Export Tool allows you to export your accounting data to another system in CSV format. CSVs can be used in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, and iWork Numbers.

Using the export tool is simple, you can find it on the main menu under “Tools > Export”. Clear Books currently supports one file format: CSV (which stands for Comma Separated Variables). This is the simplest spreadsheet format, and it works with Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, and iWork Numbers.

You can download the reports for any accounts year that you have set up on Clear Books. You can export all sorts of Clear Books including, All Contacts, Customers, Suppliers, General Ledger, Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger.

You can retrieve your data by using the data export tool to export your accounting data in CSV format.

However you must have an active Clear Books subscription to access your data.

60 days after an account is closed the data will be purged.

Inactive trial accounts will be purged after 6 months.

Data from closed accounts will be purged after 60 days.

Inactive trial accounts will be purged after 6 months.

Navigate to either Sales> Customers or Purchases> Suppliers

and select Merge Contact at the bottom of the list. Here you can merge contacts by

Using the Merge this Contact, into this Contact, drop down Menus.

The growth plan is only available to businesses that are not VAT registered.

If you are VAT registered  you will not have the growth plan as an option.

When your free trial expires you will be asked to sign up to a fixed monthly subscription price plan. The price plans vary depending on the number of transactions you process.

Click on the “Sales” menu option to view a list of all unpaid invoices. Click on the particular invoice number that you would like to mark as paid.

Using the Quick Pay method at the bottom of the page record the payment details (amount, date paid, bank account and a description).

Head to Sales>Invoices>Paid click on the invoice number and hit the ‘edit’ button.

Most fields are greyed out when editing a paid invoice, if you need to update these fields you will need to remove the payment. To do this click on the invoice number and hit the ‘Void’ button. When prompted delete just the payment.

The invoice will return to the unpaid tab, here you can click on the invoice number and ‘edit’ all the invoice details.

Dividends can be paid by navigating to “Money>Manage Money” and creating a “Money Out” transaction on a particular bank account. Explain the transaction by using the dividend account code and fill in the rest of the form as appropriate.

Once completed all dividends will be listed in “Purchases>Dividends”.

A Dividend Voucher will be created each time displaying the Net Dividend, Tax Credit and Gross Dividend.

First head to “Setting >  Codes > List” and make sure ‘Trade Debtors’ appears in the sales list and ‘Trade Creditors’ appears in the purchases list.

Once this is done head back to “Money > Banking” and click on the imported statement that you would like to explain.

To create a payment on account for a customer, explain the receipt using the ’Trade Debtors’ nominal account.

To create a payment on account for a supplier, explain the payment using the ’Trade Creditors’ nominal account.

To create a payment on account for a customer head to “Sales > Money In”

To create a payment on account for a supplier head to “Purchases > Money Out”

The transaction counter is reset on your subscription date each month and unused transactions are lost.

Each business you add requires a separate subscription.

You will be alerted if you approach your monthly transaction limit. When your limit is reached you will not be able to process further transactions until the following month. To process further transactions you will need to upgrade your subscription. You can downgrade if you prefer to return to your original plan.

Clear Books Swift and IBAN numbers are as follows:

Swift: BARCGB22
IBAN: GB63 BARC 2061 8273 971791

Select the Clear Books account you wish to close; to do this click on the drop down menu to the top right of Clear Books and click on the business that needs un-subscribing.

Once in the business that you want to delete “Navigate Home > Subscription.”

To the bottom of the ”Subscription” page you will find the text “To cancel your account click here”, click on the link to close your account.

Yes Clear Books offers a system to manage payroll online.

To access Open Payroll log in to Clear Books and use the drop-down box to the top right hand corner of the menu to switch between the two.

Currently Open Payroll costs £1 / month for each employee that you would like to process payroll data for. You can create a new subscription for Open Payroll by entering the number of employees in the ’# Employees’ box and hitting the ‘Subscribe’ button.

To view your Clear Books invoices simply log in to your Fubra Passport and select your business from the top right drop down (next to the log out button). From this page you will be able to view your subscription history.

Yes, we do offer a Reseller Scheme. More information can be found here.

There are no up front costs to joining Clear Books. Customers can sign up and get a  fully featured 30 day free trial and then chose a price plan that best suits them.

There are no long term contracts you can cancel your subscription at any time. Customers can also upgrade and downgrade their plans whenever they like.

Here are details of the different price plans.

Clear Books offers a free customer support email address – support@clearbooks.co.uk.

At present Clear Books does not offer a support phone number, but every customer should normally receive a response to their emails within 24 hours although we are usually quicker.

Clear Books also offers Class Room Training for £100 per person and Webinar Training for £50 per person. Head to the Home>Subscription menu to sign up for a training session.

We can only offer an annual subscription to the Premium plan if you would like to pay for your subscription by either bank transfer or cheque.

The annual price for the Premium plan is £162 +VAT.

As our whole billing process is automated we don’t do manual billing due to the admin involved. However, we do make an exception if a customer would like to pay annually as in that case the admin is reduced (1 invoice, 1 payment to check).

Unfortunately we also cannot offer annual subscriptions to either the Growth or Established plan as there would be no way of tracking the number of transactions processed.

If you are a charity and therefore entitled to the concessions rate we can offer the annual concessions subscription to be paid for by bank transfer or cheque.

The annual price for the Concessions plan is £72 +VAT.

Navigate to “Settings > Organisation > Toggle Features” and click on the “Invoicing & Expenses” tab. Turn on “VAT on Purchases”. This will allow you to record the VAT on purchases for informational purposes.

You can invite as many users as required for each account you have on Clear Books at no additional cost.

You can edit User Permissions by navigating to Home > Users and clicking the Edit Icon for the relevent User. This allows you to restrict access to specific areas within Clear Books.

More information can be found here.

Navigate to “Home > Users”.

To add a user click on the “Invite User” button and enter an email address and the required user access permissions.

Users can be edited or deleted by clicking on the appropriate icon on the list of users.

Navigate to “Money” and click on the edit icon for the relevant account. Under the “Settings” tab turn “Show on dashboard” to “No”.

You can add a Directors Loan Account by navigating to:

Money > Banking > New Account > + Directors Loan Account.

Any money loaned to the company will put the DLA into a negative amount until it has been paid back.

You would need to initially setup the Statement Fields so Clear Books will import the CSV correctly. For more info on the Bank Import Tool please follow the Help guide here.

Head to “Money > Banking” and click on the edit icon beside the appropriate bank account name. Update the bank details as required.

Navigate to money> banking> list of accounts and click on the edit account icon for the desired bank account, next to view statement.

Next select the payment methods tab, here you can tick the the pre-existing payment methods you want like standing orders or cheque, or write in your own payment method and select add.

Head to “Money > Banking > Unallocated Cash”.

The REC prefixed invoices are system automated invoices created when either explaining a receipt on an imported statement or a ‘money in’ transaction from Money>Manage Money. They are typically used when an invoice is not raised and you just want to record the receipt into your accounts.

A prefix before an invoice is way of differentiating what type of Invoice it is.  The prefix INV represents a Sales Invoice created on the “Sales>Invoices” menu. The prefix INV can be changed on the “Settings>Invoices>Preferences” menu.

Typically your sales invoice numbering will start from INV000001. Should you wish to start from a number other than 1, you can set your starting number in “Settings>Invoices>Preferences”

To create a Pro forma invoice simply navigate to:

Sales > Quotes > New Quote > Quote type ‘Pro Forma Invoice’.

To create a Sales Order simply navigate to:

Sales > Quotes > New Quote > Quote type ‘Sales Order’.

To create a Estimate simply navigate to:

Sales > Quotes > New Quote > Quote type ‘Estimate’.

The PAY prefixed bills are system automated bills created when either explaining a payment on an imported statement or a ‘money out’ transaction from Money>Manage Money. They are typically used when a bill is not raised and you just want to record the payment out of your accounts.

A prefix before an invoice is way of differentiating what type of Invoice it is. The prefix PUR represents a purchase invoice (Bill) created on the “Purchase>Bills” menu. The prefix PUR can be changed on the “Settings>Invoices>Preferences” menu.

Typically your purchase invoice numbering will start from PUR000001. Should you wish to start from a number other than 1, you can set your starting number in “Settings>Invoices>Preferences”.

To create a purchase order, you first have to turn on purchase order function in settings> toggle features

Now when you select purchases on the home page, purchase orders will appear as a sub menu this.

You can change your email address by navigating to settings> organisation> setup> contact details.

You can also change your trading address and company details here.

Clear Books can create Multi-Currency invoices and bills.

This feature needs to be toggled on first by Navigating to “Settings > Toggle Features”and Toggle on “Multicurrency”

This will enable a link to edit your multi currency settings.

Click on the link to choose your currencies and set your rates.

These will appear in your currency drop down box when creating transactions.

To set the exchange rate yourself enter your chosen value into the rate box. For variable daily rates taken from the ECB leave the rate box empty.

Navigate to settings> invoices> preferences and type the number in the first invoice number

Navigate to Settings> organisation> and select the logo sub menu. Here you can upload your company logo.

It must be in a gif, jpg, png, format.

Given the scenario where an agent invoices a tenant for rent and the agent then retains his commission and passes on the balance to the landlord the following steps should be taken.

Let’s assume rent of 1000, commission of 100 with 900 payable to the landlord.

From Agent’s Perspective 

Create a new account code in “Settings > Codes” called “Rent Owed To Landlord” as a current liability.  This represents the money you (estate agent) owe the landlord.

On receiving rental income of 1000 from the tenant create a sales invoice with two line items. Use the special account code “Rent Owed To Landlord” for the landlord’s share (900) and a standard account code such as “Commission” for your share (100).

On paying the landlord create a “Money Out” transaction for 900 using the account code ”Rent Owed To Landlord” . Doing this will clear down the ”Rent Owed To Landlord” to zero.

If you purchase a personal item on either a business credit or debit card you will need to explain the transaction using the account ‘Loans Payable’. When you repay your business create a ‘money in’ transaction for the appropriate account on the Money>Manage Money menu. Again use the account ’Loans Payable’ when explaining this transaction so that the amount that has built up in this account is cancelled down.

If you incurred the cost yourself, then you can use the Expenses module (“Purchases > Expenses”) to record the mileage and reclaim it from your company.

Use account code: Mileage;
Qty: number of miles;
Unit Price: 40p.

To add a shareholder in Clear Books you will need to update a supplier as a Director. To do this head to “Purchases > Supplier” and create a new supplier. Use the ‘more settings’ link and update the employment status field to Director.