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FreeAgent

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 1 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by FreeAgent Central Ltd (a NatWest Group company) · www.freeagent.com

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Founder

Weighted verdict

Runs a twelve-person company and does the books on a Sunday. Wants bank feeds that match themselves, invoices out in a minute, and the VAT return submitted without learning ELSTER. Will pay for the hour saved, and notices when the headline price was not the invoice.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Founder

Bookkeeping core

How this is scored

Double-entry, the chart of accounts (SKR03/SKR04), postings, journals, opening balances and period closing — the ledger underneath the pretty screens.

0 — Income-and-expense lists only; no double-entry, no chart of accounts, no journal.

3 — Simplified bookkeeping suitable for EÜR with a fixed account list; no free posting, no period close.

5 — Double-entry with SKR03/SKR04, manual postings, journals, opening balances and a month-end close.

8 — Full ledger with cost centres, recurring and reversing entries, accruals, multi-year comparatives, and a documented close checklist with locking.

10 — An accountant's ledger: configurable charts including customised accounts, period locking with audit, foreign currency with documented valuation, group or multi-entity handling, and reporting that reconciles to the trial balance.

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The Founder

The captured page sells award-winning accounting software with payroll, but I found no public information on the ledger underneath — nothing on double-entry, an SKR03 or SKR04 chart of accounts, journals, opening balances or a period close. For my Sunday bookkeeping there is no evidenced ledger to judge, so this sits at the bottom with a point only for the general accounting claim. 1

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GoBD, immutability & audit

How this is scored

Whether the record survives a tax audit: unalterable postings, complete change history, retention across the statutory period, and a Verfahrensdokumentation the vendor actually supplies.

0 — Postings can be edited or deleted without trace; no retention statement, no GoBD claim, no documentation.

3 — GoBD asserted on the marketing page with nothing behind it — no described audit trail, no documentation offered, no statement on retention.

5 — Postings become unalterable after close with corrections booked as reversals, a change log exists, and the statutory retention period is stated.

8 — Documented GoBD conformity with a supplied Verfahrensdokumentation template, complete and exportable audit trail, receipts linked to postings, and a GoBD-compliant data export (GDPdU/Z3) for the auditor.

10 — Audit-ready as a product feature: an independent GoBD certification or attestation published, Verfahrensdokumentation maintained per release, tamper-evident journals, retention executed across the full statutory period, and an export the Betriebsprüfer accepts without argument.

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The Founder

I found no public information on GoBD conformity, an audit trail, posting immutability or retention periods anywhere on the captured page; the only compliance statement shown is FCA registration for account information services, which says nothing about a bookkeeping record surviving a tax audit. With no GoBD claim, no change-history description and no documentation offered, this is the absence case. 1

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Tax handling & filings

How this is scored

VAT logic and the filings that follow: UStVA, ELSTER submission, EÜR or Bilanz, OSS for cross-border sales, and reverse-charge handling.

0 — No VAT logic beyond a rate field; no filings, no ELSTER.

3 — VAT rates and a UStVA figure to copy out by hand; no electronic submission, no special cases.

5 — UStVA prepared and submitted electronically via ELSTER, EÜR or a simple balance sheet produced, and reverse-charge and intra-community supply handled.

8 — The above plus OSS handling for cross-border B2C, Zusammenfassende Meldung, small-business (§19) and Ist/Soll taxation, permanent extension (Dauerfristverlängerung), and E-Bilanz where relevant.

10 — The filing year is handled end to end: every routine German filing generated and submitted electronically with validation before sending, cross-border VAT determined from the transaction rather than by hand, and correction filings supported.

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The Founder

Electronic filing is genuinely evidenced — HMRC-recognised Making Tax Digital with VAT and Self Assessment returns submitted directly — but that is HMRC, not ELSTER, and I found no public information on UStVA, EÜR or a balance sheet, OSS, Dauerfristverlängerung or reverse-charge handling. Real electronic submission to a tax authority earns a point above copying figures out by hand, but nothing on the German filing year is evidenced. 1

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Receipts, banking & matching

How this is scored

How evidence and money get into the ledger: bank feeds, receipt capture, OCR, matching rules, and whether the digital receipt is legally sufficient on its own.

0 — Manual entry only; no bank connection, no receipt storage.

3 — Bank statement import by file and receipt upload as plain attachments; matching is entirely manual.

5 — Automatic bank feeds for the major German banks, receipt upload with OCR, suggested matches, and receipts linked to their postings.

8 — PSD2 feeds across many institutions, rule-based automatic matching with learning, e-invoice handling (ZUGFeRD/XRechnung) both directions, and replacement scanning (ersetzendes Scannen) documented so paper can be destroyed.

10 — The evidence chain is closed: every posting reaches its receipt in one click, e-invoicing inbound and outbound as standard, documented compliant archiving of the digital original, and matching accurate enough that exceptions rather than transactions are the work.

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The Founder

FCA registration for account information services is firm evidence of regulated bank-feed connectivity, which is the part of my Sunday I most want to hand off; but the AIS scope is not tied to German banks and I found no public information on receipt capture, OCR, suggested or rule-based matching, or ZUGFeRD/XRechnung handling. Automatic feeds evidenced without any document-side evidence lands this between the two anchors. 1

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Tax adviser handoff

How this is scored

How the books reach the Steuerberater — DATEV above all — and whether the adviser can work in the system rather than around it.

0 — No adviser access and no accounting export; the year-end is a pile of PDFs.

3 — Generic CSV or Excel export described as "suitable for your tax adviser", with no named format.

5 — A documented DATEV export (postings and, ideally, receipts) plus a read-only login for the adviser.

8 — DATEV export including receipt images with correct linking, or a maintained DATEV interface; the adviser gets their own scoped access with an audit of what they changed.

10 — The adviser is a first-class user: bidirectional DATEV exchange including corrections coming back, or a certified interface; period handover with locking, and a workflow where adviser queries are resolved inside the system.

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The Founder

The captured page shows I can invite my accountant or bookkeeper to start working seamlessly together in real time, which points at the adviser working inside the system rather than around it; I found no public information on a DATEV export, on export formats for the year-end, or on what the adviser's access can see and change. Collaboration evidenced, handoff format not. 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the books live and who could be compelled to produce them — plus, uniquely here, whether statutory retention survives leaving the vendor. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed — with a ten-year retention obligation attached to data held abroad.

3 — EU hosting offered while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — OCR, AI categorisation, support tooling — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU or German hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, and a stated export that satisfies retention if the contract ends.

10 — Sovereign and durable: German or EU hosting throughout, every subprocessor European, certification published, and a documented archive export that keeps the customer compliant for the full retention period after they leave.

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The Founder

The contracting entity is FreeAgent Central Ltd registered in Scotland, outside the EU, and I found no public information on hosting location, a subprocessor list, certifications, or an archive export that would keep my retention obligation alive if I left. A named non-EU entity with nothing on record for the rest of the chain sits just above the bottom. 1

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a business can compute the real annual invoice — including the bookings, users, bank accounts and adviser access they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A headline monthly price exists, but booking or document limits, extra users or the tier where DATEV export begins are unstated.

5 — Tier prices public with billing period stated and the main limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (DATEV export, extra bank accounts, adviser seat) sits in an unpriced tier.

8 — Every tier and add-on priced publicly with limits, overage, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; adviser access priced or explicitly free.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given transaction volume, user count and feature set, including overage and the year-end extras.

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The Founder

The only pricing information on the captured page is a 30-day free trial with no payment card required and cancel at any time; I found no public information on tier prices, booking or document limits, extra users, bank accounts or adviser access. I cannot compute even a headline annual invoice from what is public, let alone the real one. 1

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European sovereignty — proven facts

1 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (8)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor page www.freeagent.com Checked 29 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Security / trust page — found from the homepage www.freeagent.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Bookkeeping core — found from sitemap www.freeagent.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Tax handling & filings — found from sitemap www.freeagent.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Tax handling & filings — found from sitemap www.freeagent.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Receipts, banking & matching — found from sitemap www.freeagent.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Receipts, banking & matching — found from sitemap www.freeagent.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Tax adviser handoff — found from sitemap www.freeagent.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →