All posts by David Eaton

David is a Chartered Accountant and Director of SME Strategies (smestrategies.co.uk) which offers tailored support to ambitious SMEs and gives mentoring to owner managers.

Working on the business or in the business? It’s one big balancing act!

Many of us have gone into running our own business for all the freedom and creativity it brings to us. The 9 to 5 regime five days a week is over, we will never have to work for someone whom...

/ 7th September 2017

How creating smaller teams can help your business – Resource

Here at Clear Books, our embracing of Agile principles has never been stronger. One idea that has made serious headway is the Agile concept of ‘cross-functional teams’. We use the term ‘workcell’ as a nod to its roots in lean...

/ 30th April 2015

Clear Books holds its first AGM as a plc

As many of you will know, Clear Books became a plc last year and invited customers to purchase shares in the company, raising over £800,000. As a result, last week Clear Books held its first ever AGM, inviting all shareholders...

/ 29th August 2014

Improving your Clear Books workspace

As Clear Books continues to develop and innovate, we’re always looking to improve the experience for our users which is why we've decided to make our interface wider. Previously we used a width of 960px as a standard to fit...

/ 8th May 2014

Security: Heartbleed vulnerability

On April 7th 2014, security researchers discovered a serious vulnerability (CVE-2014-0160) in OpenSSL, a very popular cryptographic library used by many websites, including Clear Books. This library ensures secure communication between server and client but also confirms the identity of...

/ 9th April 2014

Clear Books focus on security

Here at Clear Books we always strive for what is best for our customers.  With this in mind, we've recently been working with a security consultant, Yousef Syed, as a result of an innovation grant we received. Yousef is also...

/ 14th March 2014

Clear Books Hackathon

On the 29th of November the developers had a day off from their usual duties to work on something completely different. Small projects with a short period of development constituted the Clear Books hackathon day. The only requirement was that...

/ 20th December 2013

GoCardless – Import pre-auths into Clear Books

Great news for our customers with an active GoCardless integration! The ability to import pre-authorisations created outside Clear Books into your account and link them with your existing customers is now available. To access this feature navigate Tools > GoCardless...

/ 6th November 2013

Clear Books presents GoCardless integration revamp

If you’re wondering what GoCardless is and what an integration with Clear Books mean, here’s a quick snapshot: GoCardless is a payment tool integrated with Clear Books allowing you to request and receive Direct Debit payments from your customers. We...

/ 23rd October 2013

Infographic: Find out what your clients want

We surveyed a whole bunch of small businesses across the UK to find out exactly what they’re looking for in an accountant. The results are now in, displayed below as a lovely infographic! Do please let us know by commenting on...

/ 24th September 2013

Budget tool update

A couple of months ago we made our re-vamped budget tool available to all Clear Books customers. Since then we have been gathering your feedback and improving the feature based on your suggestions. Things to look out for in this...

/ 11th September 2013

Open Payroll gets the new theme

The recent launch of the new Clear Books theme has been a massive success, with over 95% of our customers now using it. The new theme was initially released in the Network, Partner Module and Staff Room and is continually...

/ 29th August 2013

Clear Books Cashbook – simple cash book software

Clear Books Cashbook has now been launched to all Clear Books Accounting and Bookkeeping Partners. Clear Books Lite is a stripped down version of Clear Books, providing simple online cashbook software for clients with very basic requirements. The features included in...

/ 14th August 2013

Campaigner: A step up

  A few weeks ago we released the beta version of Campaigner, a mass emailing tool, fully integrated with the Clear Books suite. If you missed the initial release the beta is still live and accessible through labs from your...

/ 5th August 2013

Introducing Campaigner

  This is the latest addition to the suite of tools developed by Clear Books and has been released into labs today to try for free! Campaigner covers all your emailing needs whilst being fully integrated with Clear Books allowing...

/ 8th July 2013

Tax guide for accidental landlords

The state of the UK’s housing market over the last few years may have meant that you’ve found yourself as an accidental landlord with a property you weren’t able to sell. According to research by Rightmove, accidental landlords make up...

/ 3rd July 2013

It’s our birthday but we’re giving you the gift

Clear Books turns the grand old age of 5 on Tuesday 2nd July - we know, we know, we don’t look a day over 4! Last year we celebrated by putting on a lavish breakfast spread for the team. This...

/ 28th June 2013

Clear Books and CheapAccounting.co.uk present Clear Books Entry

If you're a social media savvy accountant we are sure you will be very familiar with Elaine Clark and her brainchild the Cheap Accounting franchise. If you haven't yet succumbed to the whirlwind of opinions, news sharing and industry relevant...

/ 17th June 2013

Re-vamped Budget tool in Labs!

We have been working on the Budget tool to make it bigger and better! You can get your hands on the shiny new Budget tool in Labs. Navigate the More drop down list in the top left hand corner of...

/ 30th May 2013

What do you look for in a networking event?

At the end of last month, Clear Books hosted it’s first Speed Networking event. It may have been the hottest day of the year so far but there was still a roomful of lovely Clear Books customers ready to make...

/ 9th May 2013

Online HR software for small businesses

First came Clear Books. Then came Open Payroll. Surely we couldn't bring you another fantastic app to make running your business even easier...could we? We can and we have! Staff Room is now live and ready to take on the HR tasks...

/ 1st May 2013

Want to find out how to win profitable clients in a competitive market?

Of course you do! We’re giving you the exclusive chance to learn the secrets of success from the experts themselves at Advantage Business Partnerships. Advantage Business Partnerships is a Management Consultancy Firm that provides coaching, mentoring and training for owner-managed...

/ 18th April 2013
Speed Networking

Clear Books does Speed Networking

After the success of the first Clear Books networking event I am super excited to announce that we will be hosting our next event this month! I recently attended a Speed Networking event. I thoroughly enjoyed it and met a...

/ 3rd April 2013

The power of networking

One of the goals I have been set this year is to attend networking events. As Marketing Communications Manager you might think I would be out and about meeting new people and spreading the Clear Books word all the time....

/ 2nd April 2013

Our first networking event was a success!

Our first Clear Books community drinks event  took place at the end of February and it was a brilliant success. We had 60 attendees from a variety of different business sectors, ranging from social media gurus to photographers. The main...

/ 12th March 2013

Clear Books launches its revamped Network

If you've had a wander over to the Network in the last few hours you will have seen a great transformation. We've spent a lot of time re-working, tweaking and building new functionality and user interfaces to make the Network...

/ 5th March 2013

Clear Books adds functionality to new theme in Labs

We are extremely happy to let you know that we have been working hard on our new theme for Clear Books. We have introduced new features which include: Easily switch between our old and new experimental theme by using the...

/ 27th February 2013

Clear Books introduces new buttons in Labs

Last Friday we posted about the New Navigation Bar which you can enable in Labs. We could not go a week without blogging about our latest progress! You will now have access to our new set of buttons which have...

/ 8th February 2013

Clear Books introduces P11D tagging for employees’ expenses

P11D tagging for your employees' expense items is now available in Clear Books! You'll find this new feature in 'Labs' section in your services drop down menu. P11Ds are used to report benefits provided and expense payments made to employees...

/ 5th February 2013

Clear Books introduces faster menu bar

What once took 3 clicks now takes 1! Following on from the previous blog posts about the new menu navigation bar functionality and the new navigation bar design we are proud to let you know that the new navigation menu...

/ 1st February 2013