All posts by Tim Fouracre

Tim founded Clear Books in 2008. Like many small business owners he worked from home for 15 months to get his startup off the ground. Today Tim enjoys helping Clear Books, its customers and its growing team innovate and achieve. Tim did his GCE O Levels in Ghana.

February 2017 product updates

Improvements pending Removal of VAT rounding functionality On 28th February 2017 we are removing the VAT rounding toggle feature. If you create an invoice that has multiple line items, the system will no longer automatically add a penny rounding adjustment...

/ 2nd February 2017
HMRC and The Joker

Bonkers! HMRC Say They Will Support Spreadsheets in MTD?

(Note, we now have a product that seamlessly allows businesses to keep spreadsheet records, while allowing the accountant to submit their returns digitally, complying with MTD) I applaud the sentiment behind the government’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative i.e. to...

/ 1st February 2017

Create invoice design update part 2

Dear customers, A big sorry to those customers who didn’t like the new design of our create invoice page. I appreciate that a change to a key workflow when you are on autopilot can be frustrating. It certainly isn’t our...

/ 15th December 2016

Create invoice design update

Over recent months we have been rolling out a new style guide for Clear Books. The reason we are doing this is to ensure a modern and consistent approach to layout, colours, icons, grids and fonts that is more accessible on...

/ 13th December 2016

A Clear Books update from Tim Fouracre

This is an update on recent customer feedback we collected and the steps we are taking as a result of your comments. Thank you for helping us improve Clear Books. Feedback system Recently we introduced a new method to collect...

/ 29th July 2015

Clear Books CEO Tim Fouracre: The Power of Networking

As we get ready for our first ever Clear Books Community Exhibition (CBCE) in February 2015, I’ve been reflecting on the power of community and why networking is so important for small businesses. You never know when your network will...

/ 11th December 2014

Cloud Funding II Update

It's been a busy summer for Clear Books plc and following on from our first AGM as a plc I wanted to add some further background on the progress of Cloud Funding II. Cloud Funding II raised approximately £700k in 20...

/ 1st September 2014

Clear Books plc appoints three new directors

Clear Books is pleased  to announce that on 1st April 2014 Brendan McLoughlin, Paul Maunders and Elizabeth Fouracre were all appointed to the Clear Books plc board of directors. Brendan and Paul each take individual roles as non-executive directors replacing...

/ 3rd April 2014

Small British businesses are wasting one week a year unnecessarily

Small British businesses are wasting time unnecessarily. In a year I estimate that the person in a small business who processes payments to suppliers is wasting a full working week. The problem is that most small businesses view unpaid bills...

/ 27th March 2014

Clear Books plc trading update March 2014

The 31 March 2014 is Clear Books' first year end as a plc. This trading update provides an overview of what the team has been up to this year with estimated figures. Full audited accounts with finalised figures will be...

/ 13th March 2014

Clear Books plc raises £839,913 from its customers – thank you!

We did it! Thank you to everyone, all 735 of you who now own a part of Clear Books. We took a unique approach to fundraising. We re-registered as a plc and built our own investor platform to accept applications...

/ 1st November 2013

Cloudfunder: Excel With Business/ Filtered

1. What does your business do? We offer high impact online training, where we filter out material our users don't need to know, or know already, using some cleverly chosen questions. 2. Why did you invest in Clear Books? We...

/ 22nd October 2013

Your £18m call to arms

Clear Books is priced at £18m. How did we come up with that figure? There are two ways to value a business. There is the financial analyst who compares to existing businesses and looks at multiples of revenue. Then there...

/ 18th October 2013

Cloudfunder: 123 Technology

1. What does your business do? My business is 123 Technology. Based in Central London, my team of seven takes the hassle out of technology for entrepreneurs, small businesses and family offices. I set up the business after working for...

/ 6th October 2013

Clear Books plc FY14 half year update

Clear Books plc ("Clear Books" or the "Company") is pleased to announce highlights of its unaudited interim results for the 6 months ended 30 September 2013. Highlights Re-registered as a public limited company on 9th September 2013 First half of...

/ 3rd October 2013

Cloudfunder: Everlevel

1. What does your business do? IT technology is forever changing with faster, better, innovative systems constantly being introduced to improve the way we operate. The people at Everlevel Ltd have experienced the IT revolution from the introduction of the...

/ 1st October 2013

Cloud Funding – week 1

What a fantastic first week which saw Cloud Funding raise over £160,000 from 100 new and existing shareholders. You can meet some of these cloudfunders every day on the blog and read about our press coverage too. Our vision is to create a...

/ 30th September 2013

Cloudfunder: Rokk Media

1. What does your business do? Rokk Media is a twelve year old digital agency that develops specialist software, mobile apps, websites and online marketing for clients as diverse as HSBC, T-Mobile, Met Office and Plymouth University. Operating from a...

/ 30th September 2013

Cloudfunder: Rejuvenate IT

1. What does your business do? Our business is Rejuvenate IT. We're the best provider of friendly IT support in Bournemouth. There are 12 of us, all techies, we're 5 years old. We provide IT, VoIP and Internet to SMEs. 2....

/ 29th September 2013

Cloudfunder: Accountancy Choice

1. What does your business do? My business provides a complete accountancy service to small and medium sized businesses. The practice has been running since 2009 and I have over 20 years of experience in accounting. We have a range...

/ 28th September 2013

Cloudfunder: Allen’s Electrical Ltd

1. What does your business do? Allen's Electrical Ltd is an electrical contractor in Torquay with two employees but we're growing. 2. Why did you invest in Clear Books? Impressive product and growth. 3. Clear Books is asking its customers to...

/ 27th September 2013

Five thousand shareholders

Our vision with Cloud Funding is for every single Clear Books customer to own a part of our company. All 5,000 of you, even if you only buy one £8.94 share. With 5,000 shareholders, who are all our customers, we...

/ 27th September 2013

Cloud Funding press update

Here's a quick recap of some of the press coverage we have had this week. On Monday we were in the Financial Times. On Tuesday we were in Growing Business. On Wednesday we were in TechMarketView. On Thursday we were...

/ 26th September 2013

Return on investment

Common questions around your return of investment have included how to sell your shares, what the dividend policy is and are we going to list on a stock market. Selling your shares Clear Books plc is an unlisted public company...

/ 25th September 2013

Valuing a tech startup

Clear Books plc is valued at just over £18m pre-money (i.e. prior to the launch of our Cloud Funding share offer). No method of valuation is perfect but as a fast growing startup here is the rationale behind ours. Please...

/ 25th September 2013

UK versus global growth

We have had a few questions about our Cloud Funding share offer that I will address each day through a series of blog posts. Today's question is whether or not Clear Books plc is going for global growth. The answer...

/ 24th September 2013

Cloud Funding – day 1

The 23rd September 2013 marked the launch of Cloud Funding. If you hadn't noticed, Clear Books plc is raising £839,913 to grow the business and the day got off to a great start with coverage in the Financial Times. As a...

/ 24th September 2013

Clear Books plc Cloud Funding share offer launched

It's Tim here, the founder of Clear Books. As you know we recently became a public limited company. We did that so that we could ask you, our customers (and the general public), to consider becoming a part-owner of our...

/ 23rd September 2013

Clear Books plc customers

We are commemorating the milestone of Clear Books becoming a plc with a montage of some of our customers' logos in a www.milliondollarhomepage.com style. We like it so much that a framed and printed copy is going to adorn our office...

/ 17th September 2013

Clear Books plc

We have some exciting news for our customers. Clear Books is now a public limited company, Clear Books plc. You place your trust in us by using our cloud business software to run your business. By becoming a public limited...

/ 13th September 2013