Over the last 8 weeks we’ve been working with Enquir3 who’ve been interviewing our accounting partners and getting feedback on what we do well and what we don’t do so well.
The positive feedback has been hugely encouraging for the team and confirms that Clear Books is a fantastic product transforming people’s lives, for the better!
The not so great feedback uncovered 6 common themes, which we would like to share with you and map out how we plan to tackle those.
Theme 1: Lack of communication from Clear Books
Clear Books CEO, Tim Fouracre explains that “in the summer of 2015 Clear Books began a process to reset our goals and refocus our strategy. As a result we’ve been a bit quiet. No longer! This is the relaunch of our monthly newsletter including the following update on what’s been happening at Clear Books HQ.”
We’re pleased to reintroduce the monthly newsletter! In our monthly updates you can expect insight into application developments, team projects and strategic progress.
Theme 2: Payroll Limitations
Clear Books provides a very solid Payroll product which is RTI and Auto enrollment compliant – with online payslips and direct integrations with the Clear Books accounting product (saves on double working!). The payroll product is an absolute steal for accountants at £200 + VAT for a year. This bureau package accommodates up to 250 clients, and up to 250 employees per each client! The pricing model for Payroll is likely to change early next year, so now is definitely the time to take advantage of this great pricing!
Yes there are some improvements that we could make. We’re lucky enough to work with our accounting partners community who allow us to establish and prioritise those improvements. After some top level strategic sessions in the coming weeks, we will be able to present what payroll improvements we’ll be working on over the next year.
Theme 3: Quality of support and I can never get through!
Since the arrival of our new head of Sales, Marketing and Support, Phil Sayers, the support team are now undergoing regular training sessions to improve on their technical knowledge of the software and we’ve also added a new member to the team.
Requests can sometimes get a little hazy between accounting and the software! But rest assured, we have 3 chartered accountants who are part of the Clear Books team, and one almost qualified accountant on the support team.
Let me introduce you to our support team:
John
Length of time at Clear Books: 7 years
Clear Books knowledge: Master Guru (and team leader)
Special strengths: Patience of a saint
Mike E
Length of time at Clear Books: 3 years
Clear Books knowledge: Guru
Special strengths: Almost a qualified accountant
Richard
Length of time at Clear Books: 18 months
Clear Books knowledge: Practising Guru
Special strengths: Incredible on the phone
Natasha
Length of time at Clear Books: 18 months
Clear Books knowledge: Practising Guru
Special strengths: Excellent customer service
Aran
Length of time at Clear Books: 3 months
Clear Books knowledge: Guru in training
Special strengths: Incredibly fast learner
When you can’t get through to our support gurus, you’ll be redirected to our new office manager, Callie. Callie is a new addition to the Clear Books team and working on Clear Books every day (she’s our bookkeeper too!). If she can’t help you out with Clear Books, she’ll take your contact details and make sure someone from support calls you as soon as they are off the phone!
Video tutorials are also on their way! Following the launch of the new “Look and Feel” of ClearBooks, the support team are currently revamping all help guides and undergoing a huge project to create support videos to guide customers through the system, with snippets of demonstrations.
Theme 4: Savings for accountants
There are lots of ways to save time and money on Clear Books. The best opportunity for accountants to make biggest saving is through our bulk license discounts.
Ahead of MTD we’re looking for ways to help accountants educate and move their clients onto Clear Books in a clear and simple way. We are currently looking at variations of Clear Books to accommodate really simple businesses, who might currently using Excel, but who are too small to use the fully fledged package. Watch this space!
In the meantime contact sales@clearbooks.co.uk to discuss the most appropriate pricing package for your practice , with our bulk license packages.
Theme 5: Payment and subscription problems
If you ever have trouble with your clients’ subscriptions and accounts, please contact callie@clearbooks.co.uk who is now looking after all payment problems, refunds, credit and chasing of payments!
Theme 6: Lack of integrations
Clear Books does integrate with a whole host of software. In 2017 we’ll be picking up the project of integrating with preferred software and strengthening our API.
