Who are you?
Hi, I’m Adrian Clay the developer team leader.
What does your role at Clear Books entail?
The developers perform a number of roles within the company. Our time is split between working on improvements to the existing software, and working on new projects such as our Final Accounts app, a dividends tool, and a CRM for our customers to use. We also spend a proportion of our working week addressing the technical queries and issues that come through from the support team.
In your opinion, what is the best time-saving Clear Books feature?
Automatic bank import feeds can be a real time saver – they draw the transactions from your online bank account straight into your Clear Books account. The alternative to this is manually downloading and importing CSV files of your bank statements, which is more time consuming.
What’s the most exciting thing your team are working on at the moment?
Some of the tasks the developers do aren’t exciting, but are necessary to keep Clear Books running smoothly. One exciting thing I’ve been heavily involved with recently is our new final accounts production software. The ability to generate a set of final accounts straight from your Clear Books account is an exciting prospect. For more information on the background of the project, our vision for the future of integrated accounts production and to join in the discussion visit our community forum post.
What apps and tools can’t you live without and why?
When engineering I depend on tools to automate lots of tedious aspects of my work. For example, software virtualisation, static code analysis, continuous integration software, our application monitoring software, and version control software. With lots of tools out there it can be difficult to review and identify the fads from fabs.
When you’re not working at Clear Books, what do you enjoy doing?
On Friday evenings, myself and some of the developers use team building software to unwind after a long week. Recent activities have included creating masterpieces in groups on Minecraft or working towards common goals in Team Fortress 2. I also enjoy baking delicious treats with my younger sister.
