Clear Books Accounting Software Reviews 

Clear Books is simple, reliable, and user-friendly. It handles all our day-to-day accounting smoothly without any unnecessary complexity. Highly recommended!

Its just a very easy package to use, the only one that I have found that submits and verifies CIS contractors. What would make it perfect is the ability to design your own reports for Management accounts.

Just what I need at a price I can afford.
I've been using ClearBooks since 2013! On the recommendation from my accountant. But better value that it's competitors. Links directly to my bank and imports transactions every few hours. I just do a bit of bookkeeping every few days and it's sorted. My account has direct access to my account so can review my year end directly. Making everything a breeze.

I used to use Clearbooks for my small business but found it deeply unsatisfactory due to the rising cost and poor communication and I ended my subscription a several years ago.

However, prior to my growing dissatisfaction with the service, I had invested in the company through Crowd funding and I am shareholder, but have never received a penny in dividends from them, despite dividends being issued yearly. I tried and failed to resolve this issue with them many times over.

I was dealing directly with Andrew Garvey, the director, who refused to co-operate with me about why my dividends have not been paid.

My advise to anyone thinking of using this service is: DON'T. Pay a little more and go with a reputable company such as Quickbooks and whatever you do, do not invest in this company.

In the complicated minefield of navigating the new MTD tax system, we opted for Clearbooks, and are so pleased we did. We were taken through it, step by step, by the wonderful Martin Ladd. He was unbelievably patient every time we had to phone him over several weeks - and so friendly. Thank you so much Martin! We also once called upon Tommy for help, who was also brilliant in a different way. Thank you Tommy! Heather & Enzo

I have been using clearbooks now for several months. Despite what people say, the software is not free and if you want the top of the range software you have to pay about £16.00 per month for that. The one I use is a modest price £5.00. The main reason I can only give two stars is that the software is not straightforward to use. For example, in the past I have been able to split my energy bill based on the portion I use for my business. Today I have not managed to do this. In the recent past (a few weeks ago) I was also able to split my phone/broadband usage. Today no luck. This should be straightforward to do. Surely Clearbooks are aware that the 5 million self-employed people in Britain who work from home have to split bills. This is basic accountancy.

According to HMRC there is free MTD software available but as stated earlier this is not really the case. Where many folk are struggling to pay bills, HMRC have placed another burden on the self-employed. No wander Britain's economy is not growing.

I would not recommend Clear Books; use another provider.
I spent a year using Clear Books, and I felt I was ready to submit my MTD quarterly returns to HMRC. Since I was not sure how to do this, I tried to ask Clear Books, and I was unable to get any help.
Clear Books help guide was no help
Clear Books community support was unavailable; when I clicked on New Post, the form was greyed out, making it impossible to post a question on the community forum
Clear Books contact support team was unavailable because no telephone number or email address was shown.
Online searches did not help

Started using clearbooks for MTD at the start of this financial year, I have been impressed how easy the software has been to use. I have experienced a few issues with the software which was due my lack of knowledge rather than a software issue. I have contacted clearbooks support staff on several occasions and on all occasions, they have been so helpful answering my questions, replies sent promptly and comprehensively.

I've been dreading this. My accountant has always done my self-assessments for an agreed price but this doubled now for MTD. I tried ClearBooks and am getting more confident in entries. My problem as a landlord is that statements from the Agents are both Income (for tenants) and Expenses (for their commission and repairs) and have to be treated as two entities. I'm sure that some of my returns will be wrong but HMRC will get what they ask for. Every query I have put to the Help dept has been answered promptly an in detail and clear language so I recommend it for that.

Trying to choose a software for MTD sole trader under £90k turnover.
1. HMRC accepts a single figure for turnover, and a single figure for total allowable expenses. It is not possible to enter a single expenses figure into Clearbooks; they ask for a breakdown. Why?
2. I clicked 'submit to HMRC' before entering any figures, assuming there'd be some sort of check/confirmation before submitting a return of £0 turnover and £0 expenses. There wasn't, so the submission went through to HMRC. There seems to be no way to edit or delete the submission in Clear books. I'm now on hold to HMRC to ask them to delete the submission.
3. I'm on the free version. It's not possible to post in the help forum. Support is only available by phone and email for the paid versions.

Started using clearbooks for MTD a year earlier than I had to so I could iron out any bugs by the time I had to start using it, so far very impressed with clearbooks, easy to use and very intuitive, the few problems I had in the beginning were quickly sorted out by their support team and all issues were down to my lack of knowledge rather than the software.

I setup my clearbooks property account entered all the income and expenses and linked to my HMRC account to allow me to submit quarterly. However, I cannot submit my quarterly return to HMRC - the option is greyed out and not available to me. Even though in the HMRC Access box it says that my account is authorised. And there is no way I can get any support to even ask someone why this is not working - I can't raise a forum topic, I can't call anyone and the don't respond to any emails. So it is entirely useless to me.

I recently tried ClearBooks and while it wasn't for me, I found that most staff were very accommodating to my requests. I think a more consistent interaction from the staff would improve the perceived company image. The service itself seems quite reasonably priced, though once various add-ons are included it becomes slightly less competitive to the alternatives available.

If I could give 0 stars I would. Awful functionality. Misleading website and dreadful customer service!
Avoid

New to MTD there were things I was unsure about. I must say Clear Books have been so helpful with speedy responses and comprehensive ones. I was a little nervous about the new process but those nerves have been banished!

After a lot of research I moved my business to Clearbooks for MTD this month. As with any system there are quirks and things you might wish to be a bit different. Nevertheless, unlike the others I tested, I found nothing essentially missing at my price point. With one other company I couldn't customise invoices without an upgrade, with another there was a limit to the number of invoices. Clearbooks is much more straightforward - no annoying surprises! In addition, I have contacted support twice and both times they have replied very promptly and comprehensively. Very pleased with my choice.

Disappointed to see their rating drop to average, so feel the need to give my experience. I've used them for 8'ish years and found their service and the product to be faultless. On the small number of occasions that I have needed Customer Service (because the prduct just works) they have responded quickly, sometimes logging into my account and correcting my errors for me. If you're considering using them, I would say you should and with confidence.

I have signed up to the paid version of Clear Books. While I like the ease of set up, I can't understand it really and struggle to feel confident. I am not sure I am doing the right thing and need support. I can't get any at all. They don't come back within thirty minutes as it says on their website and no one has called me back yet. The help line is not working, you just get cut off. I want to keep going but I know what I submit to HMRC is going to be wrong because I can't get support. Trouble is the alternatives don't look attractive either.
I can't recommend unless you ensure you get that help at the beginning. They offered initial support to me but he cancelled due to paternity leave. Then he refused to reappoint saying Clear books have stopped that service. Feeling helpless....

UPDATED REVIEW:
Clear books has come back to me and were very apologetic about the situation. I really appreciate the approach.

I really like their customer service when it comes to technical help and questions. You usually talk to the same person as this is a small team and they know the system very well. I guess my disappointment during the renewal process was even higher as I really like that personal customer service for technical issues.

THIS IS MY INITIAL REVIEW:

I have used them for over 12 years and am globally happy with the service, but they have auto renewed my subscription with a 22.2% increase with no communication. I found this unacceptable. The increase is way out of proportion and not justified.

I use quickbooks for my other business (mostly because they integrate with shopify) and quickbooks has at least the customer service sense to communicate and impose an increase with new features to justify it.

This is just a question of principle. Not a happy customer right now!