How to add a new user to your FreeAgent account

This article explains how to add a new user to your FreeAgent account.

You'll need to add a new user to your account if you want to record payments to that person such as salaries, or dividends, or keep track of any out-of-pocket expenses that person has paid for and needs to be reimbursed for. 

Can different users have different levels of access to my account?

If you have full access to FreeAgent, you can give different users different levels of access. You might want to give your bookkeeper or accountant access to the whole of your FreeAgent account, for example, and set up other members of staff as users with no access. You can find out how to do this in the 'Setting access levels' section below.

How to set up a new user

Select 'Settings' from the drop-down menu in the top-right corner and then select 'Users'.

If you can't see this option, then you don't have access to this area and you'd need to ask your accountant, or whoever set you up to use FreeAgent, to extend your user permissions.

You'll see on the Users screen any users you have already set up. When you open your new FreeAgent account you automatically become a user. Select 'New User'.

Enter the person's details, including their National Insurance number if you're going to pay them a salary, so that it prints on their payslips. You can also include a Unique Tax Reference if this user will be filing Self Assessment using your FreeAgent account.

Choose what kind of a user this individual is. Choosing 'Company Secretary' or 'Employee' will allow you to use the Employee setting for this individual's National Insurance.'

Shareholder

Setting up a user as a shareholder is very similar to choosing a director. Please bear in mind that we only support the filing of Self Assessment for limited company directors and sole traders, not for shareholders.

Accountant

You can make salary and dividend payments to, and record expenses for, any kind of user except an accountant. You'd need to set your accountant up as a user so that they can see your account, though as they have an advisory role they won't be able to add or edit users, if they're not one of our FreeAgent Friendly accountant partners. FreeAgent Friendly partner accountants have automatic access to their clients' accounts so you wouldn't need to set them up here.

Mileage

If you're setting this user up part way through the tax year, and they've travelled some miles in their own car on business for your company, put in the number of miles they've travelled so far, here. This is so that FreeAgent will change the mileage from 45p a mile to 25p a mile at the right time.

User password

Tick the box to send the user a customised email to invite them to create a password when they first sign in.

Setting access levels

If you have full access to FreeAgent, you will see the option to set a permission level for the new user. The default level for a new user is 'Tax, Accounting & Users'. To change this, slide the bar along to the appropriate level of access. The further you slide the bar over to the left, the less access they will have.

For users who'll never need to use the system at all, drag the bar fully over to 'No Access'.

The further you slide this bar over to the right, the more access to the system the user will have. For users who need full access, including creating journals and editing more advanced settings such as VAT, drag the bar fully over to the right to 'Full Access'.

Once you've finished, select 'Create New User & Send Invitation' to save the details you've entered. Your new user is now set up and you can start recording their salary, dividends and expenses through FreeAgent.