An introduction to the Overview screen

This article explains what is shown on the Overview screen in FreeAgent and how you can customise it.

The Overview screen in FreeAgent provides a snapshot of your business using a series of financial overview panels. These include ‘Cashflow’, the ‘Invoice Timeline’, ‘Expenses’ and the ‘Tax Timeline’.

Cashflow

The ‘Cashflow’ panel shows the money coming in and going out of all your business's bank accounts in FreeAgent over different periods of time. You can choose to display the difference between ingoings and outgoings over the last 12, six or three months, using the drop-down menu in the top-right of the panel.

The totals on the right-hand side include any daily currency revaluations (if you have multi-currency bank accounts) and transactions awaiting approval but exclude any transfers between account. For information on how to reconcile the figures in the ‘Cashflow’ panel, please see this article.

Please note that cashflow only relates to money coming into or going out of your bank accounts, so the figures may be different to profit, which is income minus day-to-day running costs and includes those which haven’t been paid yet. Therefore, the value of unpaid invoices and bills won’t be included in your ‘Cashflow’ figure but will be included in your profit figure.

The Cashflow feature

It’s important to note that the ‘Cashflow’ panel on your Overview screen in FreeAgent is different to the software’s Cashflow functionality.

The ‘Cashflow’ panel on the Overview screen only takes into account historical bank transactions, whereas the Cashflow functionality includes open or overdue invoices when producing a future projection.

Invoice Timeline

The ‘Invoice Timeline’ panel displays the total money that you expect to receive for each month (including the value of overdue and due invoices) along with the actual money you received (the value of paid invoices). You can choose to display only overdue (red), due (amber) or paid (green) invoices by selecting the coloured boxes that you’d like to exclude in the top-right of the graph.

When an invoice is unpaid, it will appear in the month that the payment is due. For example, if the invoice is dated 15th December 2021 with a due date of 14th January 2022, it will appear in the ‘Jan’ column.

Then when the invoice is marked as paid, it will appear in the month that the payment was received. For example, if the invoice was marked as paid on 1st February 2022, it will appear in the ‘Feb’ column.

Expenses

The ‘Expenses’ panel displays out-of-pocket expenses and mileage claims dated within the last 90 days that you’ve recorded in the ‘Expenses’ area under the ‘My Money’ tab.

You’ll only be able to see your own expenses on the ’Expenses’ panel on the Overview screen, or those for a user that you’re logged in as. To view the expenses for additional users, navigate to the ‘My Money’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Expenses’ from the drop-down menu.

The ‘Balance Owed’ in the top-right of the ‘Expenses’ panel refers to the closing balance that is owed to you. For information on how to explain an expense repayment, please see this article.

Tax Timeline

The 'Tax Timeline’ panel is a calendar overview of the important tax dates and payments for you and your business based on the accounting dates and VAT return dates in your VAT settings. You can filter the Tax Timeline to view ‘All items’, ‘Upcoming’ or ‘Paid/Filed’ items. The Tax Timeline is also available via the Mettle app.

Please note that you’ll need level 7 access or above to see the Tax Timeline in FreeAgent (and in the Mettle app, if you’re a Mettle user).

If the dates in FreeAgent don’t match those on record with Companies House or HMRC, the actual filing and payment dates might be different. Please note that if you view your Self Assessment tax liability in FreeAgent before the figures for the tax year in question have been updated, the liability you see won’t take into account HMRC’s latest rates and thresholds. During this time, FreeAgent provides a projection of your Self Assessment liability using the rates and thresholds from the previous tax year. Once FreeAgent has updated its Self Assessment figures for the tax year in question, a more up to date liability calculation will be available.

The Tax Timeline will automatically update when something has been filed, marked as filed or paid off. You can also file an item or mark it as paid directly from the Tax Timeline.

Find out how to synchronise the ‘Tax Timeline’ with your own external calendar.

Customising the Overview screen

You can customise the order of the panels on the 'Overview' screen. For example, if you want the 'Tax Timeline' to be displayed at the top, select the grey bar at the top of that panel and drag it to the top of the screen.