How to set up and update your Performance Benchmarking report

This article explains how to set up your Performance Benchmarking report and how to update your report settings.

The Performance Benchmarking report provides a visual overview of your business’s financial performance over time and how it compares to similar businesses, provided you've chosen to opt in and share your data.

Please note that in order to ensure there’s enough data to provide a meaningful comparison, the Performance Benchmarking report is only available to businesses in the UK that have used FreeAgent for at least six months. You’ll need level 7 access or above to your FreeAgent account to access this report.

Accessing the Performance Benchmarking report

Navigate to the ‘Accounting’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Reports’ from the drop-down menu.

Select ‘Performance Benchmarking’ from the ‘High Level’ section.

Selecting your Performance Benchmark settings

Business category and location

First, choose the category that is most relevant for your business from the ‘Your business category’ drop-down menu. If you selected a category when you first set up your FreeAgent account, this will be pre-populated for you. Please note that if you update the category, this will automatically update the business category in your ‘Company Details’ settings.

Next, choose your business location from the ‘Your Business Location’ drop-down menu.

Your Report Preferences

If you’d like to see how your business is performing in comparison to similar businesses in the same business category and location, select ‘Yes, I’d like to also see how I compare to similar businesses’.

Please note that if you opt in, your data will be shared anonymously with similar businesses for comparison but the data will be anonymous and there will be no way to determine the details of any individual businesses.

You’ll only see a similar business comparison on your report when enough businesses with the same business category and location have also chosen to opt in.

If you don’t want to see how your business is performing in comparison to similar businesses, select ‘No, I only want to see a comparison to my past performance’.

You can update these settings at any time in the future.

Once you’ve entered the relevant details, you can view the report by selecting ‘View Performance Benchmarking’.

Updating your Performance Benchmarking report settings

To update your report settings such as your business category, location or industry comparison preferences, select ‘Settings’ in the top-right of the report.

Make the relevant changes and select ‘Save Changes’ to update your Performance Benchmarking report settings.