Hey, loving the app so far. Just a feature request. For outgoing bills, it would be great to be able to simply attach files (HTML5 drag and drop) to the payment page instead of using cloud storage (I don’t keep my files in Dropbox/Google). I know this means you would have to host the files yourself which is a bit of an undertaking but it would be really useful

Hey, loving the app so far. Just a feature request. For outgoing bills, it would be great to be able to simply attach files (HTML5 drag and drop) to the payment page instead of using cloud storage (I don’t keep my files in Dropbox/Google). I know this means you would have to host the files yourself which is a bit of an undertaking but it would be really useful

1 answer

Peter Connor Staff June 27, 2016
Public

That’s great. 
Indeed we’d looked at that but there were a couple of reasons. 

  1. People didn’t trust us when we launched but they trusted dropbox etc
  2. People already had receipts etc in their dropbox and didn’t want to move. 
  3. To keep the price point of Bullet at free we have to be careful about what we do 🙂

Hope that adds some clarity to the our decisions. Keep the feedback coming. 

Pete

#answer-3652
  1. heycreative June 27, 2016
    Thanks for the quick reply Pete. Those all sound reasonable. Keep it in mind for down the line anyway. Just as an aside, some general feedback regarding 'free'. As someone running a one-man limited company (web development) I am very happy to pay for a service such as this that takes the pain out of handling my own accounts and is tailored toward the Irish market. I know that might be the case with all users but €10-€20 a month is well worth it for avoiding an Excel/ROS nightmare!
  2. Peter Connor June 27, 2016
    Sorry, I'd written a big responce there but the tinternet died on me.
    So here we go, the short version.
    We went with free cause people starting in business don't value accounts nor understand how hard it can be. So when they're comparing products they they see Xero, Bullet etc and they see a load of features they don't understand. They're not going to go off and learn about those features so they'll look at price Free and 40pm go with free.
    Also when people start they usually start with excel which is free so again the idea is the same as above.
    We're surprised our growth hasn't' been stronger on Bullet.
    How did you hear about Bullet?
    Pete
  3. heycreative June 27, 2016
    Hey Pete,
    I think I heard about Bullet when searching on how to calculate P30s or VAT3s etc. I didn't even know the term 'payroll' at the time so it was definitely in searching for a particular pay/tax related calculation. I'm sure you are already targeting those type of keywords as I imagine there are other people like me blindly searching for how to run accounts for a limited company. Since finding it organically though, I've heard a few friends who also work as freelancers mentioning it. They would be either using FreeAgent/Xero or doing things manually.
    Thinking about it (and to give you a better understanding of where I'm coming from), the reason I need something like Bullet is that I am paying myself a varying salary via a Limited Company structure. This makes things a lot more complicated than having to just stick in the same salary figures every month. There is very little information on how to do this on the internet and I had to get an Excel template from my accountant to figure out how to calculate wages accurately. Therefore the wages element of the application is by far the most valuable to me.
    After that, the P30 calculations and the VAT3 calculations are enormously helpful. In these situation I would generally look over the calculations myself to make sure I haven't forgotten to invoice or add bills, so while they are definitely amazing features they would rank below the wages in terms of my personal usage.

    Before this, the biggest pain-point was simply trying to understand how to operate a 1-man business financially. This was a mix of sitting down with an accountant as well as reading blog posts from various accountancy firms on different topics. I remember seeing a booklet or ebook that you put together to address all of this. I didn't need it as much at the time but something like that is invaluable. With that in mind, some of the hints and pointers you leave around the application are really good and important. The more "plain English" explanations in the app the better.
    I agree with what you mean regarding the unwillingness to pay upfront. I guess this is something you come to understand after countless hours decoding everything. With that in mind, I find the add-on approach a little confusing. I wonder would it be an idea to have tiered free/pro account approach. You either get limited features for free, or everything else for a fixed monthly fee. Again, the real value for me (that I'm happily willing to pay for) is the Ireland-only features; P30s, VAT3s and wages calculations.
    Some additional random feedback after using the app a bit more:
    I expected the "App Store" link on the left-hand side menu to take me to a Android/iPhone companion application.
    When calculating wages, it would be good to give an indication as to how the PRSI, USC, PAYE figures are being calculated.
    I found myself needing to comment on a P30 return in the taxes tab. I had made a wrong return and therefore needed to post a supplementary return and I wanted to note this on the P30 itself.
    Finally, have you thought about partnering with an accountancy firm? I have no idea of the implications of this but I would pay to have a per-minute or per-hour feature where I could essentially consult the help of an accountant either over chat or phone while working within the application. There are so many queries that are small enough to be important but not large enough to go in to see your accountant!
    - Timmy
  4. Peter Connor June 27, 2016
    Hi Timmy,
    Thanks for the detailed response.
    The reason we don't partner with Accountants is they don't like products like ours. We tried to deal with them at the beginning but they wanted to hide all the automation from users like you.
    So they give you spreadsheets that create problems and make everything seem complex. That results in a dependency on them.
    By just syncing Bullet with your bank account and creating your invoices, we'll automate all your accounts and they'll be 100% right without you having to learn anything about accounting. Ever.
    By importing your P2C file from ROS you Bullet will set you up as an employee 100% right. Then you can pay yourself as you wish, a fixed amount or a varied amount. All your expenses will be done correct and all the taxes around them.
    Just pay yourself and we'll even do all your P30's returns. 100% right.
    We designed the payroll so you can reverse the tax down. For example if you have 2k in your bank and you want to work out how much you can pay yourself just up the 2k in and we'll calculate everything saying you can take out €1234 for example. Then you know you've enough left for tax.
    Don't ever do anything on excel, esp wages. Just use Bullet. It's always 100% and fully automated.
    If you have any questions you can ask them here, for free!
    Thanks T.
    P

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