Connecting Chaser with FreeAgent

Use Chaser to better personalise, schedule and track your accounts receivables.

 

Table of contents

• Getting started: Sign up for a free trial with Chaser
• Connecting Chaser to FreeAgent
• Choose your Chaser account settings
• How does the Chaser's integration with FreeAgent work?
• Syncing Chaser with FreeAgent
• What information does Chaser pull from FreeAgent?
• Using the Integration
• Troubleshooting

 

Getting started: Sign up for a free trial with Chaser

 

Before connecting to your FreeAgent account, take out a free trial by filling out the following short form:  https://www.chaserhq.com/signup

 

Connecting Chaser to FreeAgent

 

Once you have filled out the free trial form, you can then start connecting Chaser to your FreeAgent account. Fortunately, it only takes 2 minutes, follow these steps:

 

 

1. After filling out the form, the initial integration page will appear where you choose your accounting software. Click 'FreeAgent' and then click 'Connect with FreeAgent'.
2. The FreeAgent page where you will need to log in to your FreeAgent account will appear.
3. Choose the organisation you would like to connect to Chaser
4. Click 'Approve and Chaser will launch 
5. Chaser is now connected to FreeAgent and you can now choose your Chaser account settings

Choose your Chaser account settings

After connecting FreeAgent to Chaser,  you can choose your Chaser account settings to tailor your accounts receivable process to best suit your business’ needs:

 

Complete the following settings to personalise your Chaser account:

• Confirm your business name that you would like displayed on your Chaser account
• Confirm your country
• Confirm your timezone
• Confirm your currency
• Confirm whether you would like to start chasing a few of your customers or all/most of your customers (this will decide whether customers are set to Chasing/Not Chasing, to begin with).
• Click 'Get Started' 

 

How does the Chaser's integration with FreeAgent work?

 

Chaser integrates with FreeAgent via Codat. After you authorize Chaser to access your FreeAgent account, Codat is provided with a unique API token that allows access to the Organisation and Accounting data in your account. Once Codat has the API token from FreeAgent, Chaser can request information to be pulled from your FreeAgent account into Codat on behalf of Chaser. This is all done in real-time. Codat does not store or use any of your FreeAgent data, as it will all be relayed to Chaser. FreeAgent's API uses OAuth 2.0 to authenticate API tokens. 

In order to have the most up to date data, we regularly pull accounting data from your FreeAgent account. These syncs fetch data that has been created or updated since the last sync.

Syncing Chaser with FreeAgent

Chaser syncs with FreeAgent once every day and before payment reminder emails are sent out. This ensures that all information is up to date before Chaser emails are sent out. 

You can also sync Chaser with FreeAgent at any time in the Chaser app by clicking the 'Sync now' button in the top right of your screen, should you require data to be synced immediately.

 

What information does Chaser pull from FreeAgent?

 

Contacts

Through the FreeAgent API, Chaser retrieves your contacts from your FreeAgent account. Chaser pulls through the emails addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses and invoices associated with a customer contact in FreeAgent. 

Go to the Customer page in Chaser by navigating to Receivables and then clicking on a relevant customer.

On the Receivables page, you can see the following information for a customer:

• Total overdue amount
• Total outstanding amount
• The schedule a customer is on
• Their status (whether or not they are set to Chasing)

Chaser pulls through all the email addresses under a contact in FreeAgent. This means that you can have multiple recipients in Chaser. You can have a ‘Normal’ sender and an ‘Escalated’ sender. You can also get directed straight to the customer in FreeAgent by clicking the 3 dots on the right of the customer and clicking 'Edit in FreeAgent'.

Invoices

Chaser pulls your customer's invoices data directly from your FreeAgent account.

With the invoices, Chaser draws the due date and the creation date from FreeAgent and uses these to calculate how many days overdue an invoice is. In Chaser, on the Receivables tab under 'Invoices', you can see the due date of an invoice and the outstanding amount.

You can also go directly to the invoice in FreeAgent from Chaser by going into the invoice page by clicking through an invoice in the Receivables tab and clicking the icon in the top right to 'View in FreeAgent'.

 

Using the Integration

Once the integration is connected, you can start using Chaser to get paid sooner with human-like receivables automation.  With FreeAgent’s leading credit control partner, you can better personalise, schedule and track your receivables. To help you get started quickly, your Chaser account comes with 5 best practice payment reminder email templates and a best practice invoice chasing schedule.

You can use these pre-prepared templates and schedules, customise them, or you can choose to create your own templates and schedules to send automated reminders that look hand-typed to your customers, at the best times to encourage payments. Follow this 5-step quick start guide. Alternatively, you can use Chaser’s default settings that are outlined here.

 

Personalised invoice chasing

Using the information pulled from FreeAgent, you can personalize your invoice reminders. Chaser allows you to personalize your templates using placeholders that pull information straight from your FreeAgent account (for example; first and last names, company name and job reference).

You can use Chaser’s schedules to categorize your customers and send them personalised and tailored payment reminders specific to them.

It is also possible to use your exact email signature so that your automated invoice reminders look like they have been hand-typed every time.  

Chaser also generates customers statements for you so that you can automatically send monthly statements on a specific day of the month. You can upload your logo into Chaser and customise the statements to your preference.

 

Troubleshooting

 

Why am I not able to connect FreeAgent to Chaser?

If you are having issues connecting FreeAgent to Chaser, please ensure that you have a valid FreeAgent login and have at least a level 3 permission.

If you meet the above criteria and are still experiencing difficulties connecting Chaser to FreeAgent, please get in touch on support@chaserhq.com or via live chat.

 

Why aren’t changes I made in FreeAgent pulling through to Chaser?

If changes that you have made in FreeAgent aren’t updating in Chaser, please follow these steps:

1. Click ‘Sync Now’ in the top right corner of your Chaser screen.
2. Wait 10-15 minutes. When you sync Chaser with FreeAgent, Chaser checks for all changes in FreeAgent and this can take time.
3. Double-check the changes in FreeAgent were completed and have been saved.
4. If the problem persists, please get in touch on support@chaserhq.com or via live-chat

 

Why is contact information different in Chaser and Freeagent?

If some contact information in FreeAgent is different from Chaser then please follow these steps:

1. Check that there are no duplicate or archived contacts in FreeAgent. These duplicate / archived contacts could have incorrect information.
2. Check that the correct fields in FreeAgent have been filled. For example; check that both first name and last name fields have been filled in. 
3. Check that FreeAgent has been synced with Chaser recently.

 

Why did Chaser disconnect from Freeagent?

When Chaser connects with your FreeAgent account, our integration provider, Codat, is provided with a unique API token that allows access to the information in your FreeAgent account. All API tokens have an expiration date and when they expire, Chaser no longer has access to your FreeAgent account and Chaser will pause chasing activity on your Chaser account.

In these situations, Chaser will notify you that you need to reconnect your Chaser account. To do this, when you log in to Chaser, click the ‘Reconnect to FreeAgent’ button at the bottom right of your screen. 

You will then need to login to FreeAgent and allow access again, this will provide Chaser with a new API token and your chasing activity will resume. 

 

Need support?

For any more questions on Chaser's integration with Freeagent, please get in touch on support@chaserhq.com or message us on live chat, we would be happy to help.