QuickFile Affinity overview

QuickFile Affinity is an advanced tool-set for managing multiple QuickFile profiles under a single login and dashboard. It’s built for accountants and bookkeepers, and also suits anyone who runs more than one business.

Prefer to watch?

Prefer a video walkthrough? Watch our QuickFile Affinity Overview: Managing Multiple Accounts tutorial on the QuickFile Help Guides YouTube channel.

What can Affinity do?

Each business you look after keeps its own QuickFile account (Affinity calls it a profile). Your Affinity account links them together, so you and your team sign in once and see every profile on one dashboard.

The Affinity dashboard allows you to instantly visualise all your profiles and quickly access specific areas within those accounts. From one place you can:

open any client’s QuickFile account without their password
track key Companies House filing dates, so you can plan your workflow
file MTD VAT and MTD for Income Tax through your HMRC Agent Services Account
give your staff their own logins, and choose which profiles each person sees
collect files and information from clients in a shared Workspace
put your own logo and colours on every client account

How do I register?

Affinity has its own login, separate from the normal QuickFile login page. You can register a new Affinity account, or sign in to an existing one, at affinity.quickfile.co.uk.

New accounts get £10 of free credit to try Affinity. Use an email address that isn’t already a login on any of your clients’ QuickFile accounts.

What are the costs?

QuickFile Affinity is the only cloud accounting system to apply a cost that is based on the precise number and size of the accounts and to the exact number of days each profile is attached to your dashboard. A small fee is added for each profile every day, and the total is collected once a month by Direct Debit, or taken from prepaid card credit (minimum £15).

We also apply volume discounts of 5%, 10% and 15% once your estimated monthly spend reaches £50, £100 or £150 (excluding VAT). Profiles attached to Affinity don’t need a Power User Subscription.

You can read more about how Affinity billing works in Billing explained, and try the Affinity price calculator. To see your current estimated monthly spend, go to Account Settings > Billing in your Affinity account.

The Affinity dashboard

This is the starting point from which you can view all your profiles, track filing dates, access accounts and add or link new profiles. Each row shows:

the account size (XS to XL), the business name and account number, and any tags
a pin and the business type (on a wide screen there’s also a Contact details column with the client’s email and phone number)
Year End, ADD (accounts due date), CSDD (confirmation statement due date) and VATDD (next VAT return due date)
Last Login, an Options menu (View details, Companies House report, Detach profile) and a Login button

Click a column heading with arrows to sort by it. Use Dashboard Settings to show or hide the VAT return due date column and tags, and Search to filter your profiles (see below).

Adding a new profile

On the dashboard, click Add a profile (top right).
Click Create a new profile.
Enter the business details on the QuickFile registration screen.
Save. The new profile appears on your Affinity dashboard straight away.

Important: Leave the pre-filled email address ending @quickfile-affinity.co.uk as it is. That’s how your practice gets access to the profile. Add your client as a separate team member afterwards.

Linking an existing profile

If your client already uses QuickFile, you can link their account to your dashboard instead of creating a new one.

Click Add a profile, then Link an existing profile to this account.
In Email, enter the email address of a user on that QuickFile account.
Click Send invitation.
We email the account holder for their consent. Once they accept, you’re notified and the profile appears on your dashboard.

Account ownership explained

Each profile managed within your Affinity dashboard will have an owner. This can either be you as the Affinity account holder or a team member registered within the account being managed. Account ownership is an important concept as it determines who has overriding authority to control that account.

Example: An accountant using Affinity may wish to create a brand new profile for a new client relationship. If the Affinity account holder (the accountant) decides to revoke access or close the account at a later date then this is his/her prerogative, being the creator and therefore owner of that profile. If however the accountant has established a relationship with an existing QuickFile account holder and linked this account to his/her dashboard, the original QuickFile account holder remains the owner and can revoke access at any time.

Warning: Before you detach a profile you created (Options > Detach profile), make your client an administrator in the account’s Team Management. A detached profile with nobody else on its team becomes dormant and is later deleted.

What are @quickfile-affinity.co.uk email addresses for?

When a profile is created or linked to an Affinity account, a new user is created with a @quickfile-affinity.co.uk email address. You’ll see this user in the team management section of the profile being managed. It’s a pseudo email address used purely to give your practice access to the QuickFile account. If access is revoked, this user is removed automatically.

Zero Promo!

Any account profile managed under the Affinity scheme will not contain advertising or promotions relating to consultancy-based services offered by QuickFile or any other accountancy firm. If a profile is detached from your Affinity account then any such promotions would reappear.

Pinning profiles

On the dashboard you’ll see a grey drawing pin next to each profile. Click it to pin that profile to the top of the list, so your most-used profiles are always to hand. Click it again to unpin. You can pin up to 10 profiles.

Tagging and searching profiles

Tags are short labels that help you group your profiles, for example by year-end month, VAT quarter, the member of staff responsible, or a group of companies. You can add up to 5 tags to each profile.

Click the business name on the dashboard to open the profile page.
Next to Tags, click + New.
Type the tag and save it. Tags are saved in lower case with hyphens, so March year end becomes march-year-end.

Click a tag’s filter icon on the dashboard to show only the profiles with that tag. To filter by name, type or tag, click Search, fill in Business name, Business Type or Tags, then click Submit Search.

Companies House tracking

For limited companies, add the company number so QuickFile tracks the company’s filing dates at Companies House.

Open the company’s profile page.
In Filing Details, enter the Company Number.
Click Start Tracking.

The accounts due date (ADD) and confirmation statement due date (CSDD) then appear on the dashboard. Sort by either column to see what’s due next and plan your workflow.

Using the Jump to menu

On a profile page, the Jump to button (top left) takes you straight to a specific area of the client’s account: Dashboard, Invoices, Purchases, Bank Accounts, Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Chart of Accounts, Settings or Team Management.

To open the client’s account at its own dashboard, click Login on the client’s row instead. While you’re in a client’s account, a black bar at the top of every screen reads Administrator mode - Click here to return to your Affinity Dashboard. Click it when you’re ready to go back.

Managing your team

As with general QuickFile accounts, Affinity has its own team management area, where you can create logins for your staff and change their details.

Go to Account Settings > Team Management.
Click Add new team member.
Enter their name, phone number and a unique email address, then save.

Limiting team member access to specific profiles

Any new team member has full access to all your managed profiles. To stop someone seeing particular profiles:

Go to Account Settings > Team Management.
Click the padlock in the Access column next to the team member.
Untick the profiles they shouldn’t see.
Click Save Updates. The change applies the next time they log in.

Access is all or nothing for each profile. You can find out more in Restricting access in Affinity.

White labelling

You can apply your own corporate style to all your managed accounts. Go to Account Settings > Design Settings, choose one of the 10 colour themes and upload your logo (JPG, GIF or PNG, no more than 450 × 90 pixels). Your clients then see your logo and colours when they log in.

Guide to white labelling in Affinity

Filing with HMRC through your Agent Services Account

You can connect your HMRC Agent Services Account once, under Tools > HMRC Agent Services Account, and use it to file MTD VAT returns and MTD for Income Tax updates for your clients. See HMRC Agent Services Account Integration for the full set-up.

Setting up a Workspace to coordinate work with your client

Affinity has a built-in document management and messaging system called Affinity Workspace. Use it to request files, send checklists and message your clients for routine jobs such as personal and corporate tax returns and other year-end work. Go to Workspace > My Workspaces and click Create a new workspace to start.

Troubleshooting

Clients have disappeared from my dashboard

Check Account Settings > Billing. If there’s no Direct Debit and your card credit runs out, the account becomes inactive and profiles can be detached. Set up a payment method, then contact QuickFile support to reinstate them.

I can’t see the padlock or pin icons

Something on your computer is blocking the icon font. Try another browser, or turn off content blockers for quickfile.co.uk.

The ADD and CSDD columns are empty

These dates come from Companies House, so they only appear once a company number is being tracked. Add it under Filing Details on the profile page (see Companies House tracking).