I’m friends with Sunir and Saul from Freshbooks (the company supported PodCamp Toronto, and I met the guys at South by Southwest), so I wanted to check out their app again. I logged into an account a while back, but when I refreshed my experiences with the tool the other day, I found a new appreciation for it. If you’re a small business or a professional consultant or the like, you might give this tool some consideration.
What It Does
Freshbooks is a way to manage invoices, expenses, and time tracking for small businesses. It’s a web-based application, with a really simple interface. Build things that might recur (like clients, or invoice types, etc), and then things gets fairly automated.
Pricing
It’s not super cheap, but it’s not inexpensive, either, and their pricing has tiers:
I think it’s reasonable for what it’s doing for you.
Overall
I think Freshbooks is a simple tool that does what it sets out to do well. I like the features that I was able to test, and found it easy to grasp.
I’d love to talk with others who are using the app. Are you? I’m curious how well it works when you’re invoicing a bunch of folks, what you’re doing with the expenses tab, and how well it integrates into your other business processes.
You should check it out here. (Note: I don’t get any money from Freshbooks for this link, but definitely want them to know I sent you!) I’m curious what your take is on the product, and whether it works for social media types as their potential billing system of choice.
What ELSE are people using for invoicing, time tracking, and expense management?
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Very curious to hear folks responses to this–thanks for posting this, Chris! We use QuickBooks for both accounting and payroll, and we use Basecamp for tracking our time (which we then port into QuickBooks twice per month). QuickBooks does a great job with expense management and various reports and exporting options…but it’s definitely a big application with a huge learning curve (if you want to really use it to its fullest) (Note: it’s easy to use it wrong and then have to go back and fix a lot of things so you can get improved reporting–I don’t fault QB for this, but it’s still a pain that it took so much effort to get things to the level they’re at with us now).
So yes, I’m very anxious to hear people’s thoughts on FreshBooks!
Looks like an interesting service, Chris. But am I the only one concerned about tossing detailed financial information into the Cloud when there are plenty of solid client options? Perhaps. ;-)
Chris, I ‘ve been using Freshbooks for a little over a year and I am a big fan. It is not only easy to use, but it actually helps speed up payments. There have been one or two little wrinkles that have had to be ironed out, but the customer service has been prompt and helpful - and I’m several timezones away. There are still a few more things to sort out for we Europeans (credit notes, for example) but otherwise I would suggest anybody give it a go.
Hi - if you are interest in overall small business management (ie using both Quickbooks and Basecamp), I suggest you take a look at our solution, WORKetc:
http://www.WORKetc.com
It combines basic billing with project management, timesheets, CRM, contacts etc. Also - exports natively to Quickbooks for full book keeping capability.
Good morning, Chris - I’ve been using FreshBooks for about 8 months now and have had nothing but good experiences (no, I’m not an affiliate or leaving this comment because they paid me!). Clients have found their interface simple and when I’ve had questions, FreshBooks has made it pretty easy to get good answers. It’s been worth the monthly fee to unhook myself from Quickbooks for invoicing (I have a Mac and QB for Mac is not nearly as robust as the Windows version).
While I don’t personally have a need for FreshBooks, I know a lot of folks that use it and love it.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of the folks at FreshBooks and they’re REALLY cool.
They absolutely get the notion of community development and the importance of customer support for a startup.
Does anybody know if FreshBooks does payroll. If not does anyone know of another option that does?
Looking forward to more comments on what others use and if I’m a wimp for concerns about putting my clients’ credit card numbers into a system that lives ‘out there.’
The desktop app I’d been using since ‘98 crashed when I upgraded to XPpro in ‘02 and I sorta lost everything (it imported as gibberish that I CAN decipher but is insanely hard and not automate-able.) Since then I’ve been using an invoice template but really miss the tools I used (tracking return clients, most popular services, ROI per client, type of client return, etc.) I’m a dope for not switching to something else sooner, now it feels like it’s too far gone…
The main concern, after security about theft/loss of my clients’ info, is reliability and longevity. Are they going to be around in 10 years, and if so, will it work with what I’m using. Thanks for starting the discussion, I’ll go take a look.
Hi GirlPie,
I am just going to make a quick comment on what girlpie said ,and I am keeping it breif cause I am typing this on my phone from a bumpy subway train, there should be no worry with FreshBooks having all york customers Credit Card info since we actually never see that stuff. We are an online invoicing company that gives you the tools you need to make your life easier and we allow you to accept online payments BUT all payments are done via one of our approved payment gateways. These are companies like PayPal or Authorize.net.
Security and privacy shouldn’t be an issue but if anyone would like to discuss itbwith me when I am not on a train please email me and I am happy to answer anything!
…and thank you Chris for being a friend and a Freshnooks user!
Saul Colt
Head of Magic
FreshBooks
Thanks Saul, appreciate the info but I must not have been clear. I understand the tool and that it’s not a payment center, but my former invoicing app is where all my clients’ credit card numbers lived (with billing/delivery address, services, contacts, notes, etc.) THAT’S why I worry about using an online tool — because it’s where I keep all that stuff. I could keep it all in a database, (and import, I’d never want to retype!) but that’s what the old app was for me.
But I’m sure you cleared it up for others if I wasn’t clear, thanks!
Yep, I use it. The new version is very slick.
I agree, FreshBooks is a great service, I’ve been in a sort of trial period now for many weeks on a simple consultancy gig, but haven’t actually invoiced the customer yet. I think the site is nice to look at, easy to navigate and has a great feature set. My only problem is that I feel I need to try it out with a customer who will understand: “Here’s your bill. I hope it ’s ok? I’m trying a new service.” I’ll know that soon as I’m about to pull the trigger.
We used Freshbooks for a while now, I really like the product but we are now winding ourselves off of it. Their vision does not meet our requirements.
They rather have no knobs and dials and less functionality to make things simpler for their ideal customer base than add functionality and options to fit a wider range of users. They also have been opting to add more trivial features than mission critical ones. Like being able to design pretty invoices is priority over features that cost a business a lot of money like finance charges and they don’t even have a concept of terms on their invoices. You cannot set when an invoice is due by. Lots of little silly things that were left out and they say are not important to put in because the perfect customer doesn’t require it.
If they would actually add features that are important I would think Freshbooks was perfect, but they really don’t appear to want to caterer to business folk.
Hey Christopher,
I appreciate you feedback and would love you to stock around a little longer ashes have a few updates in the pipe that may really surprise you!
…and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact mebat any time at Saul@freshbooks.com
Thanks
Saul Colt
Head of Magic
FreshBooks!
We spoke with Freshbooks support and a significant person in the development group (Aaron? I think) in the past, and since day one when we asked about features that are a big concern to us (because they cost real money and time until implemented) it was clear development was to cater to only the simplest of users, not traditional businesses.
Don’t get me wrong, I really think Freshbooks is a great product, it just lacks a lot of features that are critical to invoicing and it just seem like development has a totally different priority. For example, there is no way to generate statements much less send them to customers.