FRESHBOOKS Review

 

FreshBooks accounting software could be precisely everything you need if your company produces a lot of invoices. You can quickly produce professional invoices, manage and bill costs, send automated reminders, and so much more. FreshBooks is the finest accounting software for invoicing in our opinion.

With its feature-rich invoicing features, FreshBooks accounting software eliminates many of the issues. One of the many reasons we chose FreshBooks as the best invoicing software for small companies is the ease with which professional invoices can be created and sent.

You can establish recurring invoices, set up automated payment reminders, and take credit and debit card payments for your invoices with FreshBooks. 

FreshBooks tracks the status of invoices once they've been sent, letting you know when they've been received and viewed. It keeps track of billable time and costs so you may include them in invoices.

As a result, it's an excellent choice for freelancers and self-employed professionals, and also professional services providers and organizations.

What is FreshBooks ?

Freshbooks is cloud accounting software built specifically for service providers, small enterprises, and freelancers. It can manage your time, generate invoices, manage spending, generate reports, produce estimations, send follow-up emails, and enable your team members and clients to log in. On top of all that versatility, it's quite simple to use.

FreshBooks Pricing

FreshBooks is reasonably priced and has four options, or tiers, based on the amount of customers you work with. You may save 10% if you pay for FreshBooks yearly rather than monthly. FreshBooks is now providing a 60% discount for six months. You may also use the 30-day free trial to test out the functionalities before subscribing.

Each plan is broken down below. The prices describe the full discounts available.

• For up to 5 billable clients, the Lite plan costs $4.50 per month. You may link the program to your bank account, manage time, and take payments for invoices through the internet. You may send an unlimited amount of estimates and invoices (albeit you are restricted to five clients), and you get free access to the FreshBooks iOS and Android mobile apps.

• For up to 50 customers, the Plus plan is $7.50 per month. The Plus Plan is by far the most popular within FreshBooks' users, according to the company. You may collect late fees and send periodic bills, payment reminders, and proposals with this plan. You may generate financial reports for your general ledger, trial balance, and chart of accounts, including double-entry accounting reports. You can ask your accountant to participate with this plan without incurring an extra user charge if you have the Plus plan. 

• The Premium plan, which costs $15 per month and covers up to 500 customers, is the most expensive. This package offers everything in the Plus plan plus additional reporting and client monitoring features.

• The Select plan is appropriate for organizations with at least $150,000 in annual revenue or more than 500 clients. Because pricing is unique, you'll need to connect with a sales representative who can provide you with an estimate based on your exact requirements. FreshBooks provides you with a dedicated account manager in addition to all of the Premium plan's features.

Each additional user is $10 per month. This holds true for any business partners, contractors, or workers you add to your account. 

• FreshBooks Transactions: It enables you to accept payments online, nevertheless every transaction made on Freshbooks will cost you 2.9 % + 30 cents. It also enables you to use their system to link your Stripe account.

• Advanced Payments has a monthly fee of $20 plus a 3.5 percent fee and a transaction fee of 30 cents. This add-on service provides you with a virtual terminal so you may collect payments over the phone or face to face. Once you have this add-on, your customers may enable recurring payments. 

FreshBooks Features that help you save time 

FreshBooks provides a number of tools that can help you do your accounting responsibilities more quickly and easily. The following is a list of those features.

• You can instantly change the appearance of your invoices to reflect your company's identity. After that, you select a template, font, and accent color. With just a few clicks, you can also personalize your payment conditions, add a note to your customer, request a deposit, and set a payment schedule right on your invoice. 

According to FreshBooks, their invoicing feature makes billing customers and collecting payments simple.

• FreshBooks allows you to convert predictions and proposals into invoices in only two clicks. Instead of writing new invoices from start, it's far easier to clone and alter existing ones. 

• It's simple to add to an invoice every time you recorded a project as billable. Billable costs can also be readily included to invoices.

• You may send invoices through email and get notifications when your clients read and pay them. Your clients may pay an invoice by clicking a button on the invoice if you set up FreshBooks Payments or connect the program to your Stripe account. This eliminates the time it takes for paper invoices to come in the mail.

• You may plan recurring invoices to be issued weekly, monthly, yearly, or as often as you like with the program. 

• To motivate consumers to pay their bills on time, you can send automatic payment reminders before or beyond the due date. You may also program the software to add late penalties to past-due bills automatically, whether as a percentage or a flat cost.

You may generate invoices right after interacting with a client using FreshBooks' mobile app, which is available for iOS and Android. You may also use the app to take pictures of receipts, engage with consumers, and track the status of your invoices. 

FreshBooks' Additional Features 

To clarify, the Premium and Select plans employ double-entry accounting and enable you to establish a chart of accounts as well as run new reports including a general ledger, balance sheet, and trial balance.

FreshBooks, like other popular accounting software, links to your company bank and credit card accounts and instantly imports your costs every day. Furthermore, the Premium and Choose plans employ double-entry accounting and enable you to establish a chart of accounts and run new reports including a general ledger, financial statements, and trial balance. Bank reconciliation is indeed an option.

FreshBooks' interface brings all of your accounting needs together in one spot.  

FreshBooks also allows you to perform the following: 

You may handle projects and charge by the hour or by the fixed rate. A time budget displays how much time is left on a project, just how many of your tracked time is unbilled, and how many days are left till the project is due.

You may keep track of the time the members of the team work on each project, as well as share files and have discussions with them about it. 

Profit and loss statistics, sales tax summaries, accounts aging and expense reports, invoice information, payment collected, and time-entry information are among the reports available. You may email, print, or export reports to Excel after they've been run.

FreshBooks has over 80 applications and connectors, allowing you to link your accounting software to a variety of different company services and systems. 

FreshBooks enables you to join business partners, workers, contractors, and accountants to your account. The information they can access is determined by their user role. Everything apart from integrations is accessible to your business partners. Employees have access to their projects, time tracking, and spending. Contractors can only see the tasks to which you've assigned them, and they may monitor time spent on those tasks. Accountants can view your dashboard, reports, costs, and invoices but wouldn't be able produce them. 

FreshBooks Advantages 

Did you know that you don't need a credit card to start a trial account? You will simply need to enter your email address and establish a password, then go to your email account and click the confirmation link in the email sent to you by FreshBooks.

FreshBooks' ease of use is a significant advantage. Setting up an account is a simple procedure that requires only a few steps. There is no need for a credit card to start a trial account; simply enter your email address and set a password, then click on a link in a confirmation email. The program is simple to use; it's well put together, and everything is labeled correctly.

Before purchasing the program, we urge that you use the trial version. There really is no better method to see if a solution can benefit your small business than to use it for a trial period. 

The proposals function in FreshBooks allows you to create professional-looking project bids.

Another advantage of FreshBooks is the ability to invite clients to projects. They may create a customer account to remark on documents such as proposals and estimates. You may respond to their remarks and send them files and links. They can also store their credit cards to make it easier to pay fresh charges.

We particularly appreciate the fact that invoices may be formatted in a variety of languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, and Swedish. Multicurrency billing is also supported; you may take payments in other currencies using FreshBooks Payments. If you have foreign clientele, these are useful features. 

FreshBooks Drawbacks

FreshBooks is powerful accounting software that makes invoicing simple, but there are a few things to think about before deciding whether it's the ideal accounting solution for your company. 

It lacks inventory monitoring and vendor management, for starters. It does, however, provide time-tracking and project management capabilities.

Second, there are no batch-invoicing shortcuts, which would be beneficial if, for instance, you were billing several clients at the same rate for about the same service. 

Finally, though the mobile app has access to the majority of functionality, it does not allow you to read reports. If you need to study a report while you're not at your computer, you'll have to access your account using a browser, which is less convenient.

Customer Service 

QuickBooks customer service is available by phone, email, and live chat on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. The website of the firm includes a searchable knowledgebase, a blog, free e-books, and a webinar that shows you how to use the program.

WHY I ADORE IT 

When I initially began my business, I knew the first thing I needed to invest in was accounting software. I didn't want to bother with Excel spreadsheets, nonsensical figures, or chasing down customers for payment. Freshbooks manages all of it, allowing me to concentrate on my company and keeping my clients happy.

With the commercial edition, You can remove the Freshbooks logo and store up to 25 clients in your database. So far, invoicing has been simple, and I appreciate the reports on Profit and Loss and Timesheet Details (I can see where my time is being spent). 

3 WAYS IT CAN HELP YOUR COMPANY 

1. You conserve paper (that implies more time and money)

With companies, client bases, and communication shifting online, it seems to reason that invoicing should follow suit. It saves you time by eliminating the processes of printing, signing, folding, stuffing, stamping, walking to the post office, and sending, as well as money on paper, ink, envelopes, and stamps. They may seem like insignificant costs, but they will pile up if you submit a lot of invoices.

If you work with corporate customers and require paper invoices, you may save and print them, or send them via SnailMail and purchase stamps through Freshbooks. 

2. Recurring bills and follow-up emails perform the heavy lifting for you. 

You may set up a recurring profile for customers whose monthly bills remain the same and have Freshbooks produce and deliver the invoices for you. If you want to proof the invoice before sending it, you may do that as well, and then submit it manually. 

Freshbooks also provides a number of automated emails that may alert clients of late payments, received payments, and when a new invoice is due. Once you've set up the copies and settings for them, they'll run automatically when you perform specified tasks.

Both of these options have the potential to save you important time that you might be spending on work you truly enjoy (unless you prefer invoicing and reminding customers to pay you!). 

3. Simple adjustments that can make your brand stand out. 

When you first set up your Freshbooks account, one of the first steps is to submit your logo.

It will be visible when you sign in and in the upper left corner of your account. You could also use your brand's color, and the menu, buttons, and design components will display in that color. 

These two branding aspects provide you a one-of-a-kind experience with your firm. This is useful if you have team members who log in to track their time or clients who log in to examine invoicing.

They will be reminded of your organization and identity, rather than feeling as though they are utilizing a third-party software. 

Features that stands out

PayPal button 

We are really lucky in Europe to have a free bank transfer system between any banks that use SEPA (Single Euro Payment Area). My clients can pay me by bank transfer, which saves me money on bank costs because I have to personally register their payment.

If you require payment choices other than this bank transfer method, you may easily connect your PayPal account to your Freshbooks account and provide your customers the option to pay by PayPal on their invoice.

• Go to Settings > Accept Credit Cards, 
• Then login with your PayPal account to locate this option. 

When creating an invoice, immediately below the invoice number and date is a check box that indicates if PayPal should be an accessible payment option.

Customize and Personalize your emails 

If you go with the premium version, you'll want to personalize your automated emails a little more to allow your brand and personality show through. Go to Settings > Emails to see all of the emails that may be sent from Freshbooks. Begin with "New invoice" and "Payment notice," since these will be the most often used. Customize to your heart's content!

Individual invoices can have their language changed. 

When you establish up your account, you can choose your main language and currency, but if you have a customer who prefers their invoice in a variety of languages, you can easily alter that when you set up their customer profile. Navigate to People > Clients > Add New Client.

In case you need to change the language while producing an invoice, you'll see the same three options underneath the company name as on the new profile page.

Automatic VAT computations or Calculation

Never again will you have to waste time calculating VAT on your invoices! If you register your account with a European nation, Freshbooks will calculate VAT for you and provide you the option to add it to your invoices. In addition, when you add a cost, you may specify how much VAT is included to make future payments easier.

If you want a different form of VAT or tax, Freshbooks has those alternatives as well.

Conclusion

FreshBooks is user-friendly invoicing software that includes all of the tools you would need manage clients and projects, produce and send invoices, and enable various online invoice payments options. It is our choice for the finest invoicing software for small businesses.

I definitely recommend Freshbooks if you need to streamline your invoicing and spending monitoring. While it is primarily designed for the service business, it includes a plethora of features that allow you to be mobile while also managing your costs from an one location. I didn't even mention that you can make project estimates, email them to potential clients, and go from there...how simple is that?!

There are other applications available, like as QuickBooks, Harvest, or Wave, but Freshbooks works for me and may work for you as well. 

You may learn more about them by visiting their website. Two great tools that they provide that can help you are :

• The Freshbooks Blog on their website
• Once you've started your free trial, you may attend webinars.