Freshbooks for invoicing...

[thecomputerguy]

I have used:

- Excel
- Shopmanager
- PCRT (Trial version)

1.) Excel - Doesn't allow for a building a customer database for things like constant contact. It's limited to my ability to create an invoice. No automation, of sending invoices, or paying invoices. Basically it's the next step above handwriting paper invoices.

2.) Shopmanager - Been using it for about 6 months. It's nice, more professional than excel. Prettier. However there are a few very important things that turn me off to it. Required fields - Certain fields are required when checking in a computer. When you get used to them its not so much of a hassle but sometimes you just want to get the computer checked in quickly. No automation of payment/invoicing, invoices basically have to be exported as a pdf then manually emailed to the client using your own mail client. When checking out a customer on net 30 or other terms, there are never reminders that this person owes you money. They are hidden away in the program, stuff like this should be on the front page of this program, it is not. It's occasionally slow. This program is definitely on the way, and has a lot of potential but it's definitely in beta. However, above excellent customer service.

3.) PCRT - Never got past the trial, I know some swear by this program, but it's really too cluttered for my taste, too many options for me. I know me and my guys will never use this program to its potential for the sheer fact that I don't have time to put in the effort required to use PCRT to it's fullest especially when the most important thing for me is invoicing, and making money, not telling the customer how many mbam infections they had. I have heard the customer service for this as well is above and beyond the call.

Now, onto freshbooks. I've been testing this for about 3 months.

Things I like about this.

- It's clean
- Automatic email invoicing from within the program
- Notification of when an invoice has been viewed
- Each customer has their own profile from within the program to view all past invoices and their total outstanding dollar amount
- Accept online payments
- Automatic billing for monthly billed maintenance contracts
- Automatic payment for contracts
- Automatic reminder emails sent when a bill hasn't been paid *VERY IMPORTANT
- Expense reporting

So, with all that said, has anyone used freshbooks, did you like it, did you hate it and why?

 

[FoolishTech]

I looked at Freshbooks but quite honestly I didn't want to be sucked into something I have to *pay* for and end up not liking it.

I wanted something to integrate with Google Apps, and found the free Wave Accounting which, actually related to this thread, has an import function for Freshbooks users.

I guess they are really going after Freshbooks, though I cannot compare their functionality having never used either app (yet)... just throwing that out there...

EDIT: I see it doesn't do online payments... maybe not automatic billing, have to check. Maybe I *should* look into FB...

 

[bitbytes]

The biggest question or feature you should be asking yourself, is does this invoicing system tie into Quickbooks?

I used PCRT for sometime and loved it, until i got sick of the double invoicing in PCRT and Quickbooks (how annoying)

Now we use Mhelpdesk which i highly recommend. They are making adjustments to the software every week, and seem to really be listening to the users comments and suggestions.

Mhlepdesk does not have the Auto emailing invoice or reminders (yet) but im sure they will add in the future. You can send invoices/estimates through email within the program though.
They are working on adding paypal and authorize.net for payments to be accepted. Mhelpdesk can synch with google mail to help with scheduled events and such.

The monthly costs is very minimal for its features.
Now i open Quickbooks like once a week just to do a dump into it from Mhelpdesk.

Accessible from any PC on the internet. THey even just release a smartphone app (very nice, btw)

 

[NWPhotog]

Freshbooks is $40 a month if you have more than 25 customers. That's pretty steep to me.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Well shopmanager is $30 a month without a lot of features such as the ones I described above and I believe PCRT is the same (may be wrong).

I need something to streamline the paperwork involved when billing customers, money is not an issue because our shop brings in between 10k and 15k a month

 

[bitbytes]

I pay $14.95 a month for two user accounts.
You cant beat that.
Seriously look into Mhelpdesk

 

[NWPhotog]

Well shopmanager is $30 a month without a lot of features such as the ones I described above and I believe PCRT is the same (may be wrong).

I need something to streamline the paperwork involved when billing customers, money is not an issue because our shop brings in between 10k and 15k a month

Most of my customers pay on completion so no billing but I ain't doing $10k-$15k a month! Congrats!

 

[tobey]

I used Freshbooks for a couple months and loved it. Trouble is, it quickly became difficult to justify the monthly cost for what I was getting. Looked for some alternatives and found Harvest. It's very similar to FB but is way cheaper at $12 a month with no limit on clients. They have a 30 day trial and can import your data from Freshbooks. Give it a try!

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Freshbooks is $40 a month if you have more than 25 customers. That's pretty steep to me.

FreshBooks is $19.95 for up to 25 customers, $29.95 for more than 25 clients, and $39.95 if you want to add more techs to be able to login in with separate logins. $10 more per login account.

 

[thecomputerguy]

The biggest question or feature you should be asking yourself, is does this invoicing system tie into Quickbooks?

I used PCRT for sometime and loved it, until i got sick of the double invoicing in PCRT and Quickbooks (how annoying)

Now we use Mhelpdesk which i highly recommend. They are making adjustments to the software every week, and seem to really be listening to the users comments and suggestions.

Mhlepdesk does not have the Auto emailing invoice or reminders (yet) but im sure they will add in the future. You can send invoices/estimates through email within the program though.
They are working on adding paypal and authorize.net for payments to be accepted. Mhelpdesk can synch with google mail to help with scheduled events and such.

The monthly costs is very minimal for its features.
Now i open Quickbooks like once a week just to do a dump into it from Mhelpdesk.

Accessible from any PC on the internet. THey even just release a smartphone app (very nice, btw)

Is quickbooks really necessary? I mean I can track all profit/loss/expenses all through freshbooks, I think QB is a little over the top, I mean I want to spend my time either 1.) making money or 2.) coming up with new ways to make money. Not spend time playing around in quickbooks. I've attempted to teach myself quickbooks a couple times and each time it just seems overwhelming.

I looked into mhelpdesk ... it seems pretty nice but working in it I ran into a few problems. Not having reminder emails sent is a problem. We have quite a few net30 accounts. Also the process seems a little too involved to actually get an invoice out. Create the customer, or find the customer, add a new job, create an estimate for a new job, convert the estimate to an invoice, then send or print the invoice. We have a retail shop so if someone comes in just to buy something off the shelf or its just some sort of quick job I dont want to be spending more time trying to get an invoice printed than it actually takes to pick an item up off the shelf and bring it to the register.

 

[codegreen]

I'm currently using Freshbooks. It's really nice, but I'm finding it too expensive for what I'm getting, so I'm testing alternatives.

Pros:
- nice interface
- online payments
- option to send hard-copy invoices by post
- integrated time tracker, expensive tracker and project manager
- excellent support
- free trial with no time limit

Cons:
- unable to set up under your own domain. Other invoicing systems allow you to set up your account under your own subdomain (ie, billing.yourcompay.com). Freshbooks requires you to use yourcompany.freshbooks.com.
- No option to attach invoice to notification email. Email notification will only send a link to your Freshbooks site. The customer can download a PDF from there.
- no full-service Android app (there are a couple for just time tracking and expenses, but nothing to manage invoices)
- Expensive when compared to alternatives. The free trial account is limited to three clients. For $20 a month, you get up to 25 clients. $30 a month has unlimited clients.

 

[seedubya]

Just to clarify that PCRT is only $125 if you're an ACRBO member and is very good but its accounting functions are limited.

Wave Accounting appears completely awesome especially given the price.

 

[axslingr]

Wave Accounting appears completely awesome especially given the price.

The *only* thing I don't like about Wave is it's only accrual basis accounting.

Lance

 

[4ycr]

I sue kashflow, not sure if it is available in the US, but it send invoices at a click of a button and it also links into malchimp for email campains.

Again it is a monthly cost but by the looks cheaper than fresh books

 

[mein]

Take a look at Freeagent Central. I've used it for a couple of years and love it.

 

[colonydata]

i host bamboo invoice on my hosting account. its done pretty much everything i want it to do. but the lack of development in over two years on it is starting to concern me.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Ive switched from freshbooks to quickbooks online fulltime ... its a little too heavy duty for my accounting purposes but I figure if I am really going to go legit I might as well use the software that can best help me handle expenses and taxes when the time comes. I love the freshbooks interface and it does a great job of invoicing, but that is about it. Its expense and reporting features arent great and as a plus the quickbooks online android app is pretty damn amazing for customer management and billing on the fly.

 

[NerdHouse]

Just switched over to QuickBooks Online as well from FreshBooks. QuickBooks Online has a special up until 1/30 for 50% off the monthly price for one year. So it's the same I paid with FreshBooks but at the same time I get more functionality as well.

 

[nightkingdoms]

I still use WHMCS. It's not exactly made for tech support kind of stuff, but I make very good use of it. It's supposed to be for hosting companies which is what I started out doing (and still do), but it's been easy for me to adjust.

It has full billing features, automated email invoicing plus an easy button to click on to send invoices or quotes as PDF files directly to the client's email. It's integrated with over 75 different payment gateways, handles promotional codes, products/services, client management, consolidated billing, and support tickets.

All phone calls, emails, text messages, online bookings, etc. all get email piped to my support ticket system. Clients that are already there it picks up their email and associates with the ticket, if not I made a new client and do it manually just as easy. Each "call" I do has a separate ticket and I just update that. Things that give a copy to the client goes as responses, stuff for only me goes in the private notes. I also do a full report with LookInMyPC and attach that to the ticket so I have the system information for the client and the call.

Once I'm done, I create an invoice in the same system which has all their client data, set the due date and have it emailed off to the client. It handles reminders, PDF copies, quotes, online billing through 75+ payment gateways including offline credit card processing, PayPal, Google Checkout, etc. I give out physical discount or gift cards and I enter them in as promotional codes in the system, too. They can use the code online, in person, whatever and it's all integrated.

I swear, if these guys made a computer tech version of their software I'd be in heaven. BUT, the way it is and the way you can set it up, I literally can handle all aspects of my business including hosting, web design, computer repair, programming, physical goods or other services all through the same, integrated system. Which I think is the best of all: I only have to use 1 system to handle my entire business.

Might not work for everybody else, but it works out great for me.

 

[TechPro57]

I used to use Online Quickbooks .... is it no longer a contender?