Freshbooks
June 14, 2006 in 5 out of 5 stars, Hosted software, InvoicingFreshbooks: Billing/Invoicing/Timetracking service/software. The good folks at 2ndSite Inc. Freshbooks has a clean, quick interface and all the features needed for a small business/freelancer without the bloat of many accounting packages. It is like having a billing department watching your back, invoicing your clients via email who can then view and pay online. The tool hooks up with major payment gateways for credit card payment.
The tool also allows you to brand (colors/logos) the payment site your customers will use so customers have a seamless experience when logging in from your site. Coming soon is the ability to send invoices via snail mail right from the interface for a small fee. No more printer jams and paper cuts. Excellent. I have been using the tool for about 4 months now and have yet to find a gotcha or missing feature. Would love to hear others impressions. Free for 3 clients -- up to $39/mo for 1000. Reviewed by Gregg TurnbullWhat is it?
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I agree that FreshBooks is good service. I've also been using it for several months. They seem to be receptive to feedback and regularly update the software.
They also have arranged to have teleconference calls with experts in different fields. Two weeks ago is was Andrew Goodman who is a Google AdWords expert.
I have seen a couple of glitches. One was I couldn't find a way to edit a paid invoice and change the payment date.
Posted by: Anne Hennegar | Jul 13, 2006 6:01:42 PM
I was impressed with the overall functionality of FreshBooks, especially in comparison to Blinksale. They seemed to be able to walk the line of having more features without seeming more complex. I'll not only be able to import my Quickbooks information, but track my time in the same application, allowing me to do away with another external service I was using.
Posted by: Lara | Sep 4, 2006 8:14:25 PM
Overall, this is one of the better time tracking and invoicing web applications out there. However, the user interface is a bit clumsy. For example, the "Update Task" page has - among other things - commands to allow you to create a new project, get a list of projects or tasks and change application preferences. In short, any of these could take you away from the Update Task function before you commit your changes. I do like the ability to turn tracked time instances into an invoice, but the method for doing so is clunky and so loose, that I have no way of telling which instances I've already invoiced and which I haven't. You also can't set different billing rates per task until those tasks have been turned into an invoice. I think if they smooth out some of the process issues and tighten up the interface - particularly in area of turning tracked time into invoices, they'll have an application that's hard to beat.
Posted by: Keith Ciociola | Sep 14, 2006 7:44:31 PM
Ah, I'm in the process of moving from blinksale to fresh books. I really like the way freshbooks organizes things. Blinksale is really basic and easy to use, but I think this has much better reporting. The only thinkg I dont like so far is that I have to pay to handle more than 3 clients, whereas blinksale was unlimited amount of clients but only 3 invoices per month.
Posted by: Jake Rutter | Mar 9, 2007 5:05:44 PM
All the major invoicing programs have one big failing: none support true i18n, i.e. different languages.
Making them less than useful for me, since I need to bill clients in German.
Other than that, Freshbooks does have a decent API so if I could persuade my clients to accept invoices in English, this might work...
Posted by: Ed | Sep 15, 2008 8:02:38 AM
it is good and nice post
Posted by: esquire | Apr 29, 2012 3:02:19 AM