Brian Dusablon

After much deliberation, I decided to use Freshbooks exclusively in 2009 for my small business. I loved it. It was simple, it was easy to use. It was fast. Paired with Fluid on my Mac, it was almost perfect.

They are decent at adding new functionality, but mostly they just got it right with the core app, except for one thing:

$14 per month.

Doesn’t seem like much, does it? But look at it this way: $168 (one year). Now how about $336 (two years). That is a LOT of money for one tool in a freelancer’s/small business owner’s toolbox.

Less Accounting ($12/mo, $144/yr) and Blinksale ($6/mo, $72/yr) are other options, but they’re still expensive.

I’m switching to Billings for a one-time payment of $39. If I upgrade, it’ll probably be once, maybe twice over the next two years ($25 or $50), bringing my total to a max of $89 over two years.

I’ve been drooling over some amazing graphics and diagrams recently, but this is the best I could do to show my potential cost savings over the next two years:

Just thought I’d share my thoughts and recommendations. Freshbooks is awesome. Less Accounting seems like a good tool. Blinksale is good also. If you run multiple computers or have more than one employee, it might be worth the extra cost for the online services.

But as a freelancer/small business owner with one or two employees (the wife does some HR consulting occasionally), and only one responsible for estimate, invoicing, etc., I’m going with the cost savings, while retaining the same functionality (albeit local to my machine) as the web-based tools.

I’ll probably have more on this subject after a few months or a year with Billings.

(Thanks to Aaron for the nudge).

So I run a small business. It’s not hugely profitable (yet), but it’s a nice side gig to my day job, which I thoroughly enjoy and could not possibly give up right now.

My goal is to grow my business gradually, building long-term relationships with non-profits and small businesses.

I believe the most important tools for a small business are, in no particular order, customer relationship management (CRM), accounting and invoicing, and project management.

Now for my dilemma. For the first few years of business, where I had a very small number of clients, and several one-project clients, I hopped around between Blinksale, Freshbooks and some others on their free limited accounts, trying them out. They all seemed to work pretty well, and eventually Freshbooks won me over with their frequent feature enhancements and their wonderful product team and support.

So when I reached the next level in my business, I imported everything to Freshbooks and went with their lowest paid plan, at $14 per month. Since then, I’ve had no complaints, and no issues whatsoever, except for that monthly email notifying me that my card has been charged $14.

I absolutely love the simplicity to administer my account, monitor payments, automate recurring invoices, etc. But I’m wondering if something on my local machine, like Billings, would be a better solution at a one-time fee of $39 (less than three months of my current plan). At the same time, the simplicity and time savings of using a great SaaS app like Freshbooks is nice.

I’m hoping a few small business owners and/or freelancers read this post and can provide me with some feedback on what they are using.

Aaron is setup with Billings and Basecamp, which I’ve used sparingly. I’m not sure if they play nicely together, but it works for him. I’d love a fully integrated solution (or solutions) to manage my clients, both active and potential, billing, and project management.

Freshbooks and Basecamp play nicely together, as do several other SaaS tools. 37signals makes their case for web-based software. What do you use? What’s your experience? What’s your monthly bill for running your business? What other tips do you have for me?