For the last couple of years, I’ve been searching for an invoicing tool that worked for the way I work. I tried Blinksale, Freshbooks and Less Accounting, among others. I didn’t have very many clients for my side business, so I was able to organize them using three free accounts. Eventually, that became a pain, especially when tallying income for Uncle Sam, as I started getting more clients.
So I did a pretty thorough test of features for the three services, plus local software programs like Billings, and I decided on Freshbooks.
Now, they all have something going for them. The Less Accounting guys are awesome. But so are the Freshbooks folks. Saul Colt, “Head of Magic” is an awesome customer service rep. They have also done a great job of adding new features with no additional charge.
I know I’m paying a monthly fee for something I could get with a one-time purchase of something like Billings, but the extra money is worth it for me to be able to do my business on any computer, track time on my iPhone, and give my clients a nice online interface for their invoices as well as any support tickets.
Freshbooks, for me, makes my business complete. Now I just need to get busy customizing the interface to give it the DE look and feel.
The service was just named by RWW to the Top 10 International Products of 2008. They recently added these great features as well, which really is extra icing on the cake:
- Invite contractors to work on your projects.
- Contractors can work on your projects from their own FB account.
- Receive invitations and project notifications from email and your homepage.
- Invoices that are sent from your contractors will appear in your received invoices subtab.
- Pass your contractor’s hours and expenses onto your client from your received invoices subtab.
- You can now invite contractors onto your projects when creating or editing projects.
- Your project creation page has been redesigned to be easier to use.
- Your Team tab has been redesigned to include staff and contractors.
It really is painless, and fast. Sign up here for a free account and let me know what you think, or let me know what you use in the comments!
