I’m in Love with Freshbooks
- The Business, Productivity, Technology entry posted on April 29th, 2008.
There are a ton of easy-to-use, lightweight, out-of-the-box invoicing applications out there. So when I set out to find something that meshed well with my style, it was no simple task.
Luckily, I found Freshbooks — which does all and more than I could ask for. The best features, in my opinion, being (1) the ability to fully customize your login screens and (2) create an entirely seamless payment experience for your clients.
What is Freshbooks?
FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional.
- Easily create, send and manage invoices
- Track time (for you and staff) and expenses
- Send invoices by snail mail or email
- Accept payment with PayPal, Authorize.Net, & more
- Automatically send invoices & late payment notices
- Create robust reports and import/export your data
My Process of Elimination
Although the Freshbooks feature-set is very nice, it took me a while to really give it a go.
This is mainly because I’m addicted to high levels of customization and control. I assumed I would be giving up some of that control when using a hosted application rather than something on my desktop or on my servers.
My invoicing/timetracking application of choice was Billings2, which is a beautiful one. I loved that little app because my invoices looked amazing. I think I spent more time designing my invoices than actual invoicing.
Clients Like Simple
The problem with Billings is it lacks in the client interaction field. My clients are all super connected most of the time (Basecamp, for example), and then I send them an invoice via email pdf where they have to copy and paste a url to pay or send a check. Plus there might be printing involved (oh god).
Now my clients simply log into their areas and view the vitals of their project’s financial health. They pay seamlessly through an interface connected to Amazon FPS or PayPal Payflow Pro.
Developers Like Simple, Also
Shit, I like things simple too! The best way to look into it, is just to sign up for a free account and test drive.
7 Responses to “I’m in Love with Freshbooks”rss
Saul Colt, on April 30th, 2008, said:
I’m in LOVE with Vocino.com (and I really really really like Travis!)
Saul Colt
Head of Magic
FreshBooks!
Futon-Matt, on May 2nd, 2008, said:
This sounds interesting, but I would hate to change my system now! I fear change :)
Stefanie, on May 2nd, 2008, said:
This is definitely something worth considering. Up until now, I’ve done everything by hand. Of course, I have a day job and only freelance a little, so it’s probably not a huge deal for now.
Saul Colt, on May 2nd, 2008, said:
Hey Stephanie!
I hate to get all salesy but now would be an awesome time to climb aboard and start using FreshBooks because our service is absolutly FREE for companies with less than 3 clients. (If you want) you could try out FreshBooks now and get used to it while it is free and see how much time and energy you will save by using FreshBooks!
Feel free to email me if you want any help or if you have any questions
Saul Colt
Head of Magic
FreshBooks!
Steve, on May 4th, 2008, said:
@Futon-Matt, it is not change that I fear, merely change for changes sake. Nice article Travis.
Ralph, on May 8th, 2008, said:
Looks interesting, I’ll try it.
Billing for Your Brain by Travis Vocino, on June 2nd, 2008, said:
[...] tools I use to log my dedication with Mars Lander-like percision. iPhone hacks, dashboard widgets, web applications and more. Rarely, if ever, is time logged that is more that 1 or 2 seconds longer (or shorter, for [...]
Commenting
You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>Your nasty comment spam will be blocked by Akismet.