FreshBooks

FreshBooks has helped us simplify and streamline our financial operations while maintaining security and organization.

Here's the skinny on FreshBooks (the good, the bad, and the ugly):

The Good:
You can't beat the visual dashboard for tracking outstanding and past payments for clients. It's a great billing system for small businesses and especially consultants or freelancers. The recurring billing/invoicing system is FAB!

Like many platforms these days, Freshbooks showcases a library of "add-ons" to help enhance your experience. Some of the best ones (in my book, as a tech consultant and marketer) are Hubspot, Shopify, Mailchimp, Bidsketch, BaseCamp, and Podio.

There's a decent time tracking feature, along with the ability to track expenses. You can create/assign staff to project billing. Of course, you can issue "estimates" to prospects for future projects. As you send invoices through the Freshbooks system, it will log "sent" emails for you. And the system is designed to handle manual invoices for snail mail as well.

Each client/business that you bill receives their own "login" to your dashboard to view their invoice(s). This is a nice touch, as clients may often "misplace" that original email with your invoice in it...

It integrates very nicely with Stripe and PayPal (although I hear that may be changing - what? I know) plus Freshbooks has its own payment feature. I never have issues with payments, they always come through the system promptly (for online playing, 24-48 hours, the norm).

The Bad:
I'm not a fan of the reporting feature, while it's functional, it doesn't allow enough flexibility that a diverse consultant such as myself would like (need) to have. There are several reporting functions for each core feature (Accounting, Clients, Invoicing, and Time Tracking). But no option for custom reporting, which I often need as my diverse array of clientele has different process, set-ups, etc. At the very least, I would like to be able to customize the built-in reports on some level. I've not found an add-on that would assist me with this pain point.

The Ugly:
Finally, sadly, the worst thing I have to say about FreshBooks is that the Android app is greatly lacking. As the years (and technology) progress, that could eventually become a deal breaker. All the features in the world won't do a consultant much good if all of those same features can't be accessed via mobile device. We're ALL mobile these days, doncha know.

However, if you split your time between desktop/Mac and mobile, then Freshbooks is well worth a look!

I think there are less expensive services but none do what I need as well as Freshbooks.

FreshBooks is overall a good software, at least if your needs are not too complex. I keep however facing issues with a few features, such a bank reconciliation that never are accurate or complete. Customer service takes a bit too long to respond, although will in the end listen. Seems however that said issues are not to be fixed very soon...