Freelance Invoicing

[graymachine 0]

It's surprising how cumbersome it can be to deal with invoicing.. keeping track of billing, who has paid, who hasn't. Not HARD, just one more thing to put a kink in the flow of things in the day.

 

I've recently switched to Freshbooks.com which I've been very happy with. With a couple clicks, I can make an invoice and send it via email or post. Clients are send a link with a secure log-in where they can see exactly what I am billing, and even dispute it if you give them the option (which I don't, heh). I can see my current billing at a glance, keep track of hours from anywhere that I can get to the Internet. I can track who has viewed their invoice and when. It's cool.

 

Prior to freshbooks, I was using crappy Word documents, saving copies of them storing them in a folder. Sucked.

 

The only thing I am wondering is if the pricing @ $14/month for Freshbooks is really worth it. Just curious if people have a better solution that they use.

[raven52321 0]

It's surprising how cumbersome it can be to deal with invoicing.. keeping track of billing, who has paid, who hasn't. Not HARD, just one more thing to put a kink in the flow of things in the day.

 

I've recently switched to Freshbooks.com which I've been very happy with. With a couple clicks, I can make an invoice and send it via email or post. Clients are send a link with a secure log-in where they can see exactly what I am billing, and even dispute it if you give them the option (which I don't, heh). I can see my current billing at a glance, keep track of hours from anywhere that I can get to the Internet. I can track who has viewed their invoice and when. It's cool.

 

Prior to freshbooks, I was using crappy Word documents, saving copies of them storing them in a folder. Sucked.

 

The only thing I am wondering is if the pricing @ $14/month for Freshbooks is really worth it. Just curious if people have a better solution that they use.

 

Invoicing makes it feel like you've got two jobs. I deal with it this way- I keep a calendar with days and clients marked, so I know at a glance how much to invoice for a job. I write the invoices at the end of a job, or monthly if it's a long-term job. I put a number on each invoice, and I've got a tracking document that notes the invoice number, client, amount invoiced, whether they have paid or not, and date invoice was sent.

[Beaver 1]

Dude, get quicken home & business or quickbooks simple start.

 

Seriously, I got that crap, and I don't spend any time on my billing stuff any more. There was a learning curve, but now I spend a fraction of the time dealing with invoicing.

[isotrope 0]

I heard that they might be integrating the Basecamp API into Blinksale.

Maybe I'm simply behind and they already have.

 

SideJobTrack also seems interesting.

[graymachine 0]

Dude, get quicken home & business or quickbooks simple start.

 

Seriously, I got that crap, and I don't spend any time on my billing stuff any more. There was a learning curve, but now I spend a fraction of the time dealing with invoicing.

 

Considering the $200 up front vs. the $14/month...I wonder if the Quickbooks or Quicken software needs frequent upgrades. They don't seem to make that very clear.

 

I do a lot of on-site work.. so it's great being able to enter my time right in to my invoicing system. Hmmm hmm hmmm.

[Beaver 1]

Considering the $200 up front vs. the $14/month...I wonder if the Quickbooks or Quicken software needs frequent upgrades. They don't seem to make that very clear.

 

I do a lot of on-site work.. so it's great being able to enter my time right in to my invoicing system. Hmmm hmm hmmm.

 

One of my clients uses simplestart online version - she's pretty happy with it.

 

I use quickbooks home & biz because I wanted something for all my finances, not just billing. Slightly weaker billing features, but I've got a pretty nice system worked out. You can e-mail, print, or turn your invoices into a PDF, which is great because my different clients want to be invoiced in different ways, and this pretty much covers all the bases.

 

What's also nice about Home & Biz is tracking your income vs spending. Sounds like a giant pain in the ass, but seriously, once you're all set up and you've got it figured out, you'll only spend a few minutes dealing with it every day.

 

My biggest complaint is that sometimes there are issues connecting to my bank account online. As far as upgrading, they come out with a new version every year, but I hear you don't really need to upgrade but every 3 years. They disable your software's online abilities after 3 years for "security" reasons...

[alba 0]

i use...

 

Blinksale for invoicing

 

and

 

Quicken for keeping track of business expenses. I also have Pocket Quicken on the Treo which syncs nicely with my desktop.

 

all that then goes to my accountant at the end of the year, who i pay a handsome fee to do my taxes.

 

e

 

 

 

It's surprising how cumbersome it can be to deal with invoicing.. keeping track of billing, who has paid, who hasn't. Not HARD, just one more thing to put a kink in the flow of things in the day.

 

I've recently switched to Freshbooks.com which I've been very happy with. With a couple clicks, I can make an invoice and send it via email or post. Clients are send a link with a secure log-in where they can see exactly what I am billing, and even dispute it if you give them the option (which I don't, heh). I can see my current billing at a glance, keep track of hours from anywhere that I can get to the Internet. I can track who has viewed their invoice and when. It's cool.

 

Prior to freshbooks, I was using crappy Word documents, saving copies of them storing them in a folder. Sucked.

 

The only thing I am wondering is if the pricing @ $14/month for Freshbooks is really worth it. Just curious if people have a better solution that they use.

[The Crabster 0]

Is it good?

Edited September 14, 2006 by The Crabster

[kai 0]

Man I use blinksale and love it. Not to sound cheezy, but I don't know how I got along with doing it manually before. You can automate billing cycles, assign tags to jobs, include paypal payment links, etc. It's great, and pretty cheap (like 6 bucks a month).

 

Blinksale

[milkshake 0]

Filemaker for Creatives

 

For a cheaper solution, i've been using the database in Appleworks for many years now. It's not as full featured as Filemaker, but it's way cheaper (if you can still buy it) and it does enough to suit my needs.

 

-lloyd

[the_Monkey 8]

Nobody uses iBiz?

I've had iBiz and iBank for about 3 years now (iBiz was iWork before Apple bought the name from him). Development gets better and better. v3 looks like it will clean up some of the UI problems I had with v2.

 

I have a problem with doing that stuff off-site.

 

-m

[Cutty Pastey 0]

I've actually was doing the word doc thing like graymachine - I just switched to "Billable" by a company called "Clickable Bliss" it's pretty cool - and has a nice interface and organizational system. You can try it out for 30 days free from their site. It's got a built in time tracker (click start and stop to keep track of hours) but I don't use it. I just bill by half and full days or per project.

link- http://clickablebliss.com/billable