BILL is an online service for SMBs which provides a central dashboard for managing Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and cash flow management. It syncs with all major accounting systems like QuickBooks, Sage, Intaact, and NetSuite.
$45
per month
FreshBooks
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
FreshBooks is an accounting service for small businesses. The solution enables users to send and manage invoices, track billable time and collect online payments. The vendor’s value proposition this that their solution provides a straightforward service that simplifies the billing process.
$21
per month
PaySimple
Score 5.8 out of 10
N/A
PaySimple is a payment gateway software solution offered by PaySimple.
I used PaySimple for some period of time. I wasn't happy with the extensive paperwork and rules it imposes. I do use it for ACH transactions for recurring payments from some clients because of the extremely low transaction fees. Otherwise, it was just another time waster. I …
PaySimple feels a bit more comprehensive of a solution. The timing of invoice processing feels quicker and the bank level encryption feels more secure.
It depends, Bill.com certainly has a strong reputation and I agree it can be a great solution in the right scenario but I think the implementation and initial setup are critical and need to be well thought out based on the setup of the organization you are a part of.
I recommend FreshBooks to anyone running a service-based business that needs invoicing, time reporting, and accounting tools. FB is adept in all three of these scenarios and isn't overly complicated like similar accounting packages I have used. I love how I can write estimates and proposals, manage the business development process from the software, and quickly convert prospects to invoiced clients.
PaySimple has made it next to impossible to become PCI compliant unless we purchased a separate computer for the sole purpose of invoicing. We switched to Chase Bank who does not store sensitive info on our computers allowing us to accept credit cards and still remain PCI compliant. Our money is available much faster by not using the 3rd party. Additionally, a simple company name change required more paperwork than closing the account and setting up a new one even when the same bank account was going to be used. This was the primary reason to shop around. We happily contacted Chase Bank and now save $125 a month and receive access to our funds faster. I cannot believe I stayed with PaySimple as long as I did. It's amazing anyone would jump through the hoops of PCI compliance when the technology exists to keep sensitive information off your small business computers. If this review stops anyone from paying those monthly fees, the time was well worth it! PaySimple, requires business owners to fill out forms that make no sense in laymens terms. Chase Bank fills them all in for you and highlights the areas that need to be signed and initialed. PaySimple, charges excessive fees and in my opinion has very emotional customer service reps. Chase Bank, was eager to help and get things rolling so you can focus on your business. I would never recommend PaySimple.
Invoicing - FreshBooks basically ensures our accountants spend less time on invoices via its automated invoicing system, which sends invoices to our customers and clients alike and also send them regular reminders for them to pay up their bills.
Collecting business insights - FreshBooks enable our company analysts measure our business performances via data reports provided by FreshBooks' intuitive dashboard. Allowing us do a comparative analysis of key business metrics of a current month against past months and determine if the business is growing.
Expense tracker - We have recently embraced FreshBooks as an expense tracker for teams at our company branch. Thusfar, FreshBooks has performed very well, making our expense management a perfect operation; ensuring teams do not exceed their planned budget and also eliminating the need for tracking expenses on excel spreadsheets.
PaySimple is awesome for recurring payments. It's easy to set one up and make changes as needed. Without this feature, our business would be dead. Being able to easily set up recurring payments for our retainer is a must and PaySimple does it beautifully.
The payment portal feature is also really good fro collecting payments of differing amounts. We setup a single portal where customers enter the payment amount accessed from a link in the invoice email. This feature has transformed out collections and cut down our time to get paid significantly.
If you do have product type offerings, it's easy to setup individual products or an entire store.
Currently, our company uses a different platform to submit expenses, we only use bill.com to receive them. So perhaps this isn't actually a place where bill.com could improve, but the expense submission process may not have been robust enough for our company.
The bill.com platform wasn't the most beautiful or pleasing to use, but this is a minor fault.
I'd love a way to set up recurring payments (e.g., my phone bill is reimbursed each month).
I can brand invoices with my business logo, but I might like to change colours of the invoices themselves to match the rest of my business documents. That isn't a major point at all, but it's something that I'd like to see.
Freshbooks doesn't remember the categories that similar expenses were previously assigned to. It would be nice if Freshbooks would suggest a category for an already saved vendor, to ensure the consistency of expense reporting.
The home page of a Freshbooks account has a great graph display of expenses and income, but it only shows the last 6 months. This is still very useful, but I'd like to be able to see this kind of graph for different periods of time.
More proactive and empowering role in merchant fee's and alternative processors. Transparency is challenging in understanding Paysimple's role and relationship to the processors.
Identifying areas for further value to clients.
More targeted small to mid-size business perspective to anticipate growth challenges and prevent blocks on funds for legitimate sales and growth.
While our firm does not use Bill.com internally, we know many customers that use Bill.com and are very happy with it. Based on the feedback from current users, I would say that the product should have a strong renewal forecast. Once customers move their AP to the cloud, they would be unlikely to move it back given a choice.
At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.
Bill.com continues to raise the bar with new features and improved interface. The Fast Pay option is another innovation that reduces administrative time when you have to get an overnight check out. The new Chat Support interface, powered by Zopim, which is world-class, adds to the responsiveness of Bill.com's support team and makes getting real-time answers that much easier.
FreshBooks is very easy to use even for novices. If you're looking for an online accounting software that is full of features, has great aesthetics and is user-friendly, then this is definitely the software for you. I've been using it for several years now and despite being tempted to switch by other vendors, I like the feel of FreshBooks and it's mobile features.
The only time Bill.com was ever "unavailable" was then the Sync to Quickbooks function failed. That happened a time or two but was usually quickly remedied. I'm not sure if that's an issue with newer online versions of Quickbooks Enterprise -- at the time we were using a remotely hosted Quickbooks instance accessed via terminal server (vs a cloud offering like Bill.com is)
I could not explain to them how I was trying to remove an old email account from my company page while granting the new email account access to the bank account that the first email account had added. The "set a bank account as inactive" button is labeled delete, but they don't seem to recognize that. I requested my Bill.com account be deleted on Wednesday so I could start all over with a fresh account; this seemed to be completed Wednesday night, but when I tried to create a new Bill.com account from the same email, it took me to my old bill.com account.
I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.
The online training provided by Bill.com is concise and since the firm consistently improves the platform functionality, users are able to select the training for the modules they specifically need.
1. Automation & Workflow Efficiency.2. Integration Capabilities with other softwaresWe needed a centralized, automated, and scalable solution for managing both payables and receivables. The strong integration with our existing accounting software was a key factor.The platform gave us better visibility and control over cash flow and approval processes.
FreshBooks does very well in comparison, especially since it is free software for Barclays bank users. Sage software is much worse than FreshBooks. However, Xero and QuickBooks, the market leaders, are still ahead with usability, additional features, reporting, and connection with third-party software providers. We chose FreshBooks as it does everything we require from this type of software.
Authorize.net and a handful of other merchant processors and gateways. Most payment gateways (online portals to process payments) are rudimentary and not extremely intuitive. PaySimple is not and they are constantly coming up with new ways to improve upon an already very impressive platform.
After receiving an offer to 'finance' outstanding invoices, I was enticed by the promise of a 3% total cost for a 60-day period, with the possibility of extending the financing for an additional 10 months (for an additional fee). Eager to access funds, I decided to finance an invoice worth $17,160.00. Within 24 hours, BILL deposited $16,645.20 (97% of the invoice amount) into my account.
However, when the customer paid their $17,160 invoice four days later, instead of the funds being deposited into my checking account as I expected, BILL chose to retire the loan and retain my $514.80 fee for the 4 day advance period. This unexpected turn of events resulted in an effective interest rate of a staggering 273.75%. It was clear that this arrangement was far from what I had initially understood, and the financial impact was outrageously high.
Frustratingly, my attempts to resolve this issue through customer service were in vain, as I spoke with three agents who provided no satisfactory solutions. To anyone contemplating using BILL's services, I strongly urge you to carefully scrutinize the fine print and consider opting for a more reputable finance company."
In reality, we do not implement all of its use at the moment in order to determine an adequate ROI.
In our approach to the use of the system, it seems to us a considerable time saving by achieving the integration of the Mexican subsidiary with its parent located in the US.
Financial reports meet the necessary USGAAP requirements.
Because we've got a really awesome rate with them it's definitely a positive ROI. I can't say what that figure is but it's pretty good. Also, our customers have a huge ROI over their prior way of getting payment from their customers.
