Likelihood to Recommend FreshBooks is the perfect tool for businesses who have hundreds of clients and customers whom they invoice regularly. It removes the need to manually send invoices to clients and customers, by streamlining inputted information to create an automated invoicing system which keeps clients and customers up to date with their bills. It is also a great tool for managing expenses, especially for companies with different teams working on varying projects, ensuring these teams do not exceed the budget ceiling.
Read full review All businesses require solutions and tools for organization and control of expenses, spreadsheets were always the first option, but since the arrival of LivePlan, all work is easier and more automated. With LivePlan we have charts and graphs that are automatically created based on our data, this is a great time and money saver. LivePlan is a tool that has worked from day one and has met our expectations in creating the total budget.
Read full review Pros FreshBooks is pretty intuitive to use. I did have some questions when I first started using the system, but it wasn't a long learning curve. FreshBooks provides more capability than other billing applications such as PaySimple or BlinkSale. FreshBooks does provide an easy invoicing function. It's easy to create invoices that can be sent via email or snail mail to one or more individuals (for example, the decision-maker and the accounting dept). Clients can pay online or send a check and then I note that the payment has been received. If paid by credit card, the system automatically marks the invoice paid. Your business accounts such as bank accounts can be linked to FreshBooks. Then, the system can automatically draw in expenses and will create simple P&L reports, overdue invoices, client history, etc. If you don't have inventory and complex payroll, etc. FreshBooks provides just the right level of capability to make financial tracking simple. FreshBooks integrates with a number of credit card companies. I use Stripe, which has fees similar to Paypal, but much more reliable processing. I can accept all credit cards, including American Express, for a reasonable fee. Read full review It makes it easy and simple to plan and budget the business. It allows creating of accurate business forecasts. It has detailed yet easy to use and customize built-in templates to help you get along with business planning easily. It integrates and works perfectly well woth accounting tools like QuickBooks such that it is easy to import the accounting data. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review UX: It's beyond time for an overhaul, especially on mobile. It can make the app seem dated. The accounting software integration has been prone to break and need to be re-setup, though that seems to have improved. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability FreshBooks is easy to use and always works!
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Implementation Rating I haven't changed my mind since my first evaluation. Freshbooks is still meeting my needs, easy to use, etc.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We do not consider other options since our client wants the implementation of this platform in order to use it in the two countries where it has operations. At the moment, full integration was not possible and we still share the information with a Mexican system to complete everything necessary.
Read full review We did not really find a similar solution. All other solutions are focused on project management, [there's] nothing on generating a business plan. There is nothing on this level that helps people without any business experience write the plan. They have samples, instructions what to write where, how to prepare for pitching, and generate dashboards. Nothing in this market gets anywhere close to this solution.
Read full review Return on Investment Freshbooks saves me time compared to when I managed to invoice without an app. Freshbooks make keeping my invoices organized which saves me time. Freshbooks helps me to know who is late on payments. When I was doing this by hand, some invoices would get lost in the clutter and I would not find out I haven't been paid until much later. Mike Calabro Photographer: Commercial, Advertising and Editorial
Read full review It has made it easy to create sensible budgets and run our business within the proposed budgets to avoid overspending. It allows us to keenly follow up and keep track of how the business is performing thus getting to know on which ares we should improve. It helps us have accurate future insights of the position of our business thanks to its forecasting functionality. It helps us to create outstanding business plans and fund the plans which help us grow our business by improving its productivity. Read full review ScreenShots