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 Square Invoices is the best service that I have found for what it does: it's easy to use, nice to look at, and never seems to go to spam or be lost by clients. Clients mention that the setup is easier than services my competitors use. You can even attach your contract to the invoice, which is wonderful in case there are questions later on. Unfortunately, not being able to have clients alter quantities or select add-ons means for half of my services, I have to use a different, inferior service.
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 Adding a customer to invoice is super simple and takes minimal effort. Payment collection is easy and seamless because Square Invoices allows the recipient to pay using credit/cards. One of the fest features is allowing invoices to be recurring. If my contract stipulates a flat fee monthly, I can set the invoices to recur monthly for the duration of the contract. 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 The reports section is not always the easiest to understand. It seems like I have to stop and think about options instead of it being 100% intuitive. With the fees we pay per transaction, it would be nice to be able to add additional "limited" users for no extra cost. 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 The only time I had a problem was a false chargeback from a client. Square Invoices referenced our contract and ruled in my favor, and they did so in a timely manner. I sent them the contract and my email history with the client, and they quickly unfroze the amount of money.
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 Square Invoices is easier to use and automatically transfers your money to your bank account vs Paypal that holds your money and you have to manually transfer and it takes 3-5 days (many times more). Square Invoices looks better overall, and for the same fees as Paypal, provides a better service overall.
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 I love that I can sort my invoices in total, or by a specific time period to see how my sales are doing and comparing to prior time periods. Read full review ScreenShots