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FreshBooks

FreshBooks

Overview

What is FreshBooks?

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…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

FreshBooks is a user-friendly accounting software that has been highly praised by users for its ability to streamline invoice creation, …
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Know what you are buying first

2 out of 10
November 02, 2023
Our main use for FreshBooks is invoicing and estimates, linking with our credit union is very spotty so not reliable enough to do any …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 20 features
  • Dashboards (52)
    4.6
    46%
  • Standard reports (50)
    4.1
    41%
  • Expense management (46)
    3.1
    31%
  • Accounts receivable (50)
    2.6
    26%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Lite

$15

Cloud
per month

Plus

$30

Cloud
per month

Premium

$55

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.freshbooks.com/?ref=11573&ut…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Working Better Together with FreshBooks

YouTube

InfoPoc: Freshbooks Connector for Salesforce - Demo

YouTube

Create Freshbooks Invoices for New WooCommerce Orders

YouTube

FreshBooks Demo

YouTube

Freshbooks Demo

YouTube

Become a Certified FreshBooks Accounting Partner

YouTube
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Features

Customization

This addresses a company’s ability to configure the software to fit its specific use case and workflow.

1.2
Avg 7.0

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

6.4
Avg 7.9

Reporting & Analytics

Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.

4.5
Avg 7.6

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting

Financial management solution, including capabilities for general ledger and configurable accounting

4.7
Avg 7.4

Order Management

The ability to process orders, and track them from quote to cash.

3.9
Avg 7.4
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Product Details

What is FreshBooks?

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.

FreshBooks Features

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting Features

  • Supported: Accounts payable
  • Supported: Accounts receivable
  • Supported: Expense management
  • Supported: Time tracking
  • Supported: Regulations compliance

Order Management Features

  • Supported: Pricing
  • Supported: Order entry
  • Supported: Credit card processing

Reporting & Analytics Features

  • Supported: Dashboards
  • Supported: Standard reports

Customization Features

  • Supported: API for custom integration
  • Supported: Plug-ins

Security Features

  • Supported: Role-based user permissions

FreshBooks Screenshots

Screenshot of DashboardScreenshot of Invoice OverviewScreenshot of Beautiful, Customizable InvoicesScreenshot of Invoice seamlessly across devicesScreenshot of ExpensesScreenshot of Time TrackingScreenshot of Time TrackingScreenshot of Time TrackingScreenshot of Time TrackingScreenshot of App IntegrationsScreenshot of Recurring BillingScreenshot of PaymentsScreenshot of ReportsScreenshot of Projects

FreshBooks Videos

Accounting, for the Non-Accountant.
Say Hello to FreshBooks Cloud Accounting

FreshBooks Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Mac
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Zoho Invoice are common alternatives for FreshBooks.

Reviewers rate Self-service portal highest, with a score of 9.1.

The most common users of FreshBooks are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

FreshBooks Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)95%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)5%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)0%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(205)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

FreshBooks is a user-friendly accounting software that has been highly praised by users for its ability to streamline invoice creation, email tracking, and expense management. With FreshBooks, users can effortlessly create, email, and track invoices, as well as set up recurring invoices. The detailed reports provided by FreshBooks allow users to efficiently manage their financials and gain insights into their expenses and client details. Clients also appreciate the convenience of accessing their accounts, viewing/printing invoices, and even filing disputes through FreshBooks. Another notable aspect of FreshBooks is its responsive and helpful customer support team, which is always ready to address any issues or questions that users may have.

Freelancers in particular rely on FreshBooks to stay organized and generate reports for estimating, invoicing, expense tracking, and timekeeping. However, the versatility of FreshBooks extends beyond freelancers. It has been widely used across industries for invoicing clients and keeping the process organized and efficient. For example, Picobarn implemented FreshBooks as a mandatory tool for its employees, enabling them to streamline the invoicing process and provide real-time project tracking. Additionally, FreshBooks has been adopted by organizations to integrate accounting and bookkeeping activities, simplifying day-to-day tasks and ensuring security. By replacing manual bookkeeping processes with FreshBooks, users have saved time and resources while improving client understanding of financial documents.

FreshBooks handles all invoicing needs effectively by making invoice creation quick and easy while enabling online payments. The software has become a valuable tool for independent representatives in various business sectors such as graphic design, helping them track business expenses effortlessly. Similarly, freelance writers and editors find FreshBooks indispensable for tracking hours worked, invoicing clients accurately, and managing their one-person operations smoothly. Companies also utilize FreshBooks to track time and expenses for both staff and consultants working on client projects. In addition to customer invoicing and expense tracking capabilities, it provides direct access for tax advisors, facilitating bank account reconciliation and ensuring accurate financial reporting.

While FreshBooks has garnered positive feedback from users, some have experienced challenges with credit card integrations and payment processing, leading them to explore alternative options. Despite this, FreshBooks has remained a popular choice for businesses seeking to centralize invoicing and accounting processes, improving efficiency and organization. Consultants and support teams have also found value in FreshBooks as it helps them track time, invoice clients, and consolidate tasks within one program.

FreshBooks has successfully helped users streamline their invoicing process, resulting in faster invoice creation, professional-looking invoices, and improved payment tracking. By allowing users to set automatic reminders for overdue invoices, FreshBooks ensures timely follow-up for payment. However, some users prefer to send manual reminders.

FreshBooks has been praised for its user-friendly interface, making it easy for users to navigate and use for multiple purposes. It is particularly beneficial for small businesses and freelancers who need a simple accounting solution without the complexity of tools like QuickBooks. Users appreciate the ease of use and simplicity of FreshBooks for handling administrative tasks such as bookkeeping, expense tracking, and invoicing. The software eliminates the need for more complex tools and reduces the need to hire additional staff.

One of the key advantages of FreshBooks is its cloud-based nature, allowing users to access and send invoices from their smartphones and tablets. This flexibility enables users to manage their financials on the go, keeping them connected to their business at all times. The ability to track time spent on projects, calculate project estimates, invoice clients, and accept payments all within FreshBooks makes it a valuable tool for freelancers and small businesses alike. Additionally, FreshBooks offers a free trial without requiring credit card information, allowing users to test the software before committing.

FreshBooks caters to a wide range of industries and has been used by marketing and manufacturing customers to properly track invoices and increase productivity and cost savings. It is also utilized across entire organizations for account receivables, setting up and sending invoices, collecting payments, tracking hours on projects, and efficiently managing billing. Moreover, FreshBooks has found its place in small family businesses that depend on it for managing expenses, logging hours, invoicing companies, and tracking total sales. Users have even customized FreshBooks using its API to automate payment entry and tracking according to their specific needs.

Overall, FreshBooks has proven itself as a reliable accounting software that simplifies the invoicing process, tracks expenses effectively, provides comprehensive financial insights, and offers user-friendly features. Its extensive range of functionalities makes it a valuable tool for freelancers, small businesses, and organizations looking to streamline their financial management processes.

Based on user recommendations, FreshBooks receives the following common suggestions:

  1. Familiarize yourself with the interface: Users recommend purchasing the free version of FreshBooks to get acquainted with the interface. This allows users to understand how the software works before committing to a paid plan.

  2. Suitable for small businesses: FreshBooks is highly recommended for small businesses. It is seen as a valuable program that caters to their day-to-day transactions and accounting needs. The software's simplicity and user-friendly interface make it an ideal choice for small business owners.

  3. Try before committing: Users suggest trying the trial version or taking advantage of the 1-month free trial offered by FreshBooks. This allows potential users to test out the software and assess its suitability for their specific business needs before making any financial commitments.

Overall, users find FreshBooks to be a valuable and user-friendly tool for online accounting, billing, invoicing, and expense tracking. They recommend giving it a try, especially for small businesses looking for a simple and easy-to-use accounting or invoicing program.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 70)
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Antonio Piraino | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Invoice creation.
  • Time Capture for work done.
  • Access for tax advisor.
  • WePay integration is a giant mistake - I can't receive payments directly from clients.
  • If work is only assigned to a client, without the project tag, it will be missed off invoice creation without the user realizing that those hours haven't been accounted for.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Within the use we gave it, it was quite intuitive and user-friendly.
  • The platform operates safely and robustly with large amounts of information.
  • The price for its use and its ease of increasing users is competitive compared to other options.
  • I understand that they are already working to improve compliance with Mexican legislation.
  • Support in Spanish is quite useful for your operation in Mexico.
  • The User Manual documents are only found in English.
Tim Vahsholtz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • FreshBooks is great for creating, sending and/or auto charging for invoices you set up in advance. Several of my clients are on monthly service packages, and it's great to save time by having the invoices ready to go. Most of our clients pay via check, so we only have FreshBooks create the invoices. Plus, we can double check that there are no additional charges that need to be added before the invoice goes out.
  • FreshBooks has a pretty robust auto email section. New invoice emails, payment reminders, and notifications of late fees are all part of this feature. Plus, if you learn the shortcodes, you can customize these emails.
  • FreshBooks interfaces with Fundbox, an important tool for a small business of our size.
  • One big area for improvement is being able to automatically carry over a past due balance to a new invoice. If a client is late with their payment, you have to either add the previous balance to the new invoice or have two invoices sitting out there, which can be confusing for the client. If the new invoice has the previous balance included with it, you must zero out the previous month invoice, or your FreshBooks will indicate you have more money owed than you actually do. (This is an accounting issue).
  • It would be nice if FreshBooks would interface with Quicken and or QuickBooks. (I'm not certain that it doesn't, but don't believe it does.
Mike Calabro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Invoicing - Creating invoices is easy. This helps me to get the invoices out faster. It automatically keeps items so that I can re-use them later. as an example, if I want to charge the client for a digital transfer fee, I can pick that item form a drop-down menu and it will even fill in the rate that I used in the past.
  • Templates- The template allows me to keep my branding cohesive and professional. You can add your logo and pick a theme color so that it matches your brand. There are two different template layouts to choose from.
  • Automatic Expense Importing - I use two separate credit cards for my business. One card for non-billable items and another for items that I bill my clients for. The auto importing makes adding those billable items to invoices easy.
  • Templates- One of my biggest gripes about Freshbooks is that if you change the Terms section on an invoice, it will change it for every future invoice across the board. I often need to change my terms depending on the client and job. This makes it's very hard to keep everything organized.
  • Price- If you do not use all of the Freshbook features, it is a bit expensive for what you get unless you only have a few clients.
  • Importing of expenses - When automatically importing expenses, Freshbooks often miscategorized items and often does not fill out the vendor section when I use my Chase accounts.
Lou Gallo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Super intuitive interface and ease of actions.
  • Integrations with other web services like Gusto help the handoff of tracking of payroll.
  • Being a hosted platform, it is simple to share links for reference to my tax service people for access to any numbers.
  • Reporting is great as it can break down the P&L and compiling deductions during tax time.
  • They recently updated their interface which was one area that needed an update. But overall the areas that were lacking a few years ago (Old XML API, Older interface, poor mobile apps) Have all been address so I really don't have many complaints. If you are someone like me who does not want to become a accounting wizard and simply want to run your business, this was a great solution.
Gary Shouldis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • The user interface is beautiful and very easy to navigate and use.
  • Super reliable. Have sent out thousands of invoices and have never had an issue or misplaced email.
  • The accounts aging feature is great, gives you a quick snapshot of what invoices are getting old and allows you to manually or automatically send followup notices.
  • The accounting side of the software is not as developed as the invoicing and time tracking side.
  • If you have a lot of clients or want some of their add-on options, it gets expensive fast.
  • The mobile app is good but does not work well for some features
Dana Darla | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • N/a
  • N/a
  • N/a
  • Ease of navigating throughout the menu
  • Chart of accounts (report format and ability to edit accounts)
  • Lists (invoices, expenses, etc) sorting and exporting
  • Still down into accounts/amounts from a report
  • Reader-friendly reporting
evans mutinda | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Offers several features such as online payment gateway and cloud-based invoicing.
  • It has robust reporting functionalities that enable users to make informed decisions.
  • Allows users to transfer their timesheet data to invoice and receive payments quickly.
  • The reporting feature of this software is highly demanding because none of its data lines in the report is hyperlinked.
  • The software should be more flexible and have more options for the application of late fees.
  • It would be better if the process of adding projects was made more smooth to clients.
Laura Cain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • By far the number one strength of FreshBooks is customer service - they always immediately pick up (no wait time) and can answer any question within minutes. They are easy to understand, friendly, and always willing to go the extra mile to help out. This is one of those rare situations where it is actually easier to pick up the phone then trying to search through FAQs for the answer.
  • In general, the interface is easy to use. Everything is fairly easy to find and straightforward.
  • The Recent Activity feed on the left side of your browser window is great- at any given time you can see a snapshot of any activity within your account, whether that may be changes you made yourself, another team member made, or even if a client logged in to view their invoice.
  • While I love the Recent Activity feed on the left, you can only view a certain number of activities. It would be great if there were a view more button to see all recent activity, especially if it's a busy day and a lot is going on.
  • While the interface is very easy to use, sometimes you have to click multiple times in order to get to a view you want. It would be great if you could more easily toggle between options within a client (if buttons for recurring, all invoices, the client's profile, etc. were all available for a specific client instead of across the board.)
Ryan Freeman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Recurring invoicing, with a credit card on file.
  • Time tracking added to invoices automatically.
  • Access to a record of emails sent to the customer.
  • The new version does not allow 3rd party payment processors -- only FreshBooks billing via Stripe.
  • The new version has higher costs, with some features removed, and no new features that we need.
  • FreshBooks seems to have lost their identity and their sense of who their customer is.
  • No ability to customize interest/late fees per client or per invoice. Only one structure and a yes/no toggle per client.
Coby Pfaff | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Creates Invoices. Invoice creation is easy and fast.
  • Manages Client Info. It's like a mini CRM that stores client contact data and invoice history.
  • Accepts payments online. Integrates seamlessly with our payment provider to accept credit cards online.
  • There are two version of FreshBooks. The newer ones do some things well that the classic version doesn't, for example, allow individual payment terms rather than global payment terms. But the newer version does not do everything that the classic version does.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Handles manual and auto-charged payments as well as dunning (expired cards, declined charges, etc.)
  • Expense tracking is a breeze, especially with recurring expenses.
  • Financial reports can be generated at the click of a button.
  • Customer support is best in the industry (or any industry in my opinion). Phone support is included and they pick up on the first ring every time.
  • New version lacks functionality from the old version that our company uses.
  • Mobile app lacks some desired functionality.
  • Customer portal could use some improvements.
Soneeka Arora | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • It is easy to create the clients and invoices.
  • It is easy to see the status of each invoice, along with the aging on each invoice.
  • It creates easy to use reports that can be shared if required.
  • They must establish One client many departments concept.
  • They do not allow fixed amount discounts. The only allow percentage discounts.
  • There should be notifications when the reminders are sent.
Yemsi Pino | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Have a hourly rate for our business.
  • Have focus on our customers and our projects, not the administrative department.
  • Get our business cost on control, because we already work on a budget.
  • Take our invoices out as fast as our products are done.
  • Maybe, manual entry should be easier
  • Editing different rates for services on continuous invoices is very complicated.
  • The system doesn't keep an automatic numeration for the invoices, so it is necessary to keep it manually.
Asia Matos | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Provides user-friendly, beautiful invoices
  • Built-in features like invoice reminders, recurring invoices, deposits, and automatic late fees applied
  • Multiple payment options — including Stripe (which is a must-have for my industry)
  • You can't schedule invoices to be sent out at specific times which is something I really wish it did. Not quite the same as a recurring invoice.
  • I wish I could attach the agreement that dictates the payment terms. An integration with DocuSign, for example, would be awesome.
Brandon Loyche | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Invoicing - easy to create, customize, and manage. A great feature is the auto-pay for recurring payments with clients.
  • Estimates - these professional looking estimates with prompts has helped us take our estimates and timelines with clients to a new level and also being able to keep track of them and have the client sign them.
  • Time Tracking - this feature has helped keep track of countless hours working on projects and then easily adding that time to current or new invoices with Freshbooks recognizing what client it may be for and to add the time to the invoice easily.
  • The only area I have noticed that FB needs improvement is how it links up with bank accounts and keeps track of spending. It seems to be flawed in a few ways where it will double outgoing transactions sometimes and also when we move money from one account to another it shows it as spending and not just moving money and that is something we have to account for with Taxes each year.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • FreshBooks is ideal for those in some type of a service business where invoicing is critical to quickly being paid.
  • FreshBooks easily allows us to track our expenses against ongoing projects.
  • FreshBooks allows us to easily use documents in our business.
  • Sometimes FreshBooks tries to do "too much." Stick with your core mission.
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