Item: FreshBooks
Rating: 8
Author: Ansley Hayes

Overall Satisfaction with FreshBooks

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

After struggling for over a year with non-standardized invoicing procedures for our team of remote copywriters, Picobarn chose to make the Freshbooks free service mandatory for its employees. Rather than wasting time tracking down individual invoices come billing time, Freshbooks kept all of our invoices in the same place, offered PayPal compatible payment options, and allowed project managers to view in real time the hours logged per project. It also gave our copywriters the ability to accurately track their own hours and projects.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Allowing for projects to have multiple contributors is in line with how many freelancers work.
Automated email reminders for late invoices. It allows a bit of professional separation between freelancers and clients, something that many people new to freelancing struggle with.
The flexibility in how invoices can be created combined with an invoice template makes billing customizable and less time intensive.

Cons

I would like to see the option to display project notes on an invoice, rather than displaying time tracking notes for each individual time entry.

Return on Investment

Our employee billing is easier and less time consuming. Our writers track their time per project with greater accuracy. The compatibility with PayPal is a huge plus.

Likelihood to Renew

I love Freshbooks free service. If I accept enough freelance work to require the paid service I would upgrade. I will continue to use Freshbooks as long as it serves my needs as well as it has so far.

Likelihood to Recommend

Freelance writers, artists, and other creatives benefit from Freshbooks because it provides a professional distance that many new freelancers lack or are still working to build for themselves. The benefits of using a branded software to handle your billing is most beneficial for people who need help with project organization and/or taking themselves seriously as professionals. I know that I personally felt more secure and confident in the management side of my freelancing abilities after using Freshbooks.

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

Freshbooks is a balm for billing woes

Modules Used