FreshBooks - Cloud Time Tracking, Ethereal Accounting
December 17, 2014

FreshBooks - Cloud Time Tracking, Ethereal Accounting

Eric Lamy, MBA, PMP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with FreshBooks

FreshBooks was used for time tracking and invoicing purposes across a team of consultants. These consultants principally worked on-site with clients in a variety of environments, from offices to oil fields. We tracked the time that consultants were engaged on projects in different capacities and invoiced clients directly through the FreshBooks interface. We also used data from FreshBooks for bookkeeping, but principally relied on a separate product for the majority of accounting functions.

Pros

  • Ease of use in adding new users to the system and onboarding their use of the FreshBooks interface
  • The ability to create new projects and work types within those projects and assign individual contributors to each was well-developed
  • Time tracking through the FreshBooks mobile app was easy to do and synced without difficulty

Cons

  • The reporting functionality was somewhat limited, and the ability to export data had significant room for improvement
  • Creating custom invoices and rules around when to issue invoices could have been made easier
  • The expense logging was sometimes confusing was executed across multiple clients/projects
  • Employee efficiency initially decreased as time was spent adjusting to the system, but ultimately time was saved as managers did not need to track down consultants whose time was not being tracked daily.
  • Customers with unique invoicing requirements were unable to interface with FreshBooks efficiently, and for many of our larger clients, we were unable to submit invoices directly and instead had to manually export the data to a separate tool.
  • FreshBooks provided timely customer service and seemed to understand their own limitations, but were not always helpful in providing workarounds to some common problems.
FreshBooks is a barebones solution for companies looking for better time tracking and time management software deployed in the Cloud. Its invoicing and expense tracking tools are useful up to a point, but supplementing with additional tools is likely necessary beyond a narrow use case. Long term, FreshBooks would benefit from an expanded featureset and the ability to integrate with a broader range of systems.
While I am no longer using this product in my current position, we likely would have continued using FreshBooks until and unless an alternative with a broader featureset was made available within the same pricepoint. Ultimately FreshBooks sold itself as more than it was capable of at the time, but still shined in its core features. This was worth retaining a subscription for some time, but not enough to generate deep loyalty.
FreshBooks works very well for individuals and small companies, but I would not recommend it for larger firms. Additionally, make sure that FreshBooks interfaces well with any existing tools your company may be using, particularly other accounting programs like QuickBooks. If you are looking for a fully-functioning suite of accounting tools, look elsewhere - FreshBooks is a simple cloud-based solution to time tracking and invoicing, but is pretty lacking beyond that.

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