Freshbooks Review

Posted on 12. Jun, 2008 by Danny Outlaw in Business

Recently I started revamping my design company from a part time hobby to a full time business. As a result, I need to find more professional means of conducting business. I needed something that could invoice clients, send more professional proposals, and keep track of it. I heard a lot of buzz about FreshBooks, so I decided to give it a try and see what all the hype was about.

Why Freshbooks?

I wrote a post a while back about the 10 Bad Habits of Designers. One of those habits was not paying for premium services that were worth the cost. While there are free alternitives to Freshbooks, none of them work as well as Freshbooks. They are all lacking serious features and cant even come close to comparing with Freshbooks.

What is Freshbooks?

In case you are new to the design business, here is a short description about what Freshbooks is:

FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional - Fortune 500 professional. FreshBooks is easy to use and you can try it for free or take the tour.

Features:

  • Easily create, send and manage invoices
  • Track time (for you and staff) and expenses NEW
  • Send invoices by snail mail or email
  • Accept payment with PayPal, Authorize.Net, & more
  • Automatically send invoices & late payment notices
  • Create robust reports and import/export your data

My Experience With Freshbooks

Paper Invoices

One thing that really impressed me about Freshbooks right away was the ability for you to send paper invoices as well. If you want to keep it old school, you can send your clients paper invoices and estimates as well as online ones. When you sign up for Freshbooks, they send you a sample paper invoice via snail mail so you can see what they look like. They are very professional looking and can be a cool way to add a touch of professionalism to your business.

Usability

I have used a number of online collaboration tools and other programs of that nature. The one thing I hate about them is that many have a long learning curve. If I have a hard time figuring out the program, my client probably won’t be able to figure it out at all. Freshbooks has done an excellent job at keeping both the admin and client side of the program very intuitive and user friendly.

Program Integration

Another cool feature of Freshbooks is its ability to integrate with other programs to make your life easier. Right now Freshbooks can be integrated with a number of time tracking tool and expense report software.

Final Thoughts

So far I have used Freshbooks for two clients and used it with Xpenser. I have been extremely happy with the results and will continue to use it. I haven’t had any problems on my end and both clients seem to have used it trouble free. I would be interested in hearing others opinions and experience with Freshbooks.

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