Freshbooks, Easy to Use Invoicing for Small Businesses

Posted by David Chism | Tue, Apr 1, 2014

5 Years of Using FreshbooksFreshbooks Logo

I am just wrap­ping up my 5th year in busi­ness as I write this blog (April 2009 is when I incor­po­rat­ed). When I opened my doors for busi­ness I knew I need­ed two pro­grams to help get me going and not cost a lot of mon­ey. I turned to Google Apps for Busi­ness to run my emails, con­tacts and cal­en­dars. I then need­ed a pro­gram that would send esti­mates, invoic­es and track my busi­ness expens­es. I land­ed on Fresh­books. My web design­er, David Guy, was using it at the time and loved it. So the deci­sion was easy and it is where I plan to stay as I start my 6th year in busi­ness.

Can A Con­trac­tor Use Freshbooks?

Since my embrac­ing and using of Fresh­books a lot of fan­tas­tic invoic­ing and account­ing (cloud-based) pro­grams have sur­faced. I have tried most of them. The ones list­ed below all have their place in the mar­ket and are high qual­i­ty products.  Most con­trac­tors I know have set­tled on Quick­books or Quick­books Online and are hap­py with the prod­ucts over­all. It makes sense for most con­trac­tors to stick with a trust­ed com­pa­ny like Intu­it. They real­ly are the leader in the small busi­ness account­ing world. I have had a few con­trac­tors use Fresh­books for some more sea­son­al busi­ness­es (like Christ­mas lights) because it is real­ly just a sim­ple sys­tem for send­ing esti­mates, invoic­es and receiv­ing pay­ments online. Even though I per­son­al­ly use and LOVE Fresh­books, I’d say that most con­trac­tors should prob­a­bly con­sid­er Quick­books as their billing solu­tion. It would be dif­fi­cult to switch between the two pro­grams. Fresh­books does not offer some of the key fea­tures, like Job Cost­ing. Fresh­books does have a num­ber of plu­g­ins and inte­gra­tions, as does Quick­books. So if you real­ly do want a sim­ple solu­tion to start, check out their Add Ons Page. I tried Quick­books for myself for awhile, but stayed with Fresh­books for 3 reasons: 
  1. My accoun­tant approved
  2. My cus­tomers have nev­er once com­plained about using it to pay their bills
  3. It is a piece of cake to use.
So, if you hap­pened upon this post in search for a very sim­ple and easy to use invoic­ing sys­tem, Fresh­books takes the cake. If you need a more robust account­ing sys­tem with a lot of bells and whis­tles, try Quick­books (for con­trac­tors) or check out Xero.

About David Chism

David Chism started his business out of a passion for helping small contracting businesses grow, be more profitable and become better known to their target clients. One lifelong hobby of David is using techie gadgets. So this blog is a place where he writes about technology, marketing ideas, just for fun (humor), personal thoughts on small business and more.

     
   
       

Subscribe to the Blog

           
       
                               
   
Please provide a short summary of why you are reaching out today.