Freshbooks & Outright | Simple Bookkeeping for Small Business
I am often asked what bookkeeping software I use for my business. You’d think I’d be using one of the big dogs such as Quickbooks or Peachtree. Well, I may be forced to do this down the road, but at my size, I decided to try a more simple route. I’ved tried a number of programs online from Quickbooks, Clarity, and IAC-EZ but settled upon Freshbooks. You may have heard me rant and rave about how easy Freshbooks is to use, so I won’t continue in this post. I will admit, there is NO invoicing software I’ve seen that is as cool and easy to use as Freshbooks. I wish it was a full accounting system for contractors to use. Freshbooks manages your client’s estimates, invoicing and your company expenses. It also will produce a few simple reports such as a P&L and Expense Report. Contractors really need to have more features to track their Gross Profit, do Pay Roll and Job Costing, which is why I have not been recommending this program too much for my clients. But if you want to use it just for invoicing and basic expense reporting, give it a try! For a full accounting system, I’m still recommending Quickbooks Onlines. For job costing, use an advanced Excel spreadsheet! I use to use a program called Outright to track my expenses and tax information. Outright is completely free, and I’m still not sure why. I’m sure they are building a fan base that will absolutely love it and then start charging. It is similar to Freshbooks: easy to use: period. I heard that Outright just released automatic bank syncing with my bank, so I went back to my Outright account to test drive it. Wow! After some updating of my accounts, I’m now able to do almost NO data entry in Freshbooks or Outright. The two programs are linked and update automatically. My invoices are automatic and all my expenses from my bank and credit cards are downloaded automatically. All I have to do now is make sure I categorize my expenses, which takes just a few minutes. So for the small company with 1 – 3 employees, give Freshbooks and Outright a try. For the larger company who needs an easy invoiving system, try Freshbooks.
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.
