As a freelancer, I know the struggles of managing the business end of my business. Administrative tasks like billing clients, creating invoices and managing payments are necessary but a hassle nonetheless. For the first few years, I was using PayPal to collect from my clients and that was okay. Most of my clients paid on time and fortunately I didn’t have to chase anyone down for payments. One thing I did notice, however, was how much the PayPal fees were taking out of my budget. PayPal charges their fees based on a percentage of the transaction, so I was being dinged every time I got a payment from a big client. Short of having clients mail in checks, which would have been a disaster, I didn’t know how to get around this problem.
That’s when I discovered Freshbooks. It’s a small business invoicing company and accounting system. I browsed their site and signed up for a membership immediately. For a small monthly fee, I could get customized templates with my logo and business information. What was even better was that my clients could still pay me through PayPal, only without the high transaction fee. Freshbooks charges me a flat fee for each transaction instead of a percentage of my sales. This has saved me every month, especially now since my business is growing so quickly.
Freshbooks really helped me to see exactly how much my time was worth. I had been billing clients but not accurately keeping track of the actual time I worked on each project. Since Freshbooks also tracks time spent on projects for billing purposes, I was able to see that I was undercharging for my services. I also liked that I could set up recurring monthly payments for my subscription services and automatically collect from clients without much hassle.
I’ve integrated my Freshbooks program with my Quickbooks accounting software which makes bookkeeping so much easier. I simply collect with my Freshbooks invoices and transfer the information to Quickbooks for easy accounting. Using these programs is a far cry from the notebook and pencil that I was using in the early days of my small business career. I’m impressed with how easy it is to use the Freshbooks invoicing software and how much time it saves. Now I can create new invoices and save them as templates. I just go back and change a few details on the next invoice, re-send and I’m done.
I recommended Freshbooks to my friend who is a graphic designer a few months ago. He told me that he would check it out, but that he was pretty satisfied with creating his invoices in his word processing program. About two months later, I hired him to create some marketing materials for me and he sent me an invoice. A Freshbooks invoice. He told me how much he loved using the software now and how he can’t imagine how he ever functioned without it.
Overall, I’m satisfied with Freshbooks and would recommend it to any business owner who wants an easy invoicing system that saves money!
Carly Lance loves to blog about saving money and small business finances in hopes of helping others achieve financial bliss in their lives, such as her own. Carly is also the blog manager for Personal Bankruptcy Canada, a company dedicated to helping “good people with bad debt” – even after bankruptcy.
