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FreshBooks is a complete accounting software solution for businesses with employees, businesses with contractors, freelancers, and self-employed professionals. It may be especially valuable for service-based businesses that must invoice and document hours for clients, contractors, and accounts payable. 

For instance, if you help your customers by spending your time and expertise to solve other people’s problems, whether you are a marketing agency, plumber or electrician, attorney, architect or designer, or even a web or IT professional, FreshBooks might just be for you.

Key Takeaways:

• FreshBooks features invoicing, accounts payable, expense tracking, time tracking, retainers, fixed asset depreciation, purchase orders, payroll integrations, mileage tracking, double-entry accounting, and industry-standard business and management reporting all in one software program.
• Freshbooks lets you track unlimited expenses, send unlimited estimates, get paid with credit cards and bank transfers, track sales tax and see reports, and access it anywhere on an iOS and Android app
• FreshBooks API allows you to integrate your banking and other software and other programs including Connecteam and Gusto Payroll

An automated online invoice system streamlines your accounts payable processes by extracting, populating, and managing invoice data, allowing you to complete payment processing in just a few clicks. Due to the high operational costs, large volume of invoices, and rise in manual errors, invoice processing may pose a problem for some B2B businesses, especially when it’s time to scale.

With the aid of automation software for invoice processing, you can reduce human error, save time and money, and manage an increasing volume of invoices. And you’ll need to process more invoices as your business expands in order to pay your suppliers and vendors. 

FreshBooks Accounting and Business Operations Software Review

FreshBooks.com was started in 2003 after Mike McDerment accidentally saved over an invoice. He then spent 3.5 years expanding it out of his parents’ basement. Since then, FreshBooks has helped over 30 million users bill more quickly and generate billions of dollars in revenue.

The Importance of Online Invoice Automation Software

You may not need to increase your team size with the aid of automation, though. Additionally, it can lower your expenses, freeing up money for investment in other areas of your company, which can stimulate expansion. 

Finally, invoice processing software gives you more control over hiring. You’ll be able to gradually grow your team and make wiser hiring choices.

Fortunately, there are a lot of reliable e invoice and automated billing software solutions out there that can help your business, and FreshBooks is one of them. 

FreshBooks Features 

FreshBooks is an all-in-one business accounting software suite for:

• FreshBooks Invoice:  Show your clients you mean business with professional invoices that clearly show the work you’ve done and how much it costs… then simply click send. Provide payment options to clients, accept card payments, send automated late payment notifications, and more.
• Expense Tracking: Take photos of your receipts, email them to your account, and import expenses from your bank account. After that, organize them and assign them to clients. Keeping track of every dollar gets you ready for tax season.
• FreshBooks Time Tracking: You and your entire team can work on multiple projects at the same time, and missed billable time can be costly. FreshBooks Time Tracking makes it easy for teams to log time and automatically add it to invoices, ensuring that all time is accounted for.
• Project Management: With a company to manage and projects to handle, it’s difficult to keep everyone in sync and on track. FreshBooks Projects lets your clients, staff, and contractors to work together and share files and updates… all in one spot.
• FreshBooks Payments: FreshBooks’ automated payments provide your clients with a variety of payment options, including checkout links, credit cards, and more. When it’s this simple to pay invoices, you’ll get paid twice as quickly.
• FreshBooks Accounting Reports: FreshBooks tracks every dollar that enters and exits your business, allowing you to run reports, view payments, and profitability. When it comes to taxes, you can do it yourself or give your accountant access, and they’ll quickly find what they need.
• Business Health Notifications: FreshBooks’ simple Double-Entry Accounting tools and reports automatically show your profit and loss, cash flow , and spending habits for an easy bird’s eye view of your overall fiscal condition.
• FreshBooks App: You are not always at a computer, but you must maintain contact with your clients. With the FreshBooks mobile app, you can send invoices, track expenses, and check on projects while on the go. Also, Mileage Tracker is helpful for businesses with commercial vehicles and traveling associates.

FreshBooks Integrations

FreshBooks is a highly versatile accounting software suite, allowing you multiple integrations with other software you might already be using. The result is that you gain greater precision in your processes and more detailed insights to make your business more efficient.

Connecteam Integration

FreshBooks integrates with Connecteam’s GPS time tracking of employees and generates an accurate timesheet for billable hours. Syncing up with Connecteam can also help you generate automated invoices for clients down to the minute and any minutiae of the project or contract. 

Combining the power of Connecteam’s custom forms, you’ll be able to create and refine the perfect templates for future jobs and projects, spending less time on admin than ever. And with the increase in oversight, invoicing, and reporting, you’ll be able to justify your services easily when they come up for renewal with the client.

Gusto Integration

FreshBooks also integrates with Gusto’s payroll, time tracking and compliance. 

When you integrate Gusto with FreshBooks, you get payroll, W-2s, 1099s, payroll runs, and direct deposits. Once connected, any payroll you create in Gusto will be automatically imported into your FreshBooks account and categorized for you in the Expenses section.

FreshBooks Price Plans

Freshbooks offers a free 30-day trial to get started. After that, if you choose to stick with FreshBooks, you can opt for a paid plan. Each successive tier offers expanded access to FreshBooks’ full range of features:

• FreshBooks Lite – $17.00/month for up to 5 clients with basic payment features
• FreshBooks Plus – $30.00/month for up to 50 clients with expanded features like double-entry accounting and mobile mileage tracking
• FreshBooks Premium – $55/00/month for unlimited clients and advanced features like recurring billing and client retainers, late payment reminders, and checkout links

They’re also currently offering 90% off for the first three months on all plans in addition to the free 30-day trial.

FreshBooks Pros and Cons

FreshBooks has a solid reputation for delivering a scalable solution for billing clients and tracking hours worked on projects. 

FreshBooks Pros

• Small businesses like graphic design and marketing companies as well as pool cleaning companies with less than 10 employees have said that the software is great and makes their jobs easier.
• Keeping track of both old and new invoices and managing your billing history is simple. For instance, you can easily locate any past-due invoices using all the app’s tools.
• You can automatically remind your customers when their payments are past due.
• You have a variety of options for handling payments, including using PayPal for online payments or Visa, Mastercard, or American Express to settle accounts for credit card processing. 
• To make it easier to collect payments without having to speak with a client directly, FreshBooks streamlines cloud invoicing with an online payment gateway. To save time, you can automate the recurring billing procedure.
• FreshBooks provides multi-currency invoicing so you can charge customers in their own money.
• FreshBooks templates allow you to go paperless while impressing clients with pro invoices.

FreshBooks has a few complaints, though not that many.

FreshBooks Cons

• Recent changes to the FreshBooks user account dashboard and ease of use has caused a flurry of negative comments, and cancellations, from longtime customers.
• FreshBooks customer support has gotten a lot of recent complaints for failing to address issues.
• Software glitches after software upgrades have made some consider the product not as reliable as it used to be, with some major issues regarding importing and exporting transactions from banks– and no clear end or solution in sight.
• Some complaints from UK and EU customers complain that it’s not built to comply with VAT and other compliance for business compliance specific to their region.
• Best features of the software cost additional money. Basics like tools for bank reconciliation and the principles of double-entry accounting are excluded from the lowest tier Lite plan.

As you can see, FreshBooks works great for small teams and companies that deal with billable hours. But it appears they are having some challenges staying connected to banking networks of late. Additionally, people outside of the U.S.A. may want to consider a different option to remain compliant with their specific tax rules and guidelines, like in the U.K.

FreshBooks Alternatives

The best accounts payable software is the one that works for your business daily, monthly, and yearly without you even noticing. With so many choices available, alternatives to FreshBooks should definitely be considered before making a buying decision.

ZenBusiness Money

ZenBusiness Money Pro is a self-employed entrepreneur-focused service that keeps track of all your mileage, expenses, income streams, and tax deductions in real time. However, their pricing isn’t clear and it’s an add-on to their main offerings, which are business LLC formation and registered agent services. Their online service connects to your bank account for tracking profit and loss, creating invoices, and more.

Quickbooks

Track your profit and loss reports, create invoices, manage finances and cash flow. 4.3 million small business owners worldwide rely on the QuickBooks Online Accounting app to manage invoice tracking and organize workday expenses. Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, which is widely regarded as the industry standard for small-business accounting software, is a good option for a variety of businesses, especially those who intend to frequently collaborate with bookkeepers or accountants.

FreshBooks Company Info

FreshBooks Address:

250 – 1655 Dupont St

Toronto, ON M6P 3T1

FreshBooks Phone: (416) 481-6946

FreshBooks Customer Ratings 

FreshBooks has a lot of people singing its praises around the world and on the web, but recent software updates have disappointed many, leading to a resulting dropoff in overall customer satisfaction. 

FreshBooks BBB Rating

FreshBooks is rated A+ with the BBB.

FreshBooks Trustpilot and GetApp Score

FreshBooks gets a 4.5/5 with GetApp and a somewhat troubling score of 3.3/5 on TrustPilot.

Conclusion: FreshBooks Review

FreshBooks has been a powerful and effective alternative to QuickBooks for years. And while its performance has been stellar for most of the last decade, recent reviews spell trouble for the company, since it sounds like they are really having some development troubles affecting their core business products.

That’s why we only recommend FreshBooks to people who are willing to take that risk. It seems like the issue may be wholly resolved within the year. However, regarding the alteration of the once easy-to-use interface to something “new and improved” that many seem to like less, it is always unfortunate when a company comes up with an idea so great, their primary customers hate it. 

Hopefully, they’ll start listening to customers more and making things as simple as they should be, with added functionality built in to satisfy both novice bookkeepers and seasoned accountants alike.

Frequently Asked Questions – FreshBooks Accounting and Invoice Software