FreshBooks

The biggest benefit we receive is how easy it is to send invoices and get paid online. Freshbooks makes this a lot easier than some of the other solutions we've tried over the years.

Vorteile

Freshbooks is a simple and straight-forward accounting solution. It's delivered with relatively small amount of standard accounting categories so you're not overwhelmed placing expenses into their proper buckets and adding new categories is quite easy.

Our business doesn't have a ton of complex expenses - and if yours does, Freshbooks might not be a good fit. What we love about Freshbooks is how straight-forward their invoicing system has been. It's easy to create recurring invoicing and it integrates with popular credit card processors to facilitate easy online payments.

Perhaps the attribute that has kept us with Freshbooks through the years is their customer service - it's amazing. Customer service has always been super friendly, easy to understand, and they always seen eager to help. This interest and willingness to be helpful goes a long way.

Nachteile

The only con we've experienced with Freshbooks is their limited subscription levels. We've exceed their standard top level package but we're not quite big enough to financially justify a custom/enterprise package. It seems Freshbooks is ideal for customers with a lot of recurring transactions - which, we have more individual transactions than recurring so this is part of our problem. Regardless, Freshbooks staff has always been quite helpful in offering up solutions to help us make the most of our subscription limits (500 active clients).

Able to run and invoice quickly. Add the strong integration that it has with Freshdesk for ticketing and my time tracking - it has allowed me to better streamline my operations.

Vorteile

Tracking and customer portal that is fully labeled as your own... this is a feature most competitors do not have. Know when your customers have viewed your invoices and even printed them! Slick mobile app

Nachteile

Pricing has gone up vis a vis other comparable competitors. Ticketing is very basic. One issue that could have been done better is that this is more of a quoting system and not proposal based. So making fancier proposals you are best off using another platform.

I've grown, Freshbooks has grown; we've grown together over the years. Really no complaints - and a support team that other companies should model themselves after!

Vorteile

Ease of use, especially since the redesign, integrations with PayPal, etc. does save some time, integrated time tracker (although I still primarily use Toggl), makes book keeping - dare I say - fun? (Ok, as fun as it can be!). Great support - I've had timely replies every day of the week and after hours. Impressive!

Nachteile

I've had some integration issue (transactions not coming in, duplicates, etc.) but Support has always been helpful. They've offered to manually import transactions for me on more than one occasion. I'm on a paid tier but I'd have to pay more for some of the features I wouldn't mind trying out. Not in love with the subscription model, especially when many of the new features require higher tiers. Doesn't really make sense to be hooked up to an eCommerce platform given their tier limitations.

The original version of FreshBooks, which we started using in 2014, was great for time tracking and invoicing. Unfortunately, they decided to build a completely new web application to add accounting features. We migrated to the new version about two years ago, and it did not go well. The new version didn't add many useful features, and the time tracking app got worse (see above). We decided to try the accounting feature this year (2019) because Xero started getting more expensive and lost its payroll feature. We have found the FreshBooks accounting features to be barely usable, and we're struggling to find an accountant that will support FreshBooks.

Vorteile

FreshBooks is good for freelancers or service-based small businesses that need to track time spend on client projects, and report the time on invoices. It's also good for tracking basic expenses, whether they are allocated to the business, or passed on to clients. The reporting features are also useful.

The payroll integration with Gusto is a simple and affordable way to run payroll for a small business.

Nachteile

The mobile app for time tracking became so buggy that I had to stop using it; it would frequently lose track of the time if I paused the timer. They also added a "feature" that creates a new line item on the invoice every time you pause the timer, which really clutters up the invoice. I now use a separate tracking app and manually enter my time.

The accounting features are barely adequate, and the accounting functionality is more like a public beta than production software. There's a chart of accounts, bank reconciliation, and a general ledger. We use cash-basis accounting, so it works for us, but if you carry inventory, I don't think FreshBooks will support accrual accounting. The bank reconciliation was officially "beta" until very recently.

Admins aren't allowed to edit the chart of accounts, so you need to have an accountant or bookkeeper set it up. Unfortunately, most accountants I've talked to won't work with FreshBooks directly. Strangely, FreshBooks will help you find a bookkeeper who works with FreshBooks, but not an accountant.

Great experience, easy to use. Customers like quotes and invoices and I like the ability to create them off my mobile device quickly and easily.

Vorteile

Ease of use, mobile app, ability to have a ticketing system for customers, ability to have subs long hours in the system, ability to create professional looking quotes and invoices on the fly, integration to credit card and bank accounts to track and attach expenses to jobs.

Nachteile

Not perfect. May need a supplemental software to handle certain accounting functions, but that need has been decreasing as new features are introduced.