Table of Contents
FreshBooks
Great Small Business Accounting With Invoice Management
Bottom Line:
FreshBooks is an intuitive double-entry accounting program with the tools that many small businesses need. Its exceptional user experience makes it stand out from the crowd.
PROS
- Delightful user experience
- Context-sensitive settings
- Some unusual yet helpful features, like retainers
- Projects and time tracking
- Good mobile apps
CONS
- Extra costs for team members
- Dashboard could be better
- Weak inventory tracking
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | M-F, 8 a.m.-8 p.m., ET |
Zoho Invoice
Purpose-Built Invoice Management for Zoho Customers
Bottom Line:
Zoho Invoice is an excellent service for sole proprietors and midsize businesses, thanks to its flexible pricing, customizability, and deep feature set.
PROS
- Visually appealing and understandable
- Deep customizability
- Customer portals
- Good mobile apps
- Excellent reports
CONS
- Doesn't integrate with Zoho Inventory
- Sprawling design requires scrolling
- Some functions require developer skills
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | 24 hours / 5 days a week |
BQE Core
Extensible Invoicing App With Good Reporting
Bottom Line:
BQE is looking to grow its customer base by growing its capabilities. While it began in the accounting realm, the software now has hooks to project management, time tracking, and even human resources.
PROS
- Affordable, modular pricing for stand-alone time tracking.
- Vast reporting.
- Excellent customization.
CONS
- Pricing can become expensive as modules are added.
- No GPS tracking in Android.
- No IP restrictions.
- No dial-in clock-in.
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | M-F, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ET |
Wave
Free Accounting and Invoicing for Solo Operators
Bottom Line:
Wave delivers an excellent double-entry accounting service for very small businesses that want to import transactions from online bank accounts, and most of its features are free.
PROS
- Most features are free
- Good dashboard
- Smart selection of features for very small businesses
- Excellent invoice, transaction management
- Works for businesses that use multiple currencies
CONS
- Additional fee for scanning and uploading receipts
- Sparse record templates
- Invoice customization could be stronger
- No dedicated time tracking
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | M-F, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ET |
Xero
Extensible Accounting and Invoicing
Bottom Line:
Xero uses AI and other automated tools to simplify, organize, and accelerate accounting tasks. Recent improvements to 1099 support and reporting make it excellent for small businesses, especially those who need multi-user access.
PROS
- Exceptional online help
- Some new reporting options
- New 1099 support
- Thorough contact records
- Good mobile apps
CONS
- No inventory assemblies
- Time entries must be tied to projects
- Confusing navigation
- Email-only personalized support
And.co
Basic Though Limited Billing for Freelancers
Bottom Line:
Fiverr's And.co is a flexible, easy-to-use invoicing tool for freelancers who sell services. Larger businesses will likely need more features and flexibility, though.
PROS
- Easy to set up and use
- Flexible invoice scheduling
- Creates detailed contracts and proposals
- Home pages for projects, clients
- Good mobile apps
CONS
- Only one invoice template
- Limited customization of invoices
- No product/service records with prices
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | M-F 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ET |
Invoicely
Purpose-Built Basic Billing Tool for Small Operators
Bottom Line:
Invoicely is a strong contender in the billing space. It is lacking customization features, but it has strong reporting and currency support functionality.
PROS
- Wealth of features even at the lowest paid tier.
- Supports multiple countries and currencies.
- Useful reports.
CONS
- No custom branding for free version.
- Invoice customization could be better.
- Time and mileage tracking are minimal.
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | M-F 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ET |
Sunrise
Invoicing Tool for Freelancers and Sole Proprietors
Bottom Line:
Sunrise is a good choice for freelancers and sole proprietors who need to track income and expenses and invoice customers. It might also appeal to small businesses that need double-entry accounting but not time tracking, robust reports, or full mobile access.
PROS
- Free
- Good user experience and dashboard
- Supports invoice, quotes, and estimates
- Good invoicing tools
- Cash flow details page
CONS
- No dedicated time or project tracking
- Only standard financial reports
- Mobile apps not comprehensive
- Minimal fields in contact and product records
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | M-F, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ET |
Intuit QuickBooks Self-Employed
Industry Standard Invoicing for Freelancers
Bottom Line:
QuickBooks Self-Employed will appeal to freelancers and independent contractors who want its automatic mileage tracking, quarterly tax estimating, and basic bookkeeping. Businesses that need robust time tracking, sales tax management; customizable invoices, and item tracking should consider QuickBooks Online.
PROS
- Exceptional user interface and navigation
- Easily tracks expenses and income
- Automatic mileage tracking
- Can assign business transactions to Schedule C categories
- Estimates quarterly income taxes
- New time tracking tools
- Can assign tags to transactions
- Good support resources
CONS
- High price
- No contact or product records, advanced time tracking, project tracking, or recurring transactions
- Invoices not customizable or thorough
- No templates for estimates or quotes
- Manual sales tax management
- Mobile apps not updated with new features
Invoice2Go
Easy to Use and Affordable Invoicing
Bottom Line:
Invoice2Go is a decent billing and invoice application with a lot to like, but having its full range of features will cost you.
PROS
- Easy to use and understand.
- Invoice open notifications.
- Affordable.
CONS
- Features are limited in cheapest edition.
- Lacks optical character recognition (OCR).
- Confusing billing structure.
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | |
| Create Quotes | |
| Create Estimates | |
| Convert Quote to Invoice | |
| Pop-Up Timer | |
| Predefined Expenses | |
| Accept Payments Online | |
| Create Recurring Transactions | |
| Create PDF Reports | |
| Enter Time from Mobile | |
| Enter Expense from Mobile | |
| Create Invoice from Mobile | |
| Email Invoice from Mobile | |
| Accept Payment Online from Mobile | |
| Edit Invoice Fonts | |
| Customize Invoice Layout | |
| Offers Invoice Templates | |
| PDF Documentation | |
| Phone Support | |
| Chat Support | |
| Support Days and Hours | 24/7, 365 Days, 8 a.m.-9 p.m. ET |
Easier Ways to Pay
The cliché about the world not beating a path to your door seems to be doubly true when it's regarding people who owe you money. The reality is, if you don't track down payment for a service or product, then your customers most likely won't rush to fork it over on their own. This is especially true of smaller business owners or freelance operators. Luckily, great billing and invoicing solutions can remove a lot of the pain in the billing process, giving you more options for receiving payments and speeding up your tasks. This type of software helps you add more electronic payment channels and mobile payment networks that can make paying quicker and easier for your customers. Other products specialize in helping you keep up on billing and invoicing tasks.
The type of business you run as well as the clients you have will all factor into your choice of billing and invoicing solution. Retail operations live on cash and credit payments, while services-based businesses and freelancers have particular needs and can work with online payment solutions. For small to midsize businesses (SMBs), the ability to articulate the services rendered as well as the payment options and timing in a professional way is critical to getting paid quicker. Being able to juggle tax information, create receipts, expense accounts, as well as automate follow-up notices, are valuable features for SMBs.
This is where billing and invoicing software comes in. This software gives you the means to track your sales or services rendered, who was billed, the fees or charges applied, and when payment was received (or when it was supposed to be received but wasn't). It also gives you a data path to record all of that data in your other accounting and bookkeeping systems. In accounting terms, this workflow is part of Accounts Receivable. And while many smaller businesses still maintain these kinds of records and prepare invoices using a spreadsheet or word processing application, there are plenty of specialized software apps that let you perform the task quicker, more easily, and with much less effort. Best of all, many of them are inexpensive or even free to use.
In our reviews, we examined standalone invoicing and billing systems. We also took a deeper look into the billing capabilities of some more comprehensive accounting systems in which the billing process is just a part. These systems also include the data for business purchases, inventory management, and general ledger accounting. All of the billing and accounting systems we reviewed are delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps that are located in the cloud rather than locally installed. Therefore, all you need is a web browser and you're in business.
More Than Just Sending a Bill
Many of the billing systems we reviewed let you enter and record the initial sales transaction, which is a good place to start the billing process. In accounting terms, this is called "Sales Order Entry" or simply Order Entry. Even if you're just looking to send out a bill and receive payment, you still need to look at the Order Entry part of the system and determine how it will work with the kind of business you're operating.
Most full-blown accounting systems and a number of billing systems have an "Order Entry of Sales" front end where you can key in the items or services for which you want to bill. For the most part, these items or services need to be defined before you can use the sales front end. With most accounting systems, Sales integrates with Inventory so that it will be the point at which items and prices get defined. With a simpler billing system, you'll have to create these items, descriptions, and prices as a separate process. Taxes, such as Sales Tax or Value Added Tax (VAT), is another place at which billing-oriented systems differ from more robust accounting ones. Many accounting systems provide tax tables that will automatically calculate the requisite sales tax, or they will integrate with a tax service app such Avalara's AvaTax. However, many billing systems skip such niceties and require you to enter the sales tax rate on each individual sales transaction.
Actually creating the bill is another consideration. Many of the billing apps and subsystems we examined let you create a bill on the fly by using a mobile app. This is a great feature if you want to be able to create a bill at the time of sale or immediately when a service is provided while you're at a customer's location. The ability to email that bill or invoice is another desirable feature for many users, as is automatically creating bills for recurring charges every month or according to some other regular time period.
Many of the apps we looked at also included more advanced capabilities that might apply to your particular operation. These include the ability to handle multiple currencies for those businesses that operate in more than one country, or pop-up timers if you bill by the hour. Keep in mind, however, that we looked at billing and invoicing apps, not time tracking or expense tracking software—each of which has a different target audience.
Something else to keep in mind is that, while the terms "invoice" and "statement" are used interchangeably occasionally, they're actually not the same thing. An invoice may have multiple itemized charges and services listed on it, but refers to a single sale. A statement, on the other hand, itemizes outstanding, current, and historical invoice charges and payment transactions. A statement gives the status of a customer's account at the end of a billing period or, with some billing and accounting apps, on demand.
Tracking Cash Flow
Another area that's important to consider when selecting billing software is how you will get paid. For many years, accepting cash or checks were your only alternatives, especially for small businesses. That's far from true these days. Credit cards especially are considered a must-have payment option even for small businesses. Fortunately, billing platforms incorporate the ability to accept credit cards. There's always a charge for this, which is usually a percentage of the transaction as well as a per-transaction or monthly fee. You'll need to read this fine print carefully as this charge can be on top of the percentage fee charged by the actual credit card processor. You need to decide whether this kind of charge is worthwhile. In many cases, having access to the payment more or less immediately is well worth the charge, which is deductible from revenue as a business expense in any case. Some software vendors can also provide a customer portal where your customers can pay their invoices electronically through a wire transfer or Automated Clearing House (ACH) transaction. Again, there is often a fee for this. But, as with a credit card, this fee is a business expense and may be worthwhile at reducing or eliminating the receivables.
Finally, there's reporting. Good reporting capabilities are always something you should seek out and billing software is no exception. Most users, especially smaller businesses, won't need dozens of reports. But you will want to know which bills are past due and how long past due they are. You will also want to be able to see your revenue flow at any point in time. You'll want to have the capability of sending customers Past Due notices and reminders when necessary. Effectively managing your cash flow is a primary reason for using an invoicing app.
Last but not least, and related to reporting, is the ability to integrate your billing system with your back-end accounting system. There's a lot of competition to Intuit Quickbooks these days, so even small businesses need to make sure their billing system and accounting system can effectively talk with one another. If they don't, then these businesses could wind up doing a lot of unnecessary manual entry.
The apps we tested can provide multiple options for invoice templates. Customization comes by way of adding your company log, specific font or branding identity artwork as well as defining the fields to suit your company and your customer's needs.
