Great product paired to the friendliest support in financial software.

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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).

Freshbooks - Still one of the best billing systems around

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Freshbooks just keeps improving.

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!

Pros

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!

Cons

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.

Really like FreshBooks but there's room for improvement

Here's the skinny on FreshBooks (the good, the bad, and the ugly): The Good: You can't beat the visual dashboard for tracking outstanding and past payments for clients. It's a great billing system for small businesses and especially consultants or freelancers. The recurring billing/invoicing system is FAB! Like many platforms these days, Freshbooks showcases a library of "add-ons" to help enhance your experience. Some of the best ones (in my book, as a tech consultant and marketer) are Hubspot, Shopify, Mailchimp, Bidsketch, BaseCamp, and Podio. There's a decent time tracking feature, along with the ability to track expenses. You can create/assign staff to project billing. Of course, you can issue "estimates" to prospects for future projects. As you send invoices through the Freshbooks system, it will log "sent" emails for you. And the system is designed to handle manual invoices for snail mail as well. Each client/business that you bill receives their own "login" to your dashboard to view their invoice(s). This is a nice touch, as clients may often "misplace" that original email with your invoice in it... It integrates very nicely with Stripe and PayPal (although I hear that may be changing - what? I know) plus Freshbooks has its own payment feature. I never have issues with payments, they always come through the system promptly (for online playing, 24-48 hours, the norm). The Bad: I'm not a fan of the reporting feature, while it's functional, it doesn't allow enough flexibility that a diverse consultant such as myself would like (need) to have. There are several reporting functions for each core feature (Accounting, Clients, Invoicing, and Time Tracking). But no option for custom reporting, which I often need as my diverse array of clientele has different process, set-ups, etc. At the very least, I would like to be able to customize the built-in reports on some level. I've not found an add-on that would assist me with this pain point. The Ugly: Finally, sadly, the worst thing I have to say about FreshBooks is that the Android app is greatly lacking. As the years (and technology) progress, that could eventually become a deal breaker. All the features in the world won't do a consultant much good if all of those same features can't be accessed via mobile device. We're ALL mobile these days, doncha know. However, if you split your time between desktop/Mac and mobile, then Freshbooks is well worth a look!

Great tool - Capabi.ities get better all the time

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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