Freshbooks is a cloud-based timekeeping and billing software that has extensive invoice customization capabilities and is designed for the small business market. It allows you to track time, invoice, bill clients, and more.
FreshBooks Highlights
Customizable invoices. Their invoicing feature is highly customizable, allowing attorneys to quickly add logos and other personalized touches such as a “thank you” email. Multi-language invoices and multi-currency are also available.
Accepting payments. FreshBooks allows you to accept payments via credit card, and it automates the process of following up with clients about late invoices, which can be very helpful to attorneys who would like to get away from needing to repeatedly email clients asking for payment. You’re also able to set up recurring auto-billing for clients that you bill monthly for services. When you receive payments, the software will automatically record the payment and deposit it to your bank account.
Reports. Several types of reports are available in FreshBooks. You can run an accounts aging report, a profit and loss statement, a summary of profits and outstanding revenue, and more. For those of you in a small firm, you can see how all attorneys are doing with their billing in invoicing with just a few clicks. The reports can help you stay on track financially.
FreshBooks Pricing
Monthly plans are priced on a per-client basis:
- $15/month to bill up to 5 active clients.
- $25/month to bill up to 25 active clients.
- $50/month to bill up to 500 active clients.
Yearly plans save you 10%. All plans allow you unlimited invoices and estimates, allow you to track time and expenses, accept online credit card payments, and import expenses from your bank account. You’ll also be able to customize those invoices and keep track of everything through its dashboard.
Give FreshBooks a try before you buy! It offers a 30-day, no credit card required free trial.
If none of the above plans seem right for you or you bill out more than $150k/year, you can reach out to learn more about FreshBooks Select for a custom package and pricing.
Features
| Freshbooks | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website | freshbooks.com | ||||||
| Starting Price | $15/month | ||||||
| Starting Processing Fee | |||||||
| Free Trial | Yes | ||||||
| Apps | iOS Android | ||||||
| Installation | Cloud | ||||||
| Features | |||||||
| Invoicing | ✓ | ||||||
| Time Tracking | ✓ | ||||||
| Expense Tracking | ✓ | ||||||
| Online Payments | ✓ | ||||||
| Request Payments | |||||||
| Recurring Payments | ✓ | ||||||
| Estimates | ✓ | ||||||
| Reporting | ✓ | ||||||
| Project Management | ✓ | ||||||
| Document Management | |||||||
| Basic Accounting | ✓ | ||||||
| Accepts Major Credit Cards | ✓ | ||||||
| eCheck/ACH Deposits | ✓ | ||||||
| International Transactons | |||||||
| Issue Refunds | ✓ | ||||||
| Support | ✓ |
Things You Might Want to Know
Security. Information traveling between your browser and FreshBooks is protected with 256-bit SSL encryption. Both the application and your data rest behind firewalls. Sensitive information such as credit card numbers and bank account information are encrypted in FreshBooks’ database using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). FreshBooks uses redundant servers and your data is replicated across multiple databases, which ensures that a single database failure won’t cause data loss. Data is backed up nightly and stored in an offsite location.
Migration. You can import your clients into FreshBooks via a CSV (comma-separated value) file. FreshBooks provides a sample file to help you format your file.
Apps and integrations. FreshBooks has both iOS and Android applications. It integrates with about 25 programs, including Zapier, Stripe, and Google’s G-Suite.
It’s not accounting software. Although FreshBooks markets itself as “cloud accounting,” its use of the word accounting is misleading at best. FreshBooks is not a replacement for actual accounting software like Xero or QuickBooks. FreshBooks is excellent timekeeping and billing software with some nice-to-have features like expense tracking, but it is missing many features that are standard in actual small-business accounting software.
Who FreshBooks is For
FreshBooks is a good choice for solo and small firms that want a solution that allows them to easily track time and who also have a practice that demands frequent recurrent billing.
Want to learn more about the different time and billing software out there? Check out our portal for a list of software, handy features comparison chart, and helpful blog posts on the topic.