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FreshBooks

FreshBooks Rating:
4.5/5

Features

  • Customer Experience & Support - 9.25/10
    9.3/10
  • Pricing & Value - 9/10
    9/10
  • Security - 9.25/10
    9.3/10
  • Innovation & Future-Proofing - 8.5/10
    8.5/10
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)
Details

Rating Breakdown

Our Rating: 4.5/5

Our rating is based on our subjective judgment. Use our resources—including our rating and community ratings and reviews—to find the best fit for your firm.

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.

Features

Website
 www.freshbooks.com
Apps
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Starting Price
 $15/month for 5 clients
Starting Payment Processing Fee
 2.9% + 30¢/transaction for credit cards. 1% for ACH.
Free Trial
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Time Tracking
Time tracking does not include invoicing. Those get their own check mark.
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Expense Tracking
Track expenses as well as time so you can bill them to your clients.
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Basic Bookkeeping
Basic bookkeeping means basic, checkbook register–style bookkeeping, not full accounting. You will still need accounting software.
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Estimates
Provide detailed estimates to your clients before generating an invoice or tracking any actual time.
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Invoicing
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Online Payments
Accept credit card or eCheck/ACH payments on invoices. Note that some billing software integrates with third-party payment services but don't provide a built-in payment solution.
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Recurring Payments
Set up payment plans and subscriptions with automatic recurring payments.
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Payment Types Accepted
Major Credit Cards
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eCheck/ACH
✓
International
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Issue Refunds
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Reporting
Generate reports from timekeeping records to profits per partner. Note that some options have much more robust reporting features than others. If you know you will need a particular report, get a demo or trial to make sure you can get it.
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Document Management
Some timekeeping and billing software includes basic document management so that you can add documents and associate them with your cases/matters.
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Software Integrations
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Things You Might Want to Know

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 essential features of actual small-business accounting software.

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.

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.

Page edited by the Lawyerist editorial team. Last updated February 11th, 2020.

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