FreshBooks vs. Square Invoices

FreshBooks is the perfect tool for businesses who have hundreds of clients and customers whom they invoice regularly. It removes the need to manually send invoices to clients and customers, by streamlining inputted information to create an automated invoicing system which keeps clients and customers up to date with their bills. It is also a great tool for managing expenses, especially for companies with different teams working on varying projects, ensuring these teams do not exceed the budget ceiling.

Incentivized

Square Invoices is the best service that I have found for what it does: it's easy to use, nice to look at, and never seems to go to spam or be lost by clients. Clients mention that the setup is easier than services my competitors use. You can even attach your contract to the invoice, which is wonderful in case there are questions later on. Unfortunately, not being able to have clients alter quantities or select add-ons means for half of my services, I have to use a different, inferior service.

Incentivized

• FreshBooks is pretty intuitive to use. I did have some questions when I first started using the system, but it wasn't a long learning curve.
• FreshBooks provides more capability than other billing applications such as PaySimple or BlinkSale. FreshBooks does provide an easy invoicing function. It's easy to create invoices that can be sent via email or snail mail to one or more individuals (for example, the decision-maker and the accounting dept). Clients can pay online or send a check and then I note that the payment has been received. If paid by credit card, the system automatically marks the invoice paid. Your business accounts such as bank accounts can be linked to FreshBooks. Then, the system can automatically draw in expenses and will create simple P&L reports, overdue invoices, client history, etc. If you don't have inventory and complex payroll, etc. FreshBooks provides just the right level of capability to make financial tracking simple.
• FreshBooks integrates with a number of credit card companies. I use Stripe, which has fees similar to Paypal, but much more reliable processing. I can accept all credit cards, including American Express, for a reasonable fee.

• Very easy-to-use. Even non-technical users can very easily figure out how to send an invoice.
• Notifications of payment. You can see if the invoice has been viewed, and you can include attachments to the invoice (such as a contract)!
• Quick payouts straight to your bank account make life easy.
• Easy to use mobile app for on the go.

Incentivized

• Pricing structure is very poor for us. $10/user per month when we have staff that comes and goes. And it's impossible to change a free contractor to a paid staff and vice-versa. This is my biggest complaint.
• They only allow one admin owner user. Emails must come from that account. This is annoying, as other staff cannot log in with the same power.
• The user interface is quite dated. I've made recommendations to improve it and all have been ignored. It's skinny and not fluid. Also, there is no way to link between invoices and clients.

• I wish there was a way to automatically calculate credit card processing fees based on an invoice's amount, and add that to the invoice

Incentivized

At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.

It is well-built software with no significant drawbacks. It offers all the necessary futures expected from online software. However, it is not yet up there with Xero and QuickBooks regarding connections with other software and advanced reporting features. The developers work closely with accountants, and therefore, I expect further development of the software.

Incentivized

FreshBooks is easy to use and always works!

Incentivized

I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.

Incentivized

The only time I had a problem was a false chargeback from a client. Square Invoices referenced our contract and ruled in my favor, and they did so in a timely manner. I sent them the contract and my email history with the client, and they quickly unfroze the amount of money.

Incentivized

I haven't changed my mind since my first evaluation. Freshbooks is still meeting my needs, easy to use, etc.

There is no fluff and feature overload with FreshBooks. I can get to what I need quickly and easily. I don't have to deal with unnecessary features and fields the system considers essential. The payment features are streamlined and have lots of flexibility when receiving payments. I love FreshBooks support, and it is 100 more customer-friendly and easier to work with than its primary competitors from my experience.

Incentivized

I feel that for what it does, Square Invoices outperforms its competition. Because we have used the program for several years, we have seen how they continue to improve their service - making it user-friendly and accessible for a variety of needs. Other platforms are not as easy to set up, add items, and access funds after payment is received.

Incentivized

• Since implementing FreshBrooks, 80% of invoices created are paid in less than 30 days from the time the invoice is sent via email to the client. Prior to FreshBooks, we were mailing or hand-delivering our invoices and payment on those invoices was in the 45-90 day range.
• Time tracking is done directly in FreshBooks (or through a plugin that's connected directly to FreshBooks) and is very easy to use. With this feature we're much better able to track all business activities. This has helped us to quantify the time we're spending on non-billable business-related work in addition to our billable client hours. We've been able to adjust our pricing accordingly, as well as being more efficient with our non-billable activities.
• When FreshBooks online payments is set-up in your account, payments made with this method are automatically sent to your bank account. We choose between FreshBooks payments and PayPal payments in order to manage how much money stays in the PayPal account for online expenses vs. how much is transferred directly to the bank account.

• The fee for invoicing is extremely reasonable for how easy it is. At 2.75% per transaction, it's well worth it.
• I like that invoices can be printed and mailed or sent via email for easy online payment.
• I have a 100% collection rate on my invoices, and they are often paid within 24-48 hours of being sent, which saves me the time of chasing down checks, which can be especially cumbersome when I have multiple clients.

Incentivized