Wednesday, October 8, 2014

5 Tools to Help You Manage Your Business Better: Cloudbooks, Invoicemachine, BillGrid, SimpleInvoices, Bill.com

 Pratik Dholakiya for Business2Community writes: Invoicing is a time-consuming and tedious activity. You need to ensure the accuracy of all the information and the payment terms. Any discrepancy or error can result in an inordinate delay in payment.

When freelancing or running your small business there are a million things demanding your attention and it is not always easy to juggle your roles with equal élan.

There are many Web-based invoicing and accounting solutions in the market that cater to the demands of harried small business owners and freelancers.

Here are a few of them and let’s look at their main features.

1) Cloudbooks

5 Tools to Help You Manage Your Business Better image CloudBooks 600x273

Cloudbooks is a cloud-based accounting app that has all the features necessary to help small and medium sized businesses manage their invoicing and accounting.

Estimates can be customized to meet you customer’s requirements and approved estimates can be converted to invoices in a single click. Outstanding and delayed payments can be easily tracked. Payment reminders can be automated and you can also send automatic thank you notes once the payment is made.

Recurring invoices can be automated so that you need not waste time creating similar invoices periodically. PayPal and Authorize.net integration make online payment easy and convenient for your clients.

Cloudbooks possesses strong project management features. It allows you to assign tasks to team members, track progress and log in billable hours. Invoices can be generated from finished projects in a single click.

The in-built timer helps you track time even on the go. Time can be billed to particular projects and clients in the project module. This can be automatically added up to generate invoices.

Cloudbooks also supports expense tracking and automated expense recording.

Cloudbooks has a free plan which supports 1 client and allows you to send 5 invoices. The monthly subscription plans are for $2, $10 and $20 respectively.

2) Invoicemachine

5 Tools to Help You Manage Your Business Better image Invoicemachine
Invoicemachine is a simple and straightforward online billing and invoicing service suitable for small businesses and freelancers.

Invoices can be easily created. You can apply discounts, multiple tax rates and add notes. Invoices can be generated in foreign currencies. The invoice can be directly mailed to the client or attached as a PDF file to the e-mail.

Invoices can be customized with your logo and colors. E-mails can also be customized.
You can automate recurring billing and payment reminders. Invoicemachine automatically sends out a thank you note once payment is received.

The project module stores all the relevant information like project details, status, billable hours and rates. The product list allows you to enter the product type, the description, the quantity and the price. It does not, however, have an advanced inventory management tool.

Invoicemachine has a built-in timer that runs in the background and helps you log in hours. This is especially beneficial if you work on time-based projects or services.

The small plan is free and allows you to send 3 estimates and 3 invoices per month. It supports a single user.
The monthly subscription plans cost $12 for the medium plan, $24 for the large plan, and $48 for the extra large plan.

3) BillGrid

5 Tools to Help You Manage Your Business Better image BillGrid
BillGrid is a cloud-based invoicing, billing and time tracking solution that is delightfully simple and quick to use.
It is tailored to meet the demands of time-based project work.

Estimates can be easily generated and when approved are converted into invoices in a single click.
Invoices can be created, duplicated and marked paid. Color coding helps you differentiate between paid, pending and partially paid invoices.

Invoices can be customized with your logo and made to look professional, and well-made. BillGrid also offers you several styles and templates to choose from. Attachments can be added as files and you can also add images of items to invoices.

Payment reminders can be automated. Online payment is made easy through integration with PayPal and Authorize.net. Strip and Google Wallet are other payment gateways.

BillGrid contains an efficient and advanced time tracking tool. Active timer runs in the background as you work and you can manually enter the start and finish time.

The client portal allows you to schedule e-mails and invoice reminders, and invoice multiple contacts within the same client. You can view all relevant information including payment history, company and contact details, project summaries and invoicing details in the client page.

BillGrid offers you a free trial period of 30 days. The two monthly plans are for $8/month and $20/month respectively.

4) SimpleInvoices

5 Tools to Help You Manage Your Business Better image SimpleInvoices
SimpleInvoices is a Web-based open-sourced invoicing application and is very easy to use. It is developed by the user community for the community.
Estimates can be easily created and when approved can be converted into invoices. You can export the invoice to PDF or send the invoice as PDF attachment to the client via e-mail. You can also export the invoice to plain text, MS Word or Excel.

You can select from a variety of layouts and customize your invoices. Recurring invoices can be automated. You can save product details and applicable tax rates and there are custom fields for data entry. You can also add in notes.

SimpleInvoices offers basic inventory support. Multiple currencies are also supported.

SimpleInvoices has great reporting features. Reports are generated based on the generated invoices. You can also view monthly reports for individual clients and invoicing details.
Your customers can make payment online through PayPal.

SimpleInvoices is a free and open source software. It will always remain free of cost and open to development.

5) Bill.com

5 Tools to Help You Manage Your Business Better image Bill 600x164
Bill.com is a cloud-based accounting solution that manages accounts payables and receivables, and also integrates with many financial applications.

Invoices can be easily created for individual clients. You can customize the invoices with your logo and colors. Bill.com allows you to e-mail your invoices and if you choose, it will be printed and delivered by postal mail for you.
Invoices are tracked and marked as sent, viewed, outstanding and paid. Online payments are accepted by ACH and credit card.

The client portal allows your customer to text his queries to which you can send your reply.
Recurring invoices and payment reminders are automated. You can also set up automatic transfers from your customers’ accounts.

Bill.com offers a free trial period of 30 days.

The subscription plans are priced per user per month. The basic plan costs $19 per user per month, the team plan $29 and the premium plan $49. Custom pricing with additional features are also available.

Conclusion

All the above products offer unique features and facilities. Don’t hesitate to take a free trial and decide what suits your business best. You can always use any help you can get while managing your growing business.

About the Author:Pratik Dholakiya is Co-Founder & VP of Marketing 

of E2M & OnlyDesign. At E2M, they focus heavily on content marketing and generate 

revenue for their clients. 

2 comments:

  1. Nice.,.... i am happy with this

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for sharing this information. It is very helpful for people who want to know more about online invoicing application and its importance.

    ReplyDelete