If you are running a business or you are a freelancer, collecting payments on time from the customer is still challenging. In fact, according to the survey polls, 60% of late payments occur due to incorrect invoices. To address these problems you need to use the best invoicing software that handles it precisely and effectively.
Invoicing software is designed to help you create accurate invoices, conduct recurring billing, perform automatic follow-ups of your clients, and assist you in business accounting and tax processes.
To make your decision easier, I have reviewed and ranked the best invoicing software based on their functionalities, pricing, integrations, support, and ease of use.
So let’s get started.
What is the Best Invoicing Software?
Here is my list of the best invoicing software to use this year.
1. FreshBooks
Freshbooks is one of the most popular invoicing tools on this list that provides automation for collecting payments and sending invoice reminders.
Moreover, it helps you manage your business finances efficiently and provides you insights through its advanced analytics to assist you in making smarter decisions. This tool is made for businesses looking for a capable solution without spending a lot of time on invoicing.
Key Features:
- Mobile Application – Freshbook offers highly functional mobile applications to help you stay connected with your team and clients all the time. Additionally, you can use the photos feature to take a snap of the receipts and create invoices on the fly.
- Intuitive User Interface – Its modern user interface provides seamless collaboration between your team members. Furthermore, their dashboards offer flexible customization options to personalize your software experience.
- Financial Reports – Organize document reports to gain easy accessibility through its dashboard. Moreover, it also provides an intuitive color-coding schema to avoid any fizzle while crunching numbers.
- Tracking Expenses – Helps you efficiently track all the expenses that occurred based on your client requirements. Additionally, you can add any expense component to the invoices for claiming your reimbursements.
Pros:
- Provides an automated late payment tracking feature
- Collects late fees of the generated invoices automatically
- Provide multiple language support to create the invoice
- Ensure selective collaboration between teams by giving different access levels of files to different parties
- Allows you to connect the expense tool module to your bank account to manage expenses
- Offers an in-app chat tool to collaborate between your team members through the dashboard or mobile apps
- Sets a timer to track the time spent by a team member on a particular project
- Allows you to write business proposals and estimates with single-click approval features for the client
- Provides customized and automated reminders for the clients
Cons:
- Cannot access reports on the fly
- Not an ideal solution for large businesses and complex operations
Pricing Plans:
Freshbooks offers three paid pricing plans.
- Lite Plan – $6 per month
- Plus Plan – $10 per month
- Premium Plan – $20 per month
2. Xero
Xero is an online invoicing software for businesses that is easy to access from any remote location. Additionally, it provides features like customization templates, online payment options, and automatic reminders along with robust data security for all your shared data files.
Xero is good for professionals and businesses that are looking for a software solution that provides excellent customer support.
Key Features:
- Ease of use – Its dashboard is really easy to monitor business-wide billing and invoicing status.
- Integrations – Offers a large number of integrations options of popular third-party solutions, including Carbon Analytics, Mogul, Labs, Vend, Evernote, Kabbage, Workflow Max, Synergy, Stitch Bill, Deputy, ZenPayroll, and more.
- Inventory Management – Helps you keep a detailed record of all the inventory purchases. These records include tax status, committed quotes, descriptions, and purchase costs, among others.
- Structured Transaction Flow – Provides a two-factor authentication and follows a multiple-approval model to minimize the financial fraud possibilities.
Pros:
- Allows you to add expenses and costs of an invoice very easily
- Send your invoice easily through tablets or smartphones
- Helps you control purchase order by categorizing invoices as payment delayed, awaiting approval, and drafts
- Provides an accurate and precise comparison of financials using interactive charts
- Reduces the repetitive data entry
- Allows you to embed a Pay Now button on the invoices to make it easy for customers to pay
- Provides a setting to enable recurring invoicing using an existing invoice template
Cons:
- Provides limited reporting options compared to other tools
- Need paid subscription to access all available digital payment solutions
Pricing Plans:
Xero offers three paid plans to their customers.
- Early Plan – $11 per month
- Growing Plan – $32 per month
- Established Plan – 462 per month
3. QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks is another top invoicing software with different packages for small-medium businesses and large enterprises. It handles your accounting data smoothly and efficiently. It offers robust integration with your existing platforms to make sure you do not waste time configuring things.
QuickBooks Online is suitable for professionals and mid-sized businesses looking for a lot of functionalities.
Key Features:
- File Manager – Organizes all the files of the clients with version control. Additionally, it stores client passwords securely and allows you to upgrade clients’ business files in batches.
- Integrations – Quickbooks supports over 200+ third-party integrations with robust integration capabilities to connect your existing business applications
- Automated Reporting – This allows you to create a customized report which you can schedule for a later date or send them directly to your clients. Additionally, it provides business templates for different usage.
- Industry-Specific – It meets business-specific requirements by offering industry-specific accounting solutions that integrate with the processes of the native system.
Pros:
- Allows you to clear all undeposited funds in a single screen
- The accountant center module allows you to start reconciliation instantly using all the accountant tools present in the section
- Provides access to in-depth reports with easy-to-understand tools to analyze it
- Send journal entries to the clients with required changes quickly and easily
- Allows you to consolidate multiple invoices to a client in a single email
- Rectify incorrect sales tax payments by easily reclassifying heaps of transactional data
Cons:
- Relatively Expensive compared to other invoicing options
- Customer support is not up to the mark
Pricing Plans:
Quickbooks offers three paid plans for their Quickbooks Online. They also offer a 30-day free trial on their product.
- Simple Start – $4.80 per month
- Essentials – $7.50 per month
- Plus – $10.20 per month
4. Hiveage
Hiveage is an easy-to-use and simple invoicing software that allows you to track your expenses, estimates, and invoices. What is amazing about this software is that they offer you a FREE $15 credit once you send an invoice to fifteen@hiveage.com.
Apart from this, the software provides features like importing customer/contact lists, automatic recurring payments for invoices, late payment notices, third-party payment integrations, and more. Moreover, the software also simplifies the tax segment for its users so that it becomes easy for them when filing taxes.
This software is best for those who are looking for a less complex invoicing solution that has very tighter control over each and every expense happening in the business.
Key Features
- Account Aging – This allows you to track the overdue invoices or bills that are pending for days and that need immediate action.
- Multiple Business Management – Provides you the feature of managing your other businesses in a single account. This helps you to get all the statistics you need in one place thus improving your future business decisions.
- Payment Integrations – Hiveage allows you to integrate with more than 20+ payment gateways to receive payments from your clients.
- Invoice Status – This allows you to track the client activity made on the invoice you have sent. Moreover, it also provides you to group the invoices according to their status.
Pros
- Offers a 14-day free trial of their product
- Provides a $15 line of credit on your first invoice
- Provides automated late payment notices for overdue invoices.
- Allows you to customize the invoice by adding your brand logo and other details
- Offers robust customer analytics to track the progress of business
- Hiveage provides a time tracking facility that allows you to set the time required for invoicing, estimates, or bills.
- Allows you to send recurring invoices to clients by advance scheduling offered by the platform
- Provides mileage tracking so that you do not miss on the travel budget and time involved in activities
- Supports 20+ payment integrations to receive payment from clients
Cons
- Not much variety available in invoicing template
Pricing Plans
Hiveage offers three paid pricing plans other than its free plan.
- Free Plan – $0 per month
- Basic – $16 per month
- Pro – $25 per month
- Plus – $42 per month
So now let’s cover the basics.
What is Invoicing Software?
Any business activity in some of the other way has to send invoices to their clients for the services they have availed. This invoice involves entries like purchased items, price of service or product purchased, due of the payment, terms, and conditions, and other things.
Now creating these paper invoices is very time-consuming and cannot be neglected as it’s an essential task of the business. So to solve this problem invoicing software came into existence.
Invoicing software helps businesses to create invoices with all the required entries and allow them to mail or take a print of the generated invoice to send to the client. Moreover, it not only records the invoices generated but also helps you send automated reminders for due payments and compile the corresponding costs involved.
Here are the benefits of using invoicing software:
- Fraud Protection – Make sure that your invoicing tools offer high-end security to your data from hackers and unauthorized users and provide manual backup options to you if available.
- Eliminate Human Error – The software should reduce the factor of human error in the invoicing process.
- Reduce Late Payments – These features should allow you to monitor and collect overdue payments from clients.
- Reduce Missed Payments – invoicing tools help you schedule and monitor the number of invoices payment that is due soon. Thus, eliminating the chances of missing any payment.
What Should You Look For in Invoicing Software?
Every business operating in different industry verticals will have its own unique requirements. Some entities make just require the basic invoicing while others may prefer a holistic solution for all the accounting processes involved in the enterprises.
But here are some essential features that should be present in your invoicing tool:
1. Multiple Currency Support
If you are in a business that deals with customers from different countries or you are looking for a global expansion then this feature is a must. You need to ensure that your invoicing tool is compatible with multiple currency payments. Xero is a good example of such a tool
2. Various Template Designs
The invoicing software should provide a wide variety of template designs to generate invoices. Additionally, these professionally built invoice templates help you build your brand image in the marketplace.
3. Automatic Billing
Many businesses today rely on a recurring payment system for repetitive purchases made by their clients. Moreover, eliminating the repetitive billing task every month save time and effort which can be redirected to other crucial tasks.
4. Credit Card Processing
Nowadays many customers prefer card payment when purchasing over the internet. In case of a repetitive purchase, a repetitive billing feature on a credit card comes handy to many customers.
5. Records Customer History
it is very important that you maintain information on the customer purchases. This will not only allow you to segregate the customers according to your marketing strategy but also help you understand which products are likely to work and which will not in the future.
6. Simple exchange of Information
While generating invoices, real-time communication can be crucial to the business. This exchange of information can eliminate misunderstanding and other cost issues involved in a highly dynamic business where rates fluctuate almost in a minute.
Best Invoicing Software – Final Summary
This wraps up my list of the best invoicing software you can use for your business this year. I will keep updating the list with other invoicing software available in the market.
These tools will definitely help you generate correct invoices, and automated alerts, and keep you in touch with your clients. Make sure that you make the correct choice based on your business requirements.
For instance, If you have ample budget available you can try Quickbooks Enterprise or Brightpearl. However, if you are a small business or a freelancer you can go for Freshbooks or Wave.
Which one of the above invoicing software do you like best? Let me know your feedback in the comments below.
More from Smashitbuck: To check out my other articles on ERP software, CRM software, and VPS Hosting solutions to read this year.
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