FreshBooks Helps You Manage Business Finances with Ease Sponsored
One of the more overlooked aspects of being self-employed or running a small agency is that you are actually responsible for a whole lot more than just design. The business side of things means that you need to keep records of earnings and expenses.
Plus, you need to invoice clients and provide them with an easy way to pay you. Then there’s that whole thing where you send proposals out to prospective clients. That’s a lot to keep track of.
Most of us tend to start out using some cobbled-together collection of tools to “organize” customer records and invoices. You might use a spreadsheet to track earnings and expenses, a desktop publishing app to create invoices and a database to keep customer info.
As your business grows, you find that the entire process becomes unwieldy. It ends up costing you loads of time (and money) to keep things going. Well, I’m here to tell you that there is indeed a better way.
FreshBooks has helped over 10 million people track finances, send invoices and get paid. Their easy-to-use cloud accounting service takes the pain out the process.
Instead of dealing with multiple moving parts, they offer a simple and unified way to stay on top of every aspect of your business. In turn, you get to spend more time doing what you love.
Time-Saving Features That Fit Your Business
FreshBooks provides the features you need to run your business without the hassle or learning curve of traditional accounting software. And because it’s cloud-based, you can access your data at anytime from anywhere – including a mobile app.
That means you won’t have to wait until you’re at your desk to enter in a business expense or create an invoice. You can manage things while they’re still fresh in your mind.
Among FreshBooks’ many features that make life easier, you’ll find:
Customized Billing with Ease
FreshBooks enables you to customize the entire billing process to fit your needs. It all starts when you design your own custom invoice template that reflects who you are and what you do. And your invoices will not only look great, they’ll also include vital information such as tracked time, notes, terms, late fees, discounts and reimbursable expenses. You get to decide what’s included and what’s not.
Plus, you’ll have the flexibility to automate many common tasks. For example, if you routinely bill clients a set amount, you can set up recurring invoicing to automatically generate invoices and send them out. Plus, FreshBooks can send out friendly reminders for overdue invoices. You’ll also receive instant notifications when an invoice has been viewed or paid. FreshBooks remembers it all so you don’t have to.
A Better Way to Get Paid
Sending out invoices the old fashioned way inevitibly leads waiting. You wait for the invoice to arrive and then you wait to receive payment. The process is slow and inefficient for both you and your clients. And it’s just too easy for a client to set aside a paper invoice, leading to you to break out into a cold sweat until things finally get resolved.
FreshBooks has removed all the red tape from getting paid. Their service enables clients to pay you via credit card with just a click. The payment process is so smooth, in fact, that FreshBooks users get paid up to 11 days sooner. And transparent pricing means that you won’t be surprised by any hidden fees. You’ll know exactly how much money you’re taking in.
In all, FreshBooks has streamlined the payment process so that getting paid is no longer like pulling teeth.
Create Estimates and Accept Deposits to Quickly Secure New Projects
We often spend way too much time creating estimates and proposals. Not anymore. FreshBooks makes it easy to create proposals that outline your project’s scope, timeline and deliverables.
Cost estimates are also incredibly easy to create and share with clients. You’ll be notified when estimates are viewed and they can be approved by clients with just a single click. Plus, your estimates can be quickly converted into ready-to-pay invoices.
Clients can also send you a deposit, so your new projects will get off to a running start.
Make Expense Tracking a No-Brainer
Keeping track of your expenses is often a painful experience. Receipts tend to pile up and some may never get entered at all. When tax time comes around, you may be missing out on potential savings because it’s so hard to stay organized.
FreshBooks makes it completely pain-free with their mobile app. Just snap a picture of your receipt and it will be automatically logged and organized in the cloud. If you’re handling expenses for your clients, you can even mark them as billable so that you won’t miss out on reimbursement.
Helping Real Business Owners
The power of FreshBooks is in its ability to take previously difficult tasks and make them simple. They’ve helped millions of people get their business finances organized, take control of invoicing and get paid faster. Here are just a few of their stories:
Better Organization Through the Cloud
Keeping track of finances is one of the hardest parts of being a business owner. It’s something that most of us in the creative field don’t have a lot of experience with. So when we venture out into the world, things can turn messy in a hurry. Take the example of Jamie Leigh. When she started her freelance web design business in 2012, record-keeping was tedious at best. She admits things weren’t going well.
“It was so embarrassing—I used Excel spreadsheets all the time and that’s how I invoiced…It got to the point where I was so overwhelmed. I had shoeboxes full of receipts and my desk was crammed with more receipts.”
Knowing she needed a change, Jamie signed up for a free trial of FreshBooks. It didn’t take long for her to notice the difference in organizing her finances. “I always have the next year’s taxes already saved up and I’ve used the profit-first model because of FreshBooks. I don’t think my life would be as profitable or organized as it would be.”
Bringing Order to Chaos
The life of a freelancer can be chaotic. Especially so if you’re always on the go, like web and graphic designer Bethany Leighty. As someone who spends a lot of time visiting clients, she could no longer afford the time and effort of managing her finances through spreadsheets. She realized that she “needed to find an accounting solution that I could use beyond my home office.”
With the help of the FreshBooks mobile app, Bethany found an accounting solution that fit her lifestyle. “In order to meet clients, be there for my sons and take the spontaneous vacation, I needed to be able to send an invoice on the road, and not have to wait until I got back to my desk. I’m happy to say I found that in FreshBooks—a cloud accounting solution that would move with me.”
Getting Paid…Without the Wait
Mat O’Flynn is founder of his own web design and marketing agency, and he knows the struggles of running a startup. “Anyone who has started a business knows that accounting can be a headache, and we were no exception.”, he admits.
While his firm tried a self-made system for keeping track of finances, it was a nightmare to maintain – and the wait to be paid was testing his patience. In search of an all-in-one solution, he found FreshBooks.
“Four years after implementing FreshBooks, we’ve expanded our business from 3 to 75 clients. It used to take 30 days or more to receive payment after we mailed our invoices. We now get paid in seven days or less on average.” Mat found that FreshBooks was exactly what he needed to increase efficiency and get paid on-time, adding “Running our business became instantaneously easier and much more efficient.”
Want to read more about the impact that FreshBooks has had on other business owners? Check out their blog to learn more.
Start Your Free Trial of FreshBooks Today
It’s time to run your business at peak efficiency – and FreshBooks can get you there. They have everything you need to manage your business finances, invoicing and payment collections. It’s user-friendly and designed to save you time. And you can try it risk-free.
FreshBooks is offering new users a 30-day free trial. There’s no credit card required and you can cancel at any time. Take it for a spin and see why 97% of small business owners recommend using FreshBooks.
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