Every once in a while, we like to take a few minutes to introduce you to ways to make your job easier with software. Your phone or tablet can be just another thing to lug around, or it can be one of the most powerful tools in your pocket — even when it comes to building and sending invoices to customers.
QuickBooks Accounting
Features
If you’re going to start anywhere, you might as well start with the standard — QuickBooks. If you own a small business, you probably use this sucker already; there’s a reason it’s as common as nail salons in a strip mall: It just works.
The creation of new invoices couldn’t be any simpler. After setting up your account with your business name and details, creating an invoice is as simple as plugging in your customer’s information and then creating line items. QuickBooks makes the whole process easy by including standard line item categories specific to your type of work.
For example, I said that Ryan’s Getter-Done-Boyz was a construction company (we can get anything done).QuickBooks automatically includes standard products and services in the sector: installation, labor, material, service, etc. If they don’t have the product and service you want, you can add your own simply by clicking the (+) sign in the app. I had to add the service “Taking Care of Business” to include that as a line item for my customers. Once this is done, the invoice can be saved and sent immediately to your customer. I sent Joe Schmoe his $500 bill for all the taking care of business I did for him last week.
Once your customer pays you, tracking the remaining balance (if there is one) is also easy. The invoices created via QuickBooks can be customized for your company and are clean and professional. Simply put, QuickBooks makes invoice creation a snap.
Pricing
QuickBooks comes with a 30-day free trial; after that, they charge a monthly fee. Paying for multiple months at a time can help you save money, and occasionally, you can find promotional prices to help with the monthly cost. QuickBooks can be found in both Google and Apple’s app stores and downloaded for free.
Links
Website — iOS App — Google Play
FreshBooks
Features
FreshBooks is another leader in the invoice app market. They certainly do more than just invoicing; they boast of their product as a great financial tool to add to your arsenal. However, in terms of go-to products, when it comes to easy invoicing, FreshBooks ranks right up there. Giving the app a test drive proved straightforward and offered a few little goodies that could set it apart from the others.
Once again, the Getter-Done-Boyz were hard at work getting stuff done (it’s what we do best), and it came time to bill our customer. The time spent from downloading the app to sending an invoice was about five minutes. Not only that, FreshBooks makes it quite clear during the process where I can set required deposit amounts (either as a dollar amount or as a percentage of the total) and payment options (formatted the same way as the deposit). While other apps offer this type of customization, I found that FreshBooks brought the most clarity to the process. The option was virtually unavoidable.
Overall, the look and feel of the app are great — there’s very little clutter or unnecessary junk you have to maneuver around. Customizing your invoices is a bit more complicated than other apps, but that isn’t to say it cannot be done; it will just require a bit more work on your end. In contrast, other apps allow you to scroll through options and choose the best option quickly.
Pricing
FreshBooks offers a free, 30-day trial. Once this period ends, you have three (four if you’re an enterprise-level business) different monthly plans ranging in cost from $19 to $60 per month, with add-on pricing for additional users and features. Their pricing page has a slick tool that helps you select which plan is best for you, depending on your size and employee count/type of employee.
Links
Website — iOS App — Google Play
Zoho Invoice
Features
Zoho has apparently decided that its users would rather have multiple apps that offer specific capabilities rather than one app that does everything. I, for one, appreciate this approach. Instead of having to navigate through multiple menus within an app, I can simply turn to Zoho’s Invoice app when that is what I want to do.
Besides this, what sets Zoho Invoice apart for me is its design sensibility — both the app interface and the template options for your customizable invoices are sharp-looking with a creative yet professional feel.
In terms of usability, the app is pretty slick and straightforward. Creating an invoice is a simple process that merely requires you to fill in the necessary information — just fill in the work that has been done to create a line item.
You can email the invoice directly to your customer, and you have the capability to export the invoice to a PDF and print it straight from your mobile device — an element of the app that will certainly be appreciated by both you and your customer. After all, we always seem to run out of ink at the worst times, right?
Bottom line: Zoho Invoice is beautiful in its simplicity. It gets the job done with little to distract you or complicate the process.
Pricing
Zoho Invoice is free but doesn’t skimp on the tools and features that small business owners and bookkeepers want and need, like ACH payments, multiple users, and time tracking. As a business grows, it may find that it needs a little more than what Zoho Invoice can offer. That’s where Zoho Billing comes in with its end-to-end billing suite.
Links
Website — iOS App — Google Play
Invoice Maker by Billdu
Features
One of the clear leaders in the invoicing app world is Billdu. Their website boasts a roster of more than 100,000 small businesses, and I can see why. When fiddling around with their iPad app, creating invoices for the often imitated but never repeated Getter-Done-Boyz, I found their product to be about as clean and clear as they come — there’s a reason they are near the top of the mountain.
Invoice Maker by Billdu sets itself apart in the small things: its invoice templates are attractive and customizable, and allow users to know precisely when a customer views the invoice, thus allowing you to call their bluff when they say they didn’t receive it! (Not really, right?)
A quick test of the app proved its value. In about three minutes, I opened the app, input the Getter-Done-Boyz information, charged my client Neil Diamond $1000 for one unit of Taking Care of Business, and I was done. The invoice was prepped and could be emailed to Neil in all his sequined glory.
All of this comes in an attractive app that also allows you to track other basics for your business — expenses, outstanding accounts payable, client lists, and more. All of this and more is why Billdu is one of the leaders in the field and why it boasts such incredible reviews from its users.
Pricing
Invoice Maker from Billdu is free for 30 days. After your trial, they offer three paid plans (they have a Free plan, but it doesn’t include invoicing). Their plans run anywhere from $3.99 to $16.99 per month, offering unlimited invoicing and differing on the limits of additional features, user seats, and clients.
Links
Website — iOS App — Google Play
Invoicely
Features
Invoicely touts an effortless invoicing experience with tools to help you collect payments, track time, and manage multiple businesses from one login.
In terms of the nuts and bolts, when running a few examples for the Getter-Done-Boyz, we found that billing Kenny Rogers $1000 for the Taking Care of Business that we did for him was a snap. From signing up for the service to filling out Kenny’s info and shipping his invoice off to him via email (with the PDF attached), I was only out about eight minutes all in. Once you are set up, of course, the process is much quicker, and if you have recurring customers, Invoicely will save all their information to make the next invoice that much easier.
Their Free plan offers generous options and may be a solid solution for smaller, one-person businesses who work jobs on longer timelines for a few clients. You can customize it to some level, but if you want to get really crazy you will need to pay. But the options are still attractive and professional.
Pricing
As mentioned earlier, Invoicely is free when you only use their basic invoicing service. As a business grows to have more clients, invoices, and more complicated transactions, they’ll need to take a look at their Basic, Professional, or Enterprise plans that run $9.99, $19.99, and $29.99 per month, respectively.
Links
Website – iOS App – Google Play
Conclusion
So what does this all mean? This means there are a lot of players in the invoicing app market who can help your business invoice and process payments. In the five apps we reviewed, we found that each had a few features or functionality that set it apart. There really is something for everyone.
Pick one that best suits your needs and gets you back to doing what you love — selling customers and delivering great results.
