Freshbooks: Small Business Accounting that Isn't Scary

Today for Work at Home Wednesday, I?m going to talk about something that sends a shiver down the spines of most freelancers and/or sole proprietors, accounting.? When I started getting sponsored post opportunities and freelance writing opportunities, I knew I had to track my income for tax purposes, but I had no idea how to run small business accounting.? So when Quickbooks for Mac had a sale going, I snatched it up, ready to become more professional and use the well-known software.?? I cannot tell you the headaches I had with Quickbooks, mainly because I have income coming in from a variety of sources from many different ?clients? or media companies.?? Even looking at the little Quickbooks icon filled me with dread and I began to understand why some business owners use the ?shove receipts in boxes? approach.

I ignored the problem for a while and then just used a plain old Excel sheet to track income and expenses.? This approach worked okay but I had tons of different sheets going on and it was still less than ideal.? One day a few weeks ago I got fed up and worried about taxes so I searched online for easy to use, simple small business accounting systems.? I checked a handful of the recommended options out and ended up signing up for the ?free? version of Freshbooks.? I am not getting paid to write this post, although I did use a referral link. Mostly, I?ve been telling everyone in my family about this product for days, going on and on about it, so I thought why not share it for Work at Home Wednesday?

Freshbooks is a new start-up company located in Toronto.? Their website uses cloud accounting, meaning all of your accounting is stored online and if your computer dies, it?s all still online.? You can print hard copy reports once a day or week to keep in your files.? No amount of acronyms (OMG, etc.) can express how much I love this company.? It has saved me hours of time that I can spend working and getting new clients.? Here are some reasons I love it.

1. The website is so simple.? Here are the options: create an invoice, track your time, create an expense, generate a report, check off an invoice as paid.
2. Clients can pay by Paypal.? When you email them the invoice, they can print out a PDF of the invoice and/or they can click the link to your own?Freshbooks website and pay online with Paypal.? I have a client that pays via check, so I email them the invoice, they print off a PDF of the invoice and tear off the payment stub and mail it to me with the check.? Then I go into Freshbooks, select their invoice, select paid in full and have?Freshbooks send them an email saying the invoice is paid in full so they know I received payment.?? In the terms of my invoice, I include ?Please send payment via check, or via Paypal or Chase Quick Pay to the following email address: {my email} within 15 days of receiving this invoice.?
3. It took me two hours to create invoices and mark them as paid for all of the work I?ve done this year.? Now all of my accounting for the year is totally caught up (Finally)! What a relief!
4. Their iPhone app launched yesterday.? I gave it a test run last night and it is just as simple, professional, and easy to use as the website.
5. The invoices you send to clients are simple, clean, and customizable. I?m proud to email and/or print and mail these invoices to clients.
6. Adding an expense to a client is simple, you just click the ?add to client? button under expenses.
7. They have a free account if you only have a few clients, but I upgraded to the $20/month account because I have 10-12 sporadic clients and a handful of regular clients.? Every penny is worth it plus you can expense the fees (be sure to add your Freshbooks payment as a recurring expense in your Freshbooks account).
8. If I do a blog campaign and the company just sends me the money straight to my Paypal account, I just create an invoice for the money I made and click ?paid in full? that way I have a record of all income in one place.
9. I just did a research project that was paid by the hour.? I created a new project and assigned it to the client, opened the time tracker, selected the client, the project and the task and clicked ?start.?? When I finished, I clicked stop.? Then I selected generate invoice for that project, selected the project I just finished working on and Freshbook generated the invoice with the item I?d worked on, time, and rate.? I clicked send invoice and I was done!
10. It?s only me at Hoffman Writing Services, but if you have multiple people working on a project, you can add their time individually to an invoice.
11. Freshbooks can generate simple reports to show you how productive you are at different projects and how well you are managing your time.

Now if you have a larger business, you may need something with more options, but for me as a freelancer with many different clients,??Freshbooks is absolutely golden.? If you are a freelance graphic designer, photographer, or freelance writer who needs to send invoices and track expenses, give this website a try.? I am so excited about this product and would love to answer any questions you have in the comments!

Enjoy!

Source: http://www.ourmilitaryhome.com/2012/08/29/freshbooks-small-business-accounting-that-isnt-scary/

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