invoicing
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Online invoicing service WePay releases iPhone app
WePay is an online payments startup with a different mission -- allowing small businesses to send invoices and collect payments. The company has announced the availability of a free iOS app to give WePay customers the ability to invoice clients and charge their credit cards from virtually anywhere. WePay is different from other payment services such as Square and PayPal in that there's no card swiping involved -- credit card numbers are entered manually. WePay was previously targeted more at online collection and management of payments, with support for e-commerce, custom invoicing, donations and event registration and ticketing. With the new app, the company is hoping to attract businesses like contractors and designers who want to create and send professional invoices while on-site, and then accept credit card payment immediately from clients. The company charges 2.9 percent on-site + US$0.30 per transaction, and customers can accept all major credit cards.
FreshBooks releases iPad app
Do you charge by the hour for your services? If so, you may already know about FreshBooks, the cloud accounting service. In late August the company released an iPhone app for on-the-go entry of billing and accounting information; now the FreshBooks app has become iPad friendly as a universal release. The free app works just like the web version of FreshBooks, providing a way for you to get paid by clients online, attach expenses to invoices, let staff or sub-contractors log hours on your projects, see hours and timesheets, and view a dashboard with a full account overview. One of my personal favorite features is the ability to snap photos of receipts to "clip" to expenses. Being able to add those expenses and document them immediately is a very compelling feature. While the app is free, you must have an existing FreshBooks account or create one from within the app. There's a 30-day free trial available if you want to try out the service and app. It's free after that time for companies who send invoices to no more than three customers, otherwise it's US$20 per month for up to 25 customers, more for additional customers.
Billings Touch hits the App Store
We mentioned its imminent arrival a few days back, and now it's here: Billings Touch [iTunes link] hit the App Store last night (Free, $15 in-app upgrade for full functionality). It's packed with time and expense tracking features, client management, invoicing, and other necessities of the freelancer/small businessperson. It's packaged to go, too. Billings Touch syncs with the desktop version of Billings over WiFi, but one of the coolest things about it is that it's a standalone app. Without any help from its older sibling, it can handle everything a professional on-the-go would need to get paid. Track your mileage and your expenses, add clients ... then track your time (timers run even when the app is closed), add fixed-price slips, put it all together and send a professional-looking invoice right from your phone. Mark your payments received and Billings Touch will do some bookkeeping for you, and keep you posted about who's overdue and what's coming up. Billings Touch also implements the "Blueprints" functionality from the desktop version, allowing you to create presets for your work slips. Include the title of the task, the rate, etc. and making new slips can be just a quick tap of the finger, ready to start timing. That's especially important on the iPhone because time spent typing out task names on your little keyboard is rarely billable. I do wish I could add a receipt photo to my expense slips, and WebDAV sync would be killer, but this app really doesn't leave me wanting. I've beta tested it for a while now, and I can happily say that it's an amazing companion to Billings, and a complete package on its own. My opinion after trying just about everything on the market: Billings and Billings Touch make an unbeatable pair, and this is the time-tracking app to use if you want a complete, professional solution from client contact and estimate to invoice and statements. Billings Touch is a free download on the App Store, and it comes with a good amount of functionality. However, syncing and invoicing require an in-app purchase of $15US, but it's a pretty cool way to let you try out the app before you make a purchase. Billings on the desktop remains priced at a competitive $39.99US. Have a peek at the gallery for an overview of the interface and some of Billing Touch's capabilities. %Gallery-81668%
Billings 3.5 paves the way for Billings Touch
Billings, my personal favorite time-tracking, estimating and invoicing application has just updated to version 3.5. The developers, Marketcircle, are labeling it the "Trojan" release due to its mostly-under-the-hood improvements. Under the hood, but not insignificant. The major changes are related to a database engine overhaul (subtly continuing the car metaphor for your reading pleasure) and improvements to the way Billings interfaces with Address Book. Rest assured that "Trojan" refers only to the nature of the updates, not to any kind of malicious software). I'm certain that those covert improvements, while exciting for current users, probably won't be enough to stir the passions of others. The fact that Billings 3.5 is now able to sync over WiFi with your iPhone might be cause for celebration... if only we had a version of Billings on those clever devices. Fear not, Billings Touch has been submitted to the App Store and is nearing availability as you read this. As a beta tester, I can't talk about the features of Billings Touch, but I think it's all right to tell you that it's everything I'd hoped it would be when AJ first mentioned it. Billings is $39.99US, and Billings 3.5 (free upgrade for 3.0 users) will be required to sync with Billings Touch. Check out a free trial at billingsapp.com.
Resolve to keep better track of client billing in 2010 with Time Keeper!
For self-employed consultants and anyone else who charges clients by the hour for their services, keeping accurate track of the time worked on various projects is critical. Time Keeper! [$2.99, iTunes Link] from Netwalk is the newest in a genre of iPhone / iPod touch apps that serve as pocketable billing assistants. Time Keeper! works on a hierarchy of three elements: Clients, Projects (which are assigned to clients), and Times / Costs (assigned to projects). Once the application is launched, you can begin by adding a client at a particular rate. Time Keeper! allows any currency to be entered for the rate, making it easy to charge clients in their local currency. Once you've entered some of the necessary information about the main timekeeping elements, it's time to get to work! When you arrive at a client's office or being work on a project, you can launch the app, enter a title for the work you are performing, and then tap the Start button to begin an hour:minute timer. You don't need to stay in the app to continue tracking time; if your work requires you to use other iPhone apps, Time Keeper! continues to log the time in the background.
Billings 3 prices reduced until November 30th
Marketcircle, the company behind Billings (which I mentioned in some depth recently), knows that a freelancer (or small business) needs every advantage they can get to survive in this economy. Sympathetic to the plight of the individuals on "Main Street," they're offering Billings 3 for $20 off the usual price, and upgrades for $10 off until November 30th. If you'd benefit from time tracking and high-quality invoices but weren't ready to drop $59.95 to get there, see if $39.95USD sounds a little better. If you've already purchased or upgraded to Billings 3, you're not excluded from the party. Emailing a proof of purchase to Marketcircle will get you a voucher for the difference, redeemable for anything else in their store. See AJ's blog post for directions. Prices have also been reduced in the U.K., Canada, Europe and Australia with slightly modified numbers based on exchange rates. Stop by the Marketcircle store for details.
Billings 3: new features for professional time tracking and invoicing
Marketcircle just released version 3 of Billings last week, greatly expanding the functionality of the time-tracking and invoicing application. One of the major reasons I've chosen Billings in the past for my invoicing is the professional-looking documents it can create for electronic and paper delivery. Billings 3 adds new templates and new features, making it an application which any professional individual who needs to manage estimates, invoices, statements and collections should take a look at. Billings 3 started as a ground-up rework of the program's foundation, focusing on future extensibility, workflow improvements and the user interface. Billings has always had time-tracking and invoicing features, with an easy-to-use timer window, menubar timers and professional invoice templates. This version expands those areas, but it's got a bevy of entirely new features designed to make the lives of self-employed individuals, freelancers and small business owners easier. Read on for an overview of what's new.
Invoicing made easy with GrandTotal
If you own and run a small business, part of your work involves creating and sending invoices to clients. For many Mac users, invoices are created in Word, Excel, Numbers, or some other application that really isn't designed for that purpose. Media Atelier might have an answer in their new Leopard-only invoicing package for Mac, GrandTotal. GrandTotal provides a number of design tools for creating a good-looking invoice to represent your organization, and free templates are available from Meda Atelier's website. You can then set up your customers, create a catalog of goods or services, create estimates or full invoices, and send them out either immediately or on a timed basis. Invoices are marked off when paid, and the Dock icon always shows how many invoices are due or overdue. GrandTotal works hand-in-hand with Media Atelier's TimeLog 4 application, so for those of you who work on a billable hour basis can enter your time into the TimeLog app, then import into GrandTotal. A free trial is available for download (click downloads file), and the application can be purchased from within the demo for €49.What do you use to create invoices? Leave a note in the comments.
iRatchet - invoicing and billing
The billing and invoicing shareware space sure is heating up lately, what with iBiz (my personal favorite), Billable and now iRatchet from Pretty Good Software. It has a nice array of features, including the typical Address Book, iCal and Spotlight integration, as well as mileage tracking, "robust" tax support, international formatting and - a pleasant surprise - .Mac and local backup support.A demo of this Universal Binary is of course available, while a license costs $45.[via Iconfactory Links]
iBiz beta 3 available
I just noticed that my favorite freelancing app, iBiz, is now in a v3 beta phase. At first glance the most notable change is that brushed metal has been given the pink slip, but there is a veritable storm of new features under the hood, including: a Document Monitor so iBiz can keep track of project files and how much time you spend on each iCal syncing via Sync Services - goodbye to manual lifting a Billing Section for more better tracking of invoices, estimates, payments and deposits new job events to help track commute mileage, as well as 'non-billable' for the freebies AppleScript and Automator support - if they keep this up, your clients won't even need you anymore Quick Timers and an improved menu bar utility HTML templates with full-blown CSS support and a ton more. iBiz went universal a while ago, and users of previous version can upgrade to 3 for a mere $19.99, though its retail price has increased from $29.99 to $49.99 (in my opinion, from tinkering with this beta: it's still more than worth it). iBiz Server, for multi-employee and computer environments, is $89.99, which includes two client licenses.
