There are many good, web-based tools for freelancers to create and send invoices and track payments. Some are streamlined apps that simply get the job done and others incorporate a more full list of features such as time tracking, contact management, online payments and more. Many will let you customize the invoices and admin area to match your branding, which is important for designers.
For myself, I recently switched from being a long-time Quickbooks user to Freshbooks. I love how I can easily brand the system and invoices and how it integrates with so many third party apps.
I wanted to share several different invoicing tools for you to consider—as everyone’s needs and preferences are different.
In the end, the best tool for you is the one that you feel the most comfortable with using! Fortunately, most include either a trial period or a limited free version that you can use and then upgrade if you wish.
If you use any of these, please comment below about why you chose that particular tool. I know there are many not included here, of course, so feel free to comment on what application you use and why you like it as well!
1. Freshbooks
Freshbooks allows you to send, track and collect payments quickly. It’s great for teams, freelancers and service providers. You can brand the system and invoices with your logo and colors. Freshbooks can track expenses and allow you to re-bill clients on project expenses. Integrates with many third party apps. Accept online payments and even send snail mail invoices with a return envelope for the client’s convenience.
Free plan available (manage up to 3 clients)
Pricing: From $19 per month for 25 clients
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2. Blinksale
Blinksale makes sending invoices and tracking payments simple. Send elegantly formatted invoices. Customize invoices with your own CSS. Even import clients from Basecamp.
30 day free trial
Pricing: From $6 per month for 6 invoices/mo.
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3. FreeAgent
Invoice your clients and track your expenses, and FreeAgent works out your accounts and what you owe the tax man. Track the time you spend on projects and generate flexible timesheet reports. Send professional, branded estimates and track their progress as they’re sent, approved and converted to invoices. Import electronic bank statements into FreeAgent’s online banking features.
30 day free trial
Pricing: $20 per month or pre-pay 12 months for the price of $10/mo.
http://www.freeagentcentral.com
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4. Less Accounting
Save time and frustration with Less Accounting. Create proposals and easily change them into invoices. Quickly view who owes you money in the dashboard. Track expenses with nightly bank data aggregation. Import your Quickbooks company file. Integrates with many third party apps. Invite your CPA, accountant or bookeeper to access and download your account.
Free plan available (limited use of invoices, expenses and accounting reports)
Pricing Plans: From $12 per month
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5. The Invoice Machine
Simplify your invoicing with a beautiful and simple-to-use interface and professional looking invoices. Track your time with the built-in billing timer. Automatically send out thank you and reminder emails. See which invoices have been sent, paid or are due.
Free plan available (3 invoices)
Pricing Plans: From $12 per month for 30 invoices/mo.
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6. Freelance Total
Freelance Total takes care of your clients, projects, time, invoices and sales so you can focus on doing work. Quickly get an overview of your clients and see what leads, projects and invoices are associated with each. Manage their contact information and make notes a client. Supports International currency and taxes and allows you to set tasks and reminders. Manage projects, track time and record expenses.
Free plan available (1 client) and a 30 day free trial on all plans
Pricing Plans: From $4.95 per month for up to 10 clients
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7. Ronin
Simple online invoicing and time tracking for creative teams and solo freelancers. Manage clients, projects, invoices and estimates. Supports multiple currencies, recurring invoices and online payment.
Free plan available (2 clients)
Pricing Plans: From $15 per month for up to 30 clients
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8. Invoice Journal
Invoice your clients for free. Send an unlimited number of invoices to an unlimited number of clients at no cost. Browse, sort and search all of your invoices quickly. Add custom taxes, fees and discounts to each item or globally. Send invoices in multiple currencies under the same account.
Cost: Free
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9. Billings
Billings is a Mac OS X invoicing tool that generates professional looking invoices with your logo and contact details. Choose from 30 included templates. Track time and expenses using the convenient menu bar timer. Keep up with who owes you and send statements to your overdue clients. Set up recurring invoices.
Cost: $39.99 for 1 user ($25 for an upgrade from previous version)
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10. Zoho Invoices
Create, send and manage invoices, quotes and customer payments online. Supports multiple currencies. Track invoices, send reminders, accept payments online and acknowledge receipts.
Free plan available (5 invoices/estimates)
Pricing Plans: From $8 per month for up to 25 invoices per mo.
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11. Cashboard
Time tracking, invoicing, estimates and online payments done your way. Integrates with Basecamp. Fully customize Cashboard’s appearance with your own branding. Set up recurring invoices and accept deposits for work up front and easily apply the credit to your invoices.
Free plan available (1 client, 2 active projects) and 15 day free trial
Pricing Plans: From $10 per month plus a 25¢ per client invoiced per month (1 included for free)
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12. Ballpark
Ballpark centralizes communication with your team and clients into an easy use system that simplifies the process for everyone. Collaboratively send invoices and estimates, keep track of current and future projects and receive online payments.
Free plan available (3 estimates, 1 invoice) and Free 30 day trial
Pricing Plans: From $12 per month for 10 estimates and 5 invoices per mo.
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13. Xero
Xero is an online accounting system that gives you and your advisors easy access to your bank transactions, invoices, reports anytime and anywhere. It supports multiple currencies and automatic bank feeds for easy reconciliation.
Free 30 day trial and a free demo version
Pricing: $29 per month or pre-pay for 12 months and save $59
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14. CurdBee
A versatile invoicing tool that allows for your own branding, overdue reminders, thank you emails, online payments, SSL, taxes, discounts, multiple currencies and multiple contacts per client. There are some additional add-on modules available as well.
Standard version is free
Pricing: $5 per month for Pro version
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15. Billing Boss
Billing Boss is a free online invoicing tool designed to easily create, send and track the status of invoices. You can even invite your accountant to share your data. Accept online payments and quickly see how much you’ve billed out, what is paid and which invoices are overdue.
Cost: Free
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16. Intervals
Intervals is a web-based project management tool that streamlines time tracking, task management and invoicing. Upload files you need to manage your projects and tasks and quickly retrieve and share them. Customize the branding and tailor it to your business processes and workflow.
Free plan available (1 project) and free 30-day trial
Pricing: From $20 per month for up to 15 active projects
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17. CannyBill
Easily create, send and manage invoices and accept payments online. Automate invoice and late payment reminders. Sell subscriptions, products or services using web-based order forms. Even allows you to sell domain names, SSL certificates and web hosting from within your account.
Free plan available (up to 5 active clients, 10 monthly invoices)
Pricing: From $16.27 per month for up to 25 clients
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18. Net2Invoice
Track time, invoices, payments, estimates, contracts and clients with Net2Invoice.
60 day free trial
Pricing: From $6 per month for up to 15 clients
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19. Harvest
Track time, log expenses, invoice clients, keep track of accounts receivables and revenue with Harvest. Set yourself or your team up in just a few minues and instantly start tracking time and expenses. See your company’s resources in a visual, intuitive way with Harvest’s graphical reports. See how your business is distributing its time across clients, projects, people and tasks.
Free plan available (2 clients, 4 projects) and 30 day free trial
Pricing: From $12 per month for the Solo plan
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20. Citrus
Create professional looking quotes and invoices online. Reduce the time to get paid by automating late payment reminder emails. Track time against different projects and generate invoices from timesheets and projects. Customize to match your brand.
Free plan available (to to 3 customers)
Pricing: From $7.50 per month for up to 100 customers
I like CurdBee…is very simple to use and it works for me as a freelance designer.
While these are some great tools it’s important for a freelancer to know the difference between an INVOICING only program and a full blown hand to my account type software. Invoicing can only get you so far, tracking your expenses is one of the most important things you need to do as a freelancer. Also making sure your accounting software jives with your accountant would be a good thing also!
Hi Neil,
You should also check Fanurio
Fanurio is a desktop application designed to help freelancers manage their work and be paid for it. With Fanurio you can customize invoice templates using your own layouts and export them to HTML or PDF. It also has idle time detection and it can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux.
@Elena
Thanks for your comment. I hear a lot of good things about CurdBee and it looks like a good system.
@Patrick
Good point. I use Clarity Accounting which integrates easily with FreshBooks. It has the full accounting features and reports I need. Outright is another one that works with FreshBooks and the best part is it’s free!
@JayM
Thanks for including. I hadn’t heard of that one but looks pretty nice!
Hi Niel,
Thank you for having included our application http://www.cannybill.com.
Our app is slightly unique as it also lets you create web based order forms:
http://www.cannybill.com/demos.html
This brings up many posibilities as you can start selling domain names, SSLs and web hosting packages:
http://www.cannybill.com/tour_plugins.html
Thanks again,
Wladimir
Hey Neil, great list, thanks for listing us.
I don’t understand how almost none of these companies support merchant account integration? We are talking about online apps for billings, invoicing and client management and none of them support an easy way to integrate and automate online payments from clients. I don’t get it. It seems like a no brainer.
We have started using Ofuz (http://ofuz.com) to do both invoicing and work tracking. It is in beta now but it seems like it can achieve the dream of a full life-cycle contact management system for the freelancer. We can use it to contact and track prospects, assign tasks, track time, and turn it into invoices.
It does support payment through Paypal, which can be nice.
it looks like they are going to turn it loose as open source eventually, as well. So @Nightlion, you can go ahead and write up any sort of automated payment you need.