Freshbooks is one of the most popular cloud accounting tools small and medium business owners use. The platform has many useful tools that eliminate manual guesswork and provides many automation tools that help you manage a business.
When it comes to many accounting tools, using them can be difficult due to the multitude of options. But with Freshbooks, the UI is brilliantly designed so anyone can understand and use it.
So in this review, we’ll cover all aspects of Freshbooks, how it works, its features, and an alternative so you can choose the best tools in general.
Freshbooks Review
FreshBooks is an online invoicing, accounting, and income calculation tool that saves you a lot of time, automates most of the admin work, and keeps the books organized so the business can look professional while staying efficient. While it is also technically a time-tracking tool, the functions are pretty limited.
Hence, we have also covered the perfect solution to Freshbooks that you can use and track your audience’s time. But that’s at the end of this blog. Back to Freshbooks, if you’re looking for one of the most efficient ways to track time while leaning towards more accounting, invoicing, and payroll functions, then Freshbooks is the perfect tool.
It has many features related to billing, accounting & taxation, client communication, team management, and more. So, let’s talk about some of them.
Billing and Payment Features
Regarding billing and payment, Freshbooks provides invoicing, payments, and time-tracking features. You can create professional-looking invoices in seconds using their official invoice generator. The generator helps you create and customize invoices, so you must add your logo and personalize them according to your business. It just shows your client that they’re dealing with someone professional.
The platform also accepts credit cards related to VISA, Mastercard, American Express, and Apple Pay. Hence, payments are seamless and faster. One thing that I love about Freshbooks is that no hidden fees are involved. So they won’t be charged extra when you bill the clients.
Lastly, with time-tracking features, you can see each employee’s and project’s progress. While the time-tracking features aren’t advanced, you still get all the necessary tools to keep your team on track.
Here are all the features regarding billing and payments that Freshbooks offer:
- Accepts Mastercard, VISA, American Express, and Apple Pay.
- No hidden fees are involved.
- Supports basic time-tracking features with billable hours.
- It allows you to put your accounting department on auto-pilot.
Accounting & Taxes Features
Accounting features are Freshbooks’ forte. Many advanced options include balance sheets, trial balances, general ledgers, accounts payable, charts of accounts, and more. Managing books is simple using advanced accounting. But what I loved about the software is how customizable everything is.
In minutes, you can customize your expense categories and charts of accounts to stay on top of the day-to-day finances. The import-export feature is useful, and the automatic mobile receipt scanning is another unique tool in this software.
You can scan and save paper and digital receipts for better data management. A lot of businesses lose their receipts which makes internet management harder. However, the scan & go feature in Freshbooks Time avoids that fully. Client billing is as easy as clicking a button. The software can easily market an expense and billable, add a markup, and then put those expenses on the invoice for a client.
It’s a useful feature, especially for freelancers and businesses with physical products. Lastly, the reports features allow you to see how well your business performs. These reports allow you to see whether you’re going into profit or loss, if any adjustments are needed, or finding any leaking buckets.
However, the most useful reporting feature is the insightful dashboards and reports. Freshbooks also provides ready-made financial reports that you can pick and choose, skipping the math headaches.
- User-friendly dashboards and reports.
- Ready-made financial reports.
- Get data from various metrics and create accounting reports.
Communication Options
Freshbooks incorporates project management and team collaboration tools in one software. They aim for you to spend less time communicating using different apps and collaborating using their software. Team members, stakeholders, and the management team can collaborate easily to bring awesome results.
But the collaboration doesn’t end there, as Freshbooks also allows you to share attachments in the app. Hence, you’ll have a centralized place for storing all the important files and attachments. Aside from regular communication, a proposal tool helps you create beautiful-looking proposals, saving time and generating more professional proposals.
You can also check the proposal status on whether or not the client has viewed it. Lastly, Freshbooks allow you to stay connected with the clients for better management. You can also use the client info to grow your business and make a long-term connection.
- Communicate effectively with team members,
- Attach files and important attachments without using email.
Integrations
One of the best features of Freshbooks is that there’s a full App Store built-in. With the software, you can use hundreds of apps, like Indeed, Acuity Scheduling, Toggl, and more, to connect to Freshbooks and have a whole ecosystem of working applications.
The benefit of using these integrations is not wasting time switching between window to application and application to application. Rather, everything is built in Freshbooks, allowing you to leverage hundreds of apps without worrying about the chaos that comes with it.
Support Options
Being a subsidiary of Hubstaff, Freshbooks has some of the best support options. Their support page has tons of categories regarding various aspects of the software. So, if you’re confused about something in particular, the articles and tutorials will allow you to troubleshoot and know how to fix it easily.
Moreover, you also have a chatbot built right into the website. You can ask the virtual assistant anything, and it will automatically respond to you.
Pricing
- Lite: $8.50 per user per month
- Plus: $15.00 per user per month
- Premium: $27.50 per user per month
- Let’s Talk: For bigger and personalized features.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Elite accounting and expense management tools.
- Great control over invoices and clients.
- Advanced communication options.
- The App Store has hundreds of applications.
- Simple and straightforward to use.
- Allows you to send quotes, invoices, and track expenses in one easy format.
Cons
- No support call number is available.
- Overwhelming options can be confusing sometimes.
Review – User Rating
Time Analytics as Another Option
As the name suggests, Time Analytics is a time and productivity tracking tool that aims to provide businesses with an effortless and stress-free experience. We understand that running a business is challenging because of how much management goes into it.
Moreover, with the hybrid and remote teams trend, tracking hours and team progress without a time tracker is virtually impossible. That’s where Time Analytics comes in. It provides various benefits like a simple and easy-to-use time tracking tool, online timesheets, easy client billing, and reporting options.
Time Analytics is a great competitor to Freshbooks regarding their time tracking tools. While Freshbook is not a dedicated time tracker, Time Analytics fixes the leaks. It has helped businesses cut their admin work by 25% and achieve a positive ROI of 20%. So if you’re looking for a tool that’s easy to use and still provides all the necessary features to run an organization, then Time Analytics is an ideal time tracker.
Team Management Features
Team management is one of the most important tasks for managers and a business. Whether you’re a freelancer or a company looking to make the most out of its workforce, having team management features like Time Analytics will allow you to find many improvements.
For example, you might find a leaking bucket that has been giving you a loss or find an employee who’s not working optimally. By understanding the problem, you can get to the solution and talk to your team about what improvements are there to be made.
With Time Analytics, you need not worry about more time-tracking headaches since you’re getting everything in one place. You can track time and get insightful reports to make important decisions.
On the flip side, the software also has a calendar that you can use to see who’s working on what. The management of a team is why a company is so successful. Time Analytics allows you to plan all weekly tasks on one screen, view the total hours at a glance, and allows you to edit or duplicate the timers manually.
- Manage your teams’ activities, and set labor, overhead, and billing rates.
- Get daily or weekly calendar views.
- Track time with one click and get insightful reporting and analytics.
Invoicing and Billing
Invoicing and billing are one of the most tedious tasks management goes through. Moreover, when the teams are all remote, it’s harder to calculate rates, make invoices, and bill accurately. That’s where Time Analytics’ invoicing and billing feature comes in.
The time-tracking tool for Time Analytics goes hand in hand with the invoicing and billing features. The software automatically calculates hours to be billed so you can create transparent invoices and presentations.
Now, Freshbooks has much more advanced billing and invoicing options, but Time Analytics provides all the necessary ones to be present in a time tracking tool. What I love about Time Analytics is its integration with Microsoft Excel. You can export the invoices to Excel and make any final adjustments.
- Make transparent invoices and presentations.
- Integrates with Excel seamlessly.
- Billable time tracking.
Online Timesheets
Time Analytics’ online timesheets help businesses get insights from employees’ data. There’s a lot of information related to projects, clients, work tasks, time off, notes, and more. Moreover, managing timesheets is even easier since the possibilities are endless. You can touch base with any customization features you like.
For example, the software allows you to edit, filter, remove, or add a note. Moreover, you can also review the team’s activities and notes to see if you missed anything. Lastly, the best part about using Time Analytics is that you can edit your team’s timesheets as needed. So, it’s not fully automated because it provides customizability and manual editing.
And what’s interesting is that you can export these timesheets to PDF or Excel for better data analytics and management.
- Customize timesheets to add manual data.
- Get advanced insights to make important decisions.
- Export timesheets to PDF for Excel.
Support Options
- Email support: support@timeanalyticssoftware.com
- Phone support: +381607033040
Pricing
- Starter: $4.99 per user per month
- Optimum: $6.99 per user per month
Pros and Cons of Time Analytics
Pros
- Simple user-experience.
- Gain smart insights and make important decisions.
- Comes in an affordable price range.
- Gives a 14-day no-credit card trial.
- Great customer support.
Cons
- Free version is not available
- It can be difficult to remember the time on and off.
Freshbooks vs. Time Analytics
Both Freshbooks and Time Analytics excel at their expertise. Freshbook is an accounting tool focusing on billing, creating invoices, managing teams, and tracking time. However, the time tracking features are quite limited, and that’s where Time Analytics comes in.
With Time Analytics, you can track your team’s time and generate billable hours, directly charging the clients. Moreover, Time Analytics also offers a cleaner Ui faster experience, and all that package comes at a reasonable price.
On the flip side, Freshbooks is great for any company looking to optimize its billings, accounts, and bookkeeping. The software excels in anything related to accounting, and since its affiliation with Hubstaff, it has many features.
All in all, both tools are great for their use cases. Time Analytics is great if you’re looking for a simple time tracker with great reporting options. However, Freshbooks is ideal if you’re looking for software that does everything related to accounting.
Getting Started with Time Analytics
We understand the frustration of not being able to track time properly. That’s why Time Analytics provides a minimal UI and time-tracking tool that will automate most of your admin work.
Time Analytics also comes with a 14-day no-credit card trial, so if you want to try it out, you can start using the software today. You get many features, including a unique time-tracker, online timesheets, time and project reporting, team management, and client billing features.
Start Tracking with Time Analytics today!
Saad Ali
Saad started his Content Writing journey in 2019 on Fiverr, where he catered to over 100 businesses in different niches like SaaS, Crypto, Meta, Gaming, Entertainment, and more.
