First Impressions of Fresh Books

Published: June 22, 2015, 6:49 a.m.

I have been using    (http://try.hrv.st/3-60715) for tracking my time. Then in another Excel spreadsheet I track things like affiliate sales, books sales and other ventures that I have going on. I thought storing the Excel Spreadsheet on Microsoft One Drive would make it easier, and it did. But report meant pivot tables, and all sort of stuff. It wasn't hard, but I felt like I was painting with peanut butter. The price of    (https://schoolofpodcasting.freshbooks.com/refer/www) if you want to have unlimited clients $29.  This is more than Harvest, but then again it does more than Harvest. I can track time with Freshbooks just like I did with Harvest. First Impressions It took next to no time to setup my company, my preferences, etc. It integrates with Paypal and Stripe (you can use them as a processor if you'd like 2.9% + .30). You can customize the colors, emails that are sent, set up taxes, and track all your expenses. There is also an app which makes it super cool. Harvest has an app, but for me I would get notified that an old domain renewed and I would have to login to onedrive, find my file, now I just open the app and add it. You can track pricing by the employee, by the job, by the skill. The best part if they have tons of little help bubbles to walk you through (http://weeklywebtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/freshbooks_pricing.png) Not As Pretty, But Not As Ugly Harvest invoices look better, but that doesn't mean Freshbooks Invoices are ugly. There are little things that I'm still searching for like how to adjust my signature in my emails. Support is Good I received an email from someone assigned to my account. I emailed her two days later and I thought it was cool that she was out of the office for a few days, and another employee jumped into make sure I got a speedy answer. My question was what about digital sales (I sell a spreadsheet for Companies looking to  hold their own Biggest Loser contest (https://gumroad.com/l/blxls) ). I have affiliate sales. These are already invoiced or don't need an invoice. Their support explained how I can set up a dummy customer for "Affiliate Sales" create an invoice, and save it as a draft and then mark it paid. This way I can track my income. Expenses Made Easy When I looked at their free app, I was super pleased by its simple design that's going to make tracking expenses a snap. I can also track time if I'm doing consulting on the road. Everything feeds back to the cloud so it stays accurate. Features I Won't Use But are Cool There is a ticket support system so if someone has a problem with their bill, they can open a ticket. I use Rhino Support for my ticketing system. You can use a document system, this would be like your own private Google Docs or OneDrive. You can have administrators and staff each with different rights to different areas. What's Missing? I think the software will work for me. They have videos to show you how to track time, and create invoices, but that's about it. Their help system seems extensive, but I guess I was looking for more videos. They do offer beginner level webinars at many different times to match your schedule. Here is a Freshboooks Video Overview http://intelliplayer.com/watch/25b29tffu (http://intelliplayer.com/watch/25b29tffu)