freshbooks is really well excuted online invoicing, expense and time tracking software. As a hosted solution it has proved itself over time by consistently improving without becoming over burdened with features and extras you don't need. The creators have intelligently decided two things from my observations. The first is that they have build a solid API that allows others to write plugins. This means they only need to provide a good solid foundation and others can create need specific application add-ons. The second thing is they have listened to their users and reacted accordingly which has improved usability no end.

Many of you know I have spent time profiling a host of different online finance and accounting packages for use with your business or personal companies including kashflow. I don't believe that freshbooks is an online accounting system, nor is it trying to be. It is trying to solve the problem of having a lot of clients, with a lot of projects, and a lot of invoicing, expenses and billing to do with many different staff or freelancers. Preparing attractive invoices and sending these online as emails or snailmail is fast, efficient and really easy. When people pay you it is nice to see the system automatically update also.

So by way of giving you a quick tour here is an independent view on Freshbooks.

Interface:
Don't worry, you get to choose your colours. This just happens to suit my corporate colours.

Recent Activity:

A quick snapshot of who has done what and quick access to create a new invoice. Usability is a high concern for freshbooks which is refreshing. You can see a quick snapshot of your cashflow this month with what is outstanding, what is paid and what has been billed.

Clients:

This page lists your existing clients and again offer a quick add 'new client' button to get on with it...adding Clients that is. You get a snapshot of the contact and when they last accessed freshbooks. Remember your clients can login to view their invoices with you. Don't worry though, they don't see all the good stuff, only the public facing information they need like their invoices and and how to pay.

Team:

If you have a team working for you then this is where you manage them. You could have Eric in France, Mike in Canada and Billy the Cat on the desk next to you. All these staff and contractors or freelancers can login and record time and activity done against jobs. Then all you need to do is click 'Invoice' and you can send an invoice based on the collective hours accumulated against the project. Each staff member can be given access to specific tasks or all projects. You can also enter in a billing rate per staff member. So Eric in France might be billed out at $100 an hour and Mike might be invoiced out at $75 per hour.

Invoices:

The first cool thing that freshbooks did that noone else did was to integrate snail mail. That is you can prepare an invoice to be sent via mail but you won't have to lick a stamp or go to the post office.

Freshbooks do it for you (well, a computer does). Invoices shows you the amounts you have invoiced and who has paid, part paid or even if it has just been viewed by the customer. You - "Have you seen the invoice." Customer - "No." You - "Yeah right buddy, there goes your Christmas card and invite to our party."

From the Invoice screen you can also select the invoice by number and view it. You can then also resend it, print it or enter a manual payment against it. One of the best features of this is that you can also set recurring or repeat billing. So if you are hosting someones website or they are paying you monthly this is perfect.

Estimates:

Estimates are quotes for projects that can then be converted to Invoices.

Expenses:

If you incur expenses on projects you can assign them to Projects and Clients. When you invoice a client you have the option to attach or include any unbilled expenses that are entered in against the Client record. Or they can be converted to an invoice independantly of an Invoice.

Timesheet:

Timesheet / Time Tracking is cool and there are widgets you can download to even more easily track your time without needing to open your browser. From the timesheet page you and your staff can manually enter in hours accrued against a project. There is also a timer built into this page which you can start and stop to track time spent on a project or task. This is assigned directly to the project.

Reports:

There are a huge number of reports you can pull from freshbooks. Accounts aging, Profit and Loss, Invoice sales, Tax summary, expenses, timesheets by staff and a lot more. Plenty to see there and not a lot I can add.

Who would freshbooks suit?

Small to Medium Business
Single person design, webdesigner, software developers or similar with clients
People needing to bill or invoice based on hourly time units
Travellers who need an online, secure access to their billing and time tracking software
Teams that are geographically challenged (they don't work in the same office)

What is freshbooks missing?

Multi-currency support. You can use Freshbooks in any currency but if you need to bill in multiple currencies it doesn't do it yet. I understand Freskbooks are planning on offering this support.

Who integrates with freshbooks?

Basecamp. This allows you to import projects from Basecamp using the freshbooks API. I love this as you can import project todos and then assign hours worked against them.

Others include Salesforce, typepad, formspring, shopify, zencart, billflo, xpenser, clarityaccounting, outright. More on the freshbooks website.

Any extras in freshbooks?

There is a cool Mac OS X widget that you can download. This allows you to start and stop timing work on a project from your dashboard. This is also a great way to keep on top of you time billing.

Benefits to an online hosted billing system like freshbooks?

No software required
No upgrades as these are done by the service provider (in this case freshbooks)
Access from any internet connected computer
Give others easy access as required
Have staff and freelance workers log time worked on projects from anywhere in the world
Mac, PC and Linux users can all access the same system. Operating system independant

If you are interested in a free trial of freshbooks then you can get it here.