MP092 - Ditch the Spreadsheets! Automated Invoicing Heaven for Solopreneurs
Introduction to Revolutionizing Your Invoicing Process
Are you tired of the endless cycle of creating, sending, and tracking invoices manually? In today's episode, we'll dive into how you can revolutionize your invoicing process, saving you time and stress. Stay tuned as by the end of this episode, not only will you discover a game changer in managing your invoices, but I'll also share my personal favorite tool that transformed my own business.
I'll unpack all of this after the intro.
Hello. Hello and welcome to episode 92 of the Macpreneur Podcast. Whether it is your first time or you're a longtime listener, I appreciate that you carve out some time in your business solopreneur schedule. I created Macpreneur to help as many solopreneurs as possible save time and money running their businesses on their Macs.
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The Pain Points of Manual Invoicing
Okay, so let's face it, creating and managing invoices can be a real drag.
Many solopreneurs start with spreadsheets or even a simple word processor, but as their business grows, so does the complexity of managing invoices.
It's easy to lose track of which invoices are due and which payments have been received.
There is no built-in system for chasing late payments, which can be awkward and time-consuming. Spreadsheets are prone to errors, and manually updating them takes away valuable time that you could be spending on client work.
The Game Changer: Web-Based Invoicing Services
The good news is there's a much better way: web-based invoicing services are a game-changer for busy solopreneurs like you.
These online tools help you automate the entire process, saving you tons of time and frustration.
Here are the main benefits of these systems.
Number one: It gives you a streamlined workflow, no more juggling spreadsheets or chasing down information. Everything is centralized and accessible from anywhere.
Second, automatic reminders. Say goodbye to late payments. You can set up automated reminders to nudge forgetful clients politely but firmly.
Number three: multiple currencies. If you're working with international clients like I do, no problem. Many invoicing services can handle multiple currencies.
And finally, they also offer online payments by integrating with services like Stripe or PayPal. This means that you can get paid directly from the invoice, saving you even more time.
Exploring Popular Invoicing Services
So here are a few reputable invoicing services.
Let's start with FreshBooks, my personal favorite and the one that I use. It was founded around 2003 by a design agency owner in Canada who accidentally overwrote an old Excel invoice when preparing a new one.
And so, FreshBooks started by offering the ability to create and manage professional-looking invoices, but then it expanded to become a full-featured accounting software. FreshBooks has now more than 500 employees with offices all around the world.
Okay, next up, FreeAgent is headquartered in Scotland and has been around since 2007. It's obviously very well positioned in the UK market while catering to folks in the US and internationally too. Back in 2018, FreeAgent was acquired by the NatWest Bank to fuel its growth and expansion.
Next, the international giant QuickBooks Online that is owned by Intuit, a company headquartered in California, and that generated around 4.3 billion, with a B, dollars of revenue in 2023. This staggering number is explained by the fact that Intuit also owns TurboTax, Mint.com, which is a web-based personal finance service. It also owns ProConnect, Credit Karma, and an email marketing service that you might know and use, MailChimp.
And last but not least, Zoho Invoice. It's a totally free service with some limitations. First, it allows sending a maximum number of 500 invoices per year. Second, you can only manage up to three different projects. And third, it does not support multiple currencies, so the currency that you set up when you create your Zoho invoice account will be the currency for all the invoices that you can do with this tool.
Zoho, the company, was founded in the 1990s in Chennai, India, and now it offers a complete suite of applications that go way beyond invoicing. I briefly touched upon Zoho in episode 83, which was all about customer relationship management software.
And, um, on top of that, Zoho offers a lot of modules, different kinds of modules, for email marketing, customer support ticketing, as well as tools that are equivalent to those that are available with Google Workspace, for instance.
Deep Dive into FreshBooks: Features and Benefits
Okay, so now let's dive a little deeper into FreshBooks since I have plenty of experience with it.
First, it offers three pre-made professional-looking templates. The first one is called Simple. It has space for the logo in the top left corner and the address in the top right corner. The second one is called Modern. It has a colored background at the very top, where you can then put your company name and the company address. It's not possible to have your logo on that template. And then the third template, which is called Classic. This one has the address in the top left corner and the logo in the top right corner.
For each of them, we can choose the font type and the font color, and the chosen template is not only used for invoices but also for estimates and proposals too.
And talking about those, so the estimates and the proposals, it's very easy to turn them into invoices in a single click.
And something else that I like a lot is that you can define default payment terms, which is great when I create a brand new invoice from scratch because this removes the need even for a text replacement snippet.
Next up, FreshBooks can prepare invoices in multiple languages and multiple currencies.
Both are defined at the client level, which is super convenient because I serve clients who speak French and others who speak English.
Most of the invoices that I send are in Europe, but I've started to send invoices also in British Pound or in US dollars.
And it's also possible to configure whether FreshBooks automatically attaches a PDF copy of the invoice to the email that is sent directly from the web portal.
This option can be activated either when editing a client or when editing any invoice for that client.
Next, you can configure online payments so that your clients can pay directly from the electronic invoice.
And FreshBooks supports four online payment processors, obviously the two most well-known, so Stripe and PayPal, but folks in the UK can also configure Barclaycard, and if you're in the US or Canada, you can also choose WePay.
And after sending the invoice, you can configure up to three automatic email reminders, and you can choose how many days before or after the due date you want them sent.
Not only can you customize the subject line and body of each email with dynamic information like the invoice number, the amount due, but you can do so independently for all the languages. So in my case, English and French.
And on top of that, there's a mobile application available for iPhone and iPad, which is great to manage invoices on the go. However, beware that at the time of recording, so April 2024, mobile devices must be running at least iOS 14 to install the mobile application.
And I've kept for the end the most important feature when it comes to streamlining how I run my business, which is automation.
The main reason I chose and now I stick with FreshBooks is very simple: it integrates very well with Zapier, which is my favorite online automation service.
Two practical examples to show you how it saves me a ton of time. First one. Every time that in Podio, which is my CRM, a prospect is marked as a qualified lead, then it's the trigger for Zapier to automatically create a new client in FreshBooks, pulling all the information it has in Podio, so it takes the name, the address, the email, and even the VAT number of the client if I've put that in Podio.
And so that means no need to manually create a new client, then copy each field separately. 95 percent of the work has been done for me by Zapier, and the only thing I need to do is check the language and the currency and manually change those parameters if I need to.
And then the second example, so every sale that I put in Podio has the invoice number as its title.
So whenever a client pays the invoice online, or when I mark the invoice as paid in FreshBooks because they paid by bank transfer, for instance, then Zapier automatically marks the sale in Podio as paid and it updates the date that the invoice was paid based on the actual day.
So from all the online services that I use, FreshBooks offers the most number of triggers and actions in Zapier, more than 70 combined, which is to me, automation heaven.
And on top of that, FreshBooks can pull external payments made on Etsy or with Square or via Stripe, and it integrates directly with other services like Squarespace, Dropbox, Gmail, Acuity Scheduling, DocuSend, and many more.
In other words, FreshBooks is simply the most automation-friendly invoicing and accounting software for solopreneurs out there.
And if you're still managing your invoices manually using spreadsheets or Word documents, I wholeheartedly recommend you to consider FreshBooks. It has different plans, and the one that I have is called Premium. You will need this plan if you want to customize the email templates and if you need to manage more than 50 clients. You can try FreshBooks for free for 30 days using my referral link, macpreneur.com/freshbooks in one word, enter your email address or sign up with your Apple ID or your Google account. No credit card required.
And if you end up becoming a FreshBooks customer after using my referral link, I will get a small commission at no cost to you. It's like a virtual high five for recommending stuff that I love and that I use.
So thanks in advance for supporting me and the Macpreneur podcast. Once again, visit macpreneur.com/freshbooks and start your 30-day free trial today.
Security Measures for Online Invoicing
Before concluding this episode, there's one more thing I'd like to mention, and it's the security aspect.
Regardless of the online invoicing service that you're using, make sure that they properly encrypt the data on their servers. And number 2, that their IT infrastructure implements proper physical security as well. In the case of FreshBooks, the security measures that they implement are very well documented on their website, and they even have a responsible disclosure policy.
And more importantly, they offer a bug bounty program to incentivize security researchers to look for and responsibly disclose any vulnerabilities that they might find and earn money doing so.
Now, the third aspect is the user account login security. And here, I must say that I've been a bit disappointed by FreshBooks until recently. The reason is simple, FreshBooks didn't offer native multifactor authentication protection. So since the beginning, I've been using a very long and random login password to prevent brute force attacks. Now it doesn't bother me because I'm using a password manager anyway, but it was not optimal. And the good news is that starting from April 15th, 2024, FreshBooks will now send an authentication code by email every time that I log into FreshBooks, which will increase the security of my account.
Of course, it also means that the security of the email account is now more important than ever, and I will cover this topic in more detail in season five of the podcast.
Recap
So, to recap, we have explored different ways that web-based invoicing services can help us, solopreneurs, save a ton of time and get paid much faster along the way.
First, it's easier to manage than a bunch of spreadsheets or Word documents.
Second, most of them integrate with online payment services, allowing clients to pay directly from the invoice.
Third, email reminders can be sent automatically, reducing the risk of not getting paid.
And finally, the best services are automation-friendly, helping us streamline our workflows even further, either directly or through a third-party service like Zapier.
If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a fellow solopreneur and tag me on Instagram. My handle is @MacpreneurFM.
Jumpstart Your Streamlining Efforts
And if you're ready to streamline your solo business but don't know where to start, sign up for my 360-degree tech diagnostic service. After filling out a comprehensive assessment form, we'll have a Zoom call during which I will give you my top three recommendations, including tools and services to consider.
After the call, you will receive a summary report with the points we discussed and all the necessary links. And if you decide to work with me one-on-one after that, I will deduct the diagnostic fees from the first coaching pack that you purchase.
To learn more about this, just visit macpreneur.com/diagnostic or click the link in the show notes.
Outro
So that's it for today.
In the next episode, I will tackle the other side of the invoicing coin: how to efficiently deal with the constant flow of electronic invoices that our suppliers send us by email.
So make sure to subscribe or follow this podcast to get it automatically next week.
And until next time, I'm Damien Schreurs, wishing you a great day.
