Hi everyone! I stumbled (quite literally, whilst using the StumbleUpon toolbar) upon a freelancer's invoicing tool earlier today. I've been pointed in the direction of one of these before but it wasn't free and I didn't want to invest in something I don't know a lot about. The one I found today IS free [LINK] and it seems pretty decent, but you only get 3 free invoices per month. Luckily this works out okay for my main client but I'm a bit reluctant to pay $12 per month to get more. This one creates .PDF files which is quite appealing but I'm not sure if it's completely necessary. Basically what I'm wondering is whether any of you use invoicing tools, or whether you stick to creating them in an office document? Lucy
PayPal just came out with an invoicing tool as well. It doesn't generate PDF, but it will send an e-mail and track whether the invoice is paid. That's actually fairly professional, especially if you already use PayPal anyway.
I've been using Paypal's invoices for the last year or two (they didn't "just come out with it"), and they're more than adequate when people want to pay online. For anyone paying another way, I use a basic .doc invoice. No real need for anything fancier than that.
I agree with everyone above. I tried a few free trials of various invoicing tools and found that PayPal is good enough for me since most of my payments go through PayPal anyway. It lets you save a number of templates, so it really helps to save time. You can also send a reminder if the payment is late, and PayPal also sends the customer a receipt when they make payment with an invoice. MS Word is almost as easy if you don't have hundreds of invoices to send each month.
I believe it's only for business accounts, but I suppose it's possible that premier users can also access it. Someone with that kind of account can verify whether or not that's the case. A while ago freelanceswitch actually covered a bunch of these tools - may want to look at the list they've put together here - http://freelanceswitch.com/money/7-online-invoicing-apps-for-freelancers/
I was using the PayPal tool but it only works in Microsoft email clients. That's really frustrating for me as I'm using a Linux operating system and much prefer Mozilla's Thunderbird client for emailing. I wish PayPal would develop a universal PayPal payment wizard tool but the chances of that are very slim! I think for now I'll stick to invoices in documents and eventually I'll integrate the $12 per month into my outgoings. I'm sure that would count as a non-taxable expense too!
Give a try at freshbooks.com, you got a free account with 3 clients I think it is unlimited invoices. It is really professional.
Microsoft Accounting is free. That is what I use and it works really great. Downloads trans info from Paypal, but doesn't from Google. That's the only drawback.
I didn't realise Microsoft Accounting could download the transactions from PayPal. That sounds pretty useful, may have to check it out.
Yes, you can use PayPal invoicing with a Premier account. I have not used it myself, but was looking for such a solution, and did a double check (as I have a Premier account), and it clearly states you need a Premier or Business account. Most of my sales are final sales with no recurring payment needs, so i have no checked into it extensively, but as I get into more hourly billable content creation services, this will be at the top of my "investigate further" list.
It works really great for me. I do custom php programming as well as a few other sites where I sell information based on a question/ answer type system. This helps me get everything ready for my accountant during tax season as well as stay on top of the amount of money that I am earning and paying out. The very best part of it is that Microsoft allows this software to be used for free.