Now, create and log into FreshBooks accounts from within Google Apps.
We’re pretty excited to be one of the first applications to be listed in the new Google Apps Marketplace, which Google announced last night. The new marketplace will give the 2 million small business customers using Google Apps today an easy way to access some very high quality third party applications.
FreshBooks is honoured to be one of the initial applications Google selected to launch with. And we’re also quite pleased that we’re joined by several of our great integrations partners and fellow members of The Small Business Web, namely
It’s great that Google has taken this next step forward in our market. Google Apps has certainly done a lot of heavy lifting to build the market by providing usable, accessible, and affordable online business tools in the Cloud that are used by millions. Moreover, they have been a leading supporter of the Open Web, helping such protocols as OpenID and OAuth come to fruition. These protocols are building the foundation of a richer, more deeply connected market of web applications.
As small businesses need to expand their business by moving online, they are looking for online tools to help them. And because businesses relying on these tools to manage their work flows, they want their tools to work smoothly together. The Google Apps Marketplace is a great step forward in not only helping millions of businesses find new online tools, but also in connecting these tools together. FreshBooks is happy to have been part of the Google Apps Marketplace from the beginning and to be supporting it strongly into the future.
Update: I should have been clearer that, right now, the marketplace only works when creating new FreshBooks accounts.
Changing existing accounts to use Google Apps for logging in is a more involved problem. As it’s early days for the Google Apps Marketplace right now, we are waiting to see how the marketplace operates to see if there are any glitches before exposing our existing customers to any risks. We wouldn’t want to inadvertently lock our own customers out of their own accounts – as we are dealing with the cashflow of businesses we are naturally inclined to be conservative. We’ll keep you updated on this integration as it evolves.
A big thanks to everyone for all the great feedback from our last release where we introduced the concept of invoice headings that showed hours/rate vs item/unit cost. We’ve taken it all in and are now ready to deliver “round 2” of the release and we think you’ll be pleased. Here’s the run down:
Drop-Down “Task” Column
You’ll be happy to see that we have added a “Task” column to the time-based invoice heading template. The “Task” column works just like the “Item” column, allowing you to pull-in tasks, and to create and save new tasks on the fly. This should save you a lot of time.
Also, when generating an invoice from a project, the Task column will now auto-populate with the appropriate tasks.
Finally, if you had been associating time-based activities, like “consulting”, with Items, you’ll probably want to create those activities now as Tasks.
“Tasks Invoiced” Report
To accompany the new “Task” column we’ve introduced a new “Tasks Invoiced” report. It is identical to your “Item Sales” report and helps you break down your revenues by Task – pretty handy!
Item/Expenses on Bottom of Invoice
If you are showing time entries and Item entries we have now defaulted the Item entries to the bottom of the invoice. This way, if you are showing time entries and expenses the expenses will appear at the bottom of your invoice, not the top.
P&L Report – Select your Start Date
This is unrelated to the invoice headings but a neat little addition to the P&L report. You can now specify a specific ending date for your P&L – ideal if your fiscal year is not Jan-Dec.
So that about sums it up. We’re pretty happy with the updates; hope you are too! Always keep the suggestions coming.
Your FreshBooks account will be unavailable for approximately 10 minutes at 9:00 am Eastern (2:00pm UTC) on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 while we update the FreshBooks service (hey… that’s good news!).
We will be posting updates to our Twitter account as well as at status.freshbooks.com throughout the scheduled period. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and thank you for your understanding.
If you’ve ever talked to the team here at FreshBooks, you know we’re a happy and energetic bunch. A lot of this comes from the simple fact that we really enjoy what we do for a living. What’s great about working with freelancers, small business owners and entrepreneurs every day is that they share the same love for their work that we do. Running a business takes a ton of work, so you probably wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t love it!
Back in February, we whipped up a little contest for Valentine’s to share some of this inspiring passion, passing the love around using Twitter. After all, Valentine’s day is about sharing the love, and in this case, the love for our work. We asked people to use Twitter to tell us why they love what they do for a chance to win some nice little Valentine’s Day prizes, given out randomly over the course of the day. Some of the responses were just so awesome, we wanted to share a few of them with all of you.
Our favorites included:
- I love being a freelance designer because I can pick up and move to Hawaii
- I love my gig because I get to do what I love to do every day
- I love my gig because I get to work at home doing what I love, designing websites and writing, while watching my son grow
- I love my gig because my morning “commute” takes 15 seconds… except when there’s traffic (kids’ toys in the way)
- I love my gig today because I could win a prize because I love my gig
It was a fun contest for all of us, and we hope that our winners are enjoying their prizes. If you missed out, stay tuned as we’re always looking for an excuse to celebrate and give away more cool stuff!
ExpenseBay downloads your credit-card transactions on a nightly basis and stores your receipts.
As a small business, you probably have a lot of expenses. When it comes time to recording these expenses, we feel your pain. That’s why we’re pleased to announce integration with ExpenseBay, an expense manager that helps you keep track of your expenses with ease. Download transactions from over 4000 types of credit and debit cards nightly, enter cash expenses on the go from your iPhone, and have your expense reports generated automatically.
With the ExpenseBay integration, you can import expenses into your FreshBooks account. Which means expenses go straight from your credit-card statement, into ExpenseBay, and over to FreshBooks. Attached a receipt in ExpenseBay? A link to the image will show-up in the notes of the expense in FreshBooks. When you’re done, send your new expenses into an invoice, and off to your clients.
It’s a great fit for those of you looking for a better way to manage your expenses. Use the promo-code “EBP89027”, when signing up for ExpenseBay, to receive a free 30-day trial.
A note for our international friends, ExpenseBay is a service primarily for North American businesses. We’ll keep you posted if we hear about any international support in the future.
If you liked this post, check out our add-ons page, and learn how you can get more out of FreshBooks!
Just a heads up to let everyone know that the FreshBooks office will be closed at 3:00PM EST today as everyone is striking the bowling alley for our Fresh Bowl Madness. We will be polishing our bowling techniques so that we have a chance to shine! As John has demonstrated in the above photo taken at our last Fresh Bowl Madness — Even if you broke your dominant arm, you still have to come bowling.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to leave us a voice mail (1-866-303-6061) or an email at support @ freshbooks.com. We’ll make sure to return your inquiries as soon as possible on Thursday morning.
Until then, remember: If you don’t knock a lot of pins down, at least strike a pretty pose!
We compared different invoice terms to see what impact they had on likelihood and time to get paid.
Recently, we looked at our data to see if we could extract some insights that might really help FreshBooks customers get paid faster. Our question: how does the wording of the “terms” section of an invoice impact the number of days it takes you to get paid and the percent of invoices you actually collect on.
In the graph above we’ve mapped two key things gleaned from the data of our paying FreshBooks users. In the bar graph, we’ve looked at how long it takes to get paid based on various wordings used in the Terms field on an invoice (e.g. “Please pay within 21 days” or “Payment terms: net 30. Interest accrued at 1.5% per month thereafter”). On this chart of days to pay vs. terms used, the shorter the bar, the better.
The second thing we’ve charted is the percentage of invoices actually paid vs. terms used (the data points in the top section of the graph). On this scale, higher is better. Another way of thinking about this is: the wider the gap between the bar and the data point above it, the better the wording (in general, although there are a handful of exceptions).
Be Polite
The first thing we noticed in the data is that being polite really matters! A simple “please pay your invoice within” or “thank you for your business” can increase the percentage of invoices that are paid by more than 5 per cent! That could easily equate to thousands of dollars per year. Not only that, but politeness clearly gets you paid faster.
21 Days to Pay
The second thing that jumps out at us is that using the word “days” as opposed to “net” gets you paid more often and faster. While the words “net 30” or similar may make sense to most business owners, perhaps that kind of wording is not as clear to less business-savvy clients.
Another point we found interesting here is that most people seem to interpret “upon receipt” as “whenever you feel like it”. It’s as if they receive an invoice with the words “payable upon receipt” and immediately dump it into the “whenever” pile. Using specific terms such as “21 days” seems to focus the client’s mind around a specific timeframe and will actually get you paid faster than asking for immediate payment.
Interest On Late Payments
The final thing we learned from this chart is that threatening your clients with interest on late payments does two things. It gets you paid slower, but it also seems to ensure a higher percentage of invoices will get paid. Perhaps when your clients see an interest rate it gives them a mental excuse to prioritize other debt payments like credit cards versus your invoice, but at the end of the day they don’t want to push it too far, so they end up paying. In their minds there is always a chance that you won’t apply the extra 1.5% if they are “only” a month late.
So what does this exercise tell us about the optimum payment terms for your business?
We think it’s worth taking a close look at your invoice terms and perhaps changing them to something like one of these two options:
“Thank you; we really appreciate your business. Please send payment within 21 days of receiving this invoice.”
It’s polite, and includes the magical “21 days” formula.
Or, if you run a slim-margin shop where every dime counts, but cash flow isn’t an issue:
“Thank you for your business. We do expect payment within 21 days, so please process this invoice within that time. There will be a 1.5% interest charge per month on late invoices.”
Review the payment terms you’re using on your invoices (you can change the terms and set default terms when editing any invoice). Play around with the wording based on our findings here and let us know if it makes a difference.
Of course, with all this said, we know that still the very best thing you can do to get paid more often and faster is delight your customers with a quality product every time. That, plus decent manners can make all the difference.
FreshBooks and its friends at The Small Business Web are throwing a massive party this year at SXSW. There will be food, drinks, and a bunch of fun. Come meet some of your favourite web application vendors and hundreds of other small businesses just like you.
Details
4-7pm Saturday, March 13
The Pure Volume House at 504 Trinity St, Austin, TX.
You must sign up here for the party. Austin law requires us to have a guest list.
About The Small Business Web
The Small Business Web helps small businesses get the most from the Internet by encouraging their favourite web applications to integrate. FreshBooks was one of the 5 founding members of the Small Business Web last year at SXSW and a year later it stands at over 70 companies.
We now have six How to Build a Web App Business workshops under our belt and we’re showing no signs of slowing down! We’re holding this four-hour workshop filled to the brim with the A to Zs of building a web app business as part of the ruckus we’re causing at SXSW this year.
Our Austin workshop will be on Thursday, March 11 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Texas Coworking (200 E. 6th Street, 3rd Floor). Seating is limited to 40 people and the cost is $100 per person. Lunch, coffee and other delicious beverages will be provided. Register now!
Mike will address many of the questions you have as entrepreneurs through topics such as:
Building – your web app, your company, your team
Marketing – with and without dollars
Product management – so you know what’s right to build
Metrics – to track your progress
Financing – the who, what, when, where, why and how 5Ws of fund raising
There’s a guaranteed a spot for anyone travelling such great distances to get the goods.
Once again, the details (in short form) are:
What: How to Build a Web App Business workshop lead by FreshBooks’ CEO Mike McDerment
Where: Texas Coworking (200 E. 6th Street, 3rd Floor, Austin, TX)
When: Thursday, March 11, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
How much: $100 per person
Register here!
Big thanks to the folks from Texas Coworking for hosting us!
Leave a comment or drop Grace a note at grace [at] freshbooks.com if you have any questions you want Mike to address.
It’s not too late if you want us to take the workshop to your town. Vote here and tell us where we should go next!
We are pleased to announce that you can now create invoices with headings that show “Hours/Rate” in addition to, or in replacement of, “Unit Cost/Qty”. We know this will come as a welcome addition to those customers who felt that the item-based orientation never quite matched the nature of their business. Let’s look at how you can take advantage of this new functionality:
Adding a Time Entry Group On The Fly
When you go to your invoice, estimate or recurring profile creation page, you will see your typical invoice headings, but you will also see a new “Add Line” button.
Clicking on the “Add Line” button will reveal the ability to add a new item or a new time entry. In this case you want to create a time entry section, so select “Add Time Entry” and, voilà, you now have a time entry section on your invoice, complete with the new and appropriate headings. Input your time entries, and you’re good.
You can now add lines to either section of the invoice in typical fashion by clicking on the ‘+’ icon beside each row, or you can now also use the “Add Line” button.
If you’ve decided that you don’t need one of the sections after all, clicking the ‘X’ next to the column headings will remove the section entirely.
Time Sheets
Adding entries from time sheets? No problem. A new time entry section will be created automatically if one does not already exist.
Default Settings
We’ve also made it easy to always start with your desired headings. In the settings of your account, under the “Misc” tab, you can choose to always start with “Items”, “Time” or Both “Items” and “Time”:
Templates
The clean and classic templates have been revamped to intelligently display these new line groups and headings. It’s also smart enough to know not to show a group if there are no items or entries in that group.
So There You Have It!
We hope you like the new flexibility and intelligence of the new invoice headings. As always, feedback is appreciated and encouraged!
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