If you’ve ever been to a good developer conference you know how incredibly inspiring they can be. Hearing someone talk about the cool stuff they are working on can really inspire a developer. Inspired, the developer goes off and creates even more cool stuff. So the cycle continues and incredible technology becomes available to the masses.
One day we started thinking, why not bring a little bit of that inspiration to Toronto. In fact, we thought, lets have it in the middle of the week and in the evening so almost any developer could come. So TechTalksTO was born.
TechTalksTO will be an ongoing series of events in which we bring in inspiring tech people from all over to give a talk. We hope that the talks will help to bring together developers in Toronto and eventually grow to be an integral part of the Toronto tech community.
To start things off, we are flying in Jeff Lindsay from San Fransisco. Jeff Lindsay created Notify.io and was one of the first evangelists of WebHooks. He is now working over at Twilio.
Jeff is going to talk to us about WebHooks and the greater “evented web” that they unleash. There will be time before and after the talk to hang out with Jeff and your other fellow developers. There will be drinks. There may even be some snacks.
At first we were going to make this entirely free. However, with the limited space we decided to charge a minimal amount just to prevent people from taking a ticket and not showing up. I do hope you will come join us, get inspired, and continue this cycle of creating amazing stuff.
The first speaker series is happening Wednesday, September 15th at The Gladstone Hotel
Sign Up!
From looking at someone’s wallet, you can tell you a lot about that person. Do you think can guess which one is Mike McDerment’s, co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks?
I’ll give you a hint. Before starting FreshBooks, Mike ran a slightly disorganized web consultancy. He was always wondering who owed him money, how much was due to him, and did he update that invoice to paid or not. His wallet was full of checks and bank deposit receipts.
Mike managed his invoices in Microsoft Word. It was a pain to get quick snap shots of his receivables and to simply update invoices (changes, payments etc). He would have to go into his invoices folder and eventually find the information he was looking for. There was no summary or dashboard. And then the inevitable happened: one day he accidentally copied over an invoice trying reuse an existing client’s address. He lost the original invoice forever and said, “@#$%#@%# – there has to be a better way.” Thus, FreshBooks was born.
So which wallet is Mike’s? I bet you can tell now. It’s the Costanza to the left, or as Mike likes to call it, “the entrepreneur’s wallet”.
Even though he still is a bit of a scatterbrain rat pack (his words, not mine) he surrounds himself with tools and people to get the job done so he can focus on what he’s good at (not creating and sending invoices). Can you guess whom the other wallet belongs to? Bachelor number two needs to be efficient and organized to keep things on schedule and avoid any “feature creep”.
That’s right, it’s our Product Manager Casey McKinnon’s wallet. He needs to keep the product clean and efficient for you – so he keeps the rest of his life pretty simple and sleek as well.
So, what’s in your wallet?
You may also enjoy: Accepting Online Payments: the Ultimate Guide. Part one covered Why You Want to Accept Online Payment. Part two discussed How Do Payment Gateways Work and How To Choose One And in part three, So Which Payment Gateway Should I Choose?
After the series about the different payment gateways you can use with FreshBooks, you might be wondering, what are the most popular gateways amongst FreshBooks users?
Popularity by number of transactions
For one-off billing, where your clients enter their credit card every time you invoice them, PayPal standard is the most popular. Why? Because it is the easiest Payment Gateway to get setup and can be utilized anywhere in the world. We do recommend it if you are just beginning to use online payments and are not sure if your clients will regularly pay you online. Also, if you only do 1-5 transactions a month, then this gateway or it’s more featured version, PayPal Website Payments Pro, will be a good fit for you.
Authorize.net is the second one to consider. However, it is only available for US based bank accounts (you’re business can be somewhere else). If you are doing a high number of transactions month, then you’ll probably want to consider it. It is very likely there are less users using Authorize.net compared to PayPal but those that are using it, are using it a lot (more monthly transactions).
Next up is payment gateways and recurring billing.
For recurring billing, where the client’s credit card is charged automatically on a recurring basis (monthly contracts, hosting etc.), the clear winner is Authorize.net. And it’s for good reason, as they have competitive discount rates and are easy to get started with – feel free to check out our pricing deal with them (US bank account required).
Unfortunately, Authorize.net is only available in the US, so if you’re based in Canada, you’ll probably want to check out PSiGate. They are easily the most popular amongst our users in Canada.
Some caveats
With any business decision, you may not want to go with the most popular gateway. You need to consider other factors such as:
- How many transactions will you do per month?
- Do you want to do auto-billing?
- Where are you based?
To learn more, it’s highly recommended you read the second post in the Online Payments Series: How Do Payment Gateways Work and How to Choose One for specific guidelines.
While you were out enjoying the beautiful weather that summer brings, our friends were busy building some great add-ons to help you get more out of FreshBooks. Here’s a roundup of some of the latest and greatest ‘add-ons’ to the FreshBooks ecosystem, and how they can make your lives much easier.
OfficeDrop lets you attach documents to practically anything in FreshBooks; invoices, estimates, time entries and expenses. You can easily scan and upload your documents into OfficeDrop, or send them in and have them do it for you. From there, you can add a direct link to your document right in the notes of your invoice before you send it off.
Solve360 is a CRM and Project Management tool combined into one. It offers a unique approach by giving you the flexibility to display and work with the system the way you want. The integration lets you see your client’s FreshBooks invoicing history while you’re working with clients or projects in Solve360.
inDinero is a powerful financial dashboard that combines FreshBooks invoices with your bank transactions and credit card expenses to give you an overview of your business. Forecast your future cash flow at a glance with beautiful graphs of your finances.
itDuzzit is the easiest way to build on top of the FreshBooks API, no coding necessary! It also integrates with tons of other apps, and messaging systems, such as Twitter and Yammer. Build email and sms alerts that get sent out when an action, like an invoice being paid, occurs in FreshBooks.
Don’t forget that there are tons of other great add-ons in the add-ons directory. Have a look and discover how you can get more out of FreshBooks! And if you’re already using add-ons, don’t forget to leave us a review!
I’m the head of the platform at FreshBooks. Let me tell you, we spend a lot of time and energy attracting integration partners and then promoting their software to our customers. Some people have asked, “Why would any rational software company work so hard to sell other people’s software?”
Here we go again. That question reminds me of the Open API debate. Not that long ago, many software vendors did not have an Open API because they did not want to give away “their” data. I know that sounds ludicrous now we live in the future with flying cars here in 2010, but it was still such a revolutionary idea that FreshBooks and its partners launched The Small Business Web at SXSW Interactive 2009 to promote Open APIs for small business software.
Now Open APIs are the norm if you want to sell small business software on the Internet. However, not many companies understand why it’s in their best interests to strenuously promote their integration partners. Let me explain why we do this at FreshBooks.
It just comes down to simple economics. Early on we realized that a prospect who was using a single other web application for their small business was ten times cheaper to acquire. First, they were already sold on software-as-a-service the concept. Second, they were hungry to keep growing their business in the cloud. Think about it: no one wants to copy data from the cloud to their desktop and back by hand.
Simply put, people want end-to-end solutions. Our customers really, really want integrations. You might expect that such a strong desire translates to the bottom line. And you’d be right.
I hope you’re sitting down. We find that if our customers use any single integration, they are three times as likely to convert to paid.
That’s the straight up reason why we’re investing heavily in integrations. In fact, we’re hiring a development community manager if you want to come help us knock integrations out of the park.
Now, if you’re now thinking how you can get more sales out of your web app’s API, great! I have three things you can do right now.
In fact, the last point is so pressing, I’ll state it again! Please vote for our panel, “Friends with Business Benefits: How Integrations Sell Apps” at SXSW 2011. The panel deadline is Friday. (If you come to our panel, I’ll buy you a beer!)
The Small Business Web represents some of the most active companies pushing integrations right now. It’s a good place to ask questions, meet potential partners, and join co-marketing opportunities. Get going! Sales are waiting.
Notice anything new in your FreshBooks account? Hopefully you have, as we’ve rolled out some neat new features today.
Late Payment Reminders: Per Client Management
Ever wish you didn’t have to hassle your clients when they are late to pay you? You don’t have to – FreshBooks will take care of that for you! Late payment reminders are a great way to gently remind a client that they need to pay you on-time.
Trouble is, not every client wants or needs these reminders, and so today we’re pleased to announce the introduction of the ability to turn on/off late payment reminders on a per-client basis.
But “How do I conjure up this late payment reminders magic of which you speak?” you ask? First, you will need to be taking advantage of the automated late payment reminder emails, which you can turn on in your account under “Settings” on the “Emails” page. This will universally enable them for all your clients.
This is where this week’s release comes in. To turn off the late payments for a specific client, go to your “Clients” tab and click “edit” on the right beside the client you want to turn them off for. Then, click on the yellow tags below your client’s organization’s name (like invoices). You can also do this from the Invoice but it will universally change it for all the invoices related to the client (not just for the invoice).
Invoice Autobiography
Ever wondered when exactly your client viewed a particular invoice? Or what the last change you or your staff made to an invoice? You can get it all with the new Invoice Autobiography – it even has by the minute timestamps! Just go to the bottom of the invoice while viewing or previewing it (not in the edit screen).
Side note: your clients are not able to see this history, however, staff with permissions to view invoices are able to see the autobiography. Please also note, this may change in the future and your clients may be able to see a select number of historical invoice activities.
More Invoice Languages: Danish and Portuguese
Have clients that speak Danish or Portuguese? Invoices can now be translated to both of these languages. To change the language of your invoice, just click on the yellow tags below the client’s name on the “edit” invoice page. You can also make it a default for your client in the “Clients” tab by editing the specific client. The tags are clickable below the “Organization Name.”
Referral Program: Co-Branded Landing Page and More Banners
Been sharing the FreshBooks love? As of today, when someone from your network clicks on your unique referral link, they will be brought to a co-branded landing page with your company’s name and logo on it. You do not even have to lift a finger. Here’s an example with JS Design:
Last release, we made it really easy to add FreshBooks referral banners to your website. But maybe you were looking for something that would fit in a little differently into your overall design. We’ve added some more diverse banners such as this header/footer one below:
As always, to check out the banners, go to “Refer FreshBooks” under the “Home” tab in your account.
We hope you enjoy all the new features – and as always, more stuff is always coming your way!
Been sharing the FreshBooks love? There are now also new banners to help!
We love seeing people share FreshBooks. Every time we see a tweet or a banner on a website, it motivates us to make FreshBooks even better for you.
This week, we released some new banners that will help you earn 25% commission on the first year’s subscription revenue on your referrals. They are new and shiny but what’s really neat is that they also can now be easily coded into your website. They provide “Embed[ed] Code” for you which makes it super easy to have a FreshBooks banner on your website, even if you’re not an HTML coding champion. To embed this code, it is really simple (explained below).
Before we begin, here are the banners located in the “Refer FreshBooks” subtab of your “Home” tab. Note the “Embed Code” below each banner:
The “Embed Code” makes it super simple add this banner to your website. The first thing you need do is just click on “Copy” below the “Embed code” which will save it to your clipboard. If you’re a HTML wiz, then just paste it into your code based on where you want it placed on your website. If not, then you can add this to any website site or blog builder where you can embed HTML code. Here’s a quick example using Tumblr.
- Log into Tumblr.
- Click Account in the top right and then “Customize Your Blog –>”
- Click on Info
- Paste the “Embed Code” from FreshBooks into your “Description” area.
- Save
- Check out your new referral banner on your Tumblr account
That was easy wasn’t it?
Thanks for sharing FreshBooks!
Are you a designer or developer? Are you looking to sharpen up your skills or learn some new tricks?
There are a lot of great resources out there for you, but we really think the Think Vitamin Membership is worth your precious time. They have 23 tool specific online conferences each year, Q&A sessions with industry leaders, and are overflowing with content in their video training library. Don’t worry, the videos are concise, generally keeping to a length of under 8 minutes. Basically, there is a lot of opportunity to develop new skills no matter what your learning style is.
Think Vitamin Membership was created by Ryan Carson, a web entrepreneur who builds a number of useful webapps through his company Carsonified . He has been a friend of FreshBooks for a long time and we trust everything his team brings to market, usually leading-edge stuff. They also put on two of the biggest conferences of the year, the Future of Web Apps and the Future of Web Design (discounted tickets with membership). Our CEO and Co-founder, Mike McDerment, has spoken at both of these events and highly recommends the events and company.
To give you quick idea of their content library, here are a few samples of their videos (code samples included):
- UX
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Design
- jQuery
- JavaScript
- Ruby
- PHP
- Beginning HTML/CSS
Ten videos are added each week so there is always something new to learn.
To get started, they have a simple monthly subscription fee. You can cancel any time so you’ve got nothing to lose by trying it out!
This post has no financial benefit for FreshBooks – we wanted to share a great resource by some friends.
After this year’s amazing SXSW experience, we’ve ramped things up for SXSW 2011 with more panels and even bigger plans for fun in the live music capital of the world!
We’re very fortunate to have 3 panels up for voting this year and below you’ll find a brief description of each one. So if you have a second, please do us a favor, and help us vote them into super-stardom!
Panel #1: Kill Your Call Center & Bring Support Home!
Moderated by Jon Spenceley – Support Rockstar
Ever called into FreshBooks? You’ve probably talked to a member of our rock star
support team. We’re all about keeping support in-house and as human as we can possibly make it.
RackSpace calls this
Fanatical Support and we couldn’t agree more. Join us in this panel to learn more about what makes great support tick and why keeping your support close to home has benefits not just for your customers, but also your business’ growth!
Trust us – your clients will thank you!
Vote Here to Bring Your Support Home!
Panel #2: The Big Reveal
Moderated by Mike McDerment – CEO (Co-Founder)
Ever wonder how the magic that is your favorite web properties happens? More often than not, it’s because there are systems (yes systems, dashboards, and internal web apps) behind the scenes that support elf-like humans so they can care for your every online interaction. These systems are critical to the elves, but they are systems you never see – until now! Attend this panel and go behind the scenes to see how leading sites think about their businesses, and build things to support their internal teams and operations. Whether it’s systems for customer support, sales, marketing, ops, or managing feature requests, come and get sneak a peak of the potions, spells and charms that power your favourite web properties!
Vote Here to Go Behind the Scenes!
Panel #3: Friends with Business Benefits: How Integrations Sell Apps
Sunir Shah, our Chief Handshaker, has been been invited by Michelle Riggen-Ransom – Co-Founder & Communications Director of BatchBlue
The Small Business Web is now over 100 web app companies strong. Together, we’re rewriting the rules for traditional business development by building the market for small business software through integrations. So how has it not devolved into fisticuffs and mayhem? And why does integration help both the consumers and the vendors who are building the applications? Members of the Small Business Web will discuss the power of the open API, why customers buy apps that integrate, how they’re embracing their competition and why sometimes even they have to remember to “Hug It Out” as they work together to define the future of the Small Business Web.
Vote Here to Increase Sales Through Integrations!
Thanks for all the clicking. We hope to see you at
SXSW 2011!
Earlier this year we joined up with a couple other Toronto technology companies to hold the first-ever HackTO over at the Idéeplex. It was a huge success and a whole pile of really cool apps got built. For example:
Feed Me: A great app for finding new RSS feeds based your favorite feed or your Google Reader account.
what the colour?!: A cool app for finding images matching colour palettes from colourslovers.com.
Since we also had a ton of fun, we’re doing it again.
September 25th, 2010. Sign up for a day of hacking, showing off, meeting cool folks and FREE FOOD. Well, free if you pay. So not free.
Exact details are still to be determined, but we sold out quickly last time, so don’t miss out!
Being social... or being too busy to be social!
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