What’s next for the FreshBooks Report Card service?
Moments ago we released FreshBooks Report Cards Service. I wanted to take a moment and talk about where this service is heading.
The Report Cards service is a new FreshBooks offering and it will evolve over time. Gradually FreshBooks will be releasing features that help the businesses within our community connect so that the best performers can share insight and advice with other businesses. There will also be a historical component to the service so that businesses can measure their progress over time and continuously improve their results and improve their businesses. This is all part of our on-going goal of ensuring that FreshBooks adds value and effectively pays for itself. We believe that when you succeed, we succeed. We believe that you deserve products and services better than you have available to you today, possibly better than you have ever imagined, and we believe that it’s our responsibility to imagine those services for you and with you, then bring them to life.
In many ways the FreshBooks Report Card service is a groundbreaking service that delivers valuable data to small businesses. We are unlocking data that they need and that they could not previously find. After all, where does a web designer from England go to find out how their business stacks up against other English web designers? Now, thanks to FreshBooks countless under-served professions like computer technicians, PR firms, pool cleaners, residential and corporate alarm monitoring companies and design studio can access that information without having to spend thousands of dollars on a report from Forrester or Hoovers, and the quality of the data itself will be better thanks to the fact that it is source data. And the entire service is delivered automatically without taking any time, effort or money from small business owners who are already too busy being the true engine of almost every economy on the planet.
We want to thank all the FreshBooks businesses that have chosen to participate in our Report Cards service and we hope you will help spread the word about FreshBooks so that we can deliver ever improving data to your quarter from now until far, far, far into the future.
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9:05 am
[...] What is next for the FreshBooks Report Card Service? To learn more about where this service is heading, please read this post. [...]
8:16 pm
We believe that when you succeed, you succeed.
you have a typo on the what´s next for report cards paragraph
9:03 pm
we actually put that in there on purpose…Levi liked it
I’ll edit it now though because I know what you mean.
Cheers,
- Mike
1:24 pm
Again, my critizism here: That’s not why you got me as a customer in the first place. I want to invoice my customers and found a good service for just that. Now I know that I am not among the top third of your customers when my invoices don’t average sevenhundred thirty something dollars per piece. So what? It’s irrelevant information to me. Please continue to improve the tools that further the service I signed up for and am willing to pay for. You are doing a great job but have been carried away a little bit in my opinion.
1:30 pm
Rest assured we’re working on the tool pinpoint. We have been for four years and there is no end in sight…only a quickening of the pace.
Estimates, Account Balances, the API and some other popular requests are already underway – hang in there.
9:46 am
Will we be able to review each quarter or will this be a charged service.
10:56 am
Not totally sure I am following you Richard, but I can tell you there will be a historical component so that you can track your progress over time.
12:13 am
You guys should stop working on feature [a] because the only reason I signed up was because of feature [b] and I want to see you focusing on making feature [b] better, irregardless of any other considerations around expanding your customer base into users that think feature [a] is cool.
Got that?
8:44 am
@ Leif – werd
I’ll tell you what though, it’s part “art” part “science” deciding what goes in next – you need a mix of features, improved usability and cool stuff. We try very hard to get the balance right over the long run and your support is very much appreciated.
Thanks,
- Mike
2:06 pm
[...] years, we will develop groundbreaking ways to deliver value to service based businesses – like our report card service. That is just a glimpse of where we will be taking [...]
3:30 am
“Hello!
Our company develop the synchronization between FreshBooks and MS Outlook. GrabSync FreshBooks plugin makes it easy to import and invoice your clients and customers from MS Outlook without having to re-enter their data into FreshBooks.
I hope that it would be useful for you.
To learn more, please follow the link: http://www.grabsync.com/freshbooks/
or you can Email me personally: venera@grabsync.com
Thank you
“
11:08 am
It’s a nice little whiz-bang. I would like to see ti expand more in the direction of direct client feedback. Follow-up satisfaction surveys seem like a natural item for inclusion in your report card.
11:08 am
It’s a nice little whiz-bang. I would like to see it expand more in the direction of direct client feedback. Follow-up satisfaction surveys seem like a natural item for inclusion in your report card.
4:40 pm
I love your service! My wish with the report card feature is that I can select more than one “profession”. I do many different services – print design, web design, user interface design for software and usability, marketing for small businesses, etc. I at the very least have TWO primary professions, which would be as a visual designer (print promotions mostly) and a web designer, and historically they do not necessarily command the same hourly rates (in the industry.) Choosing one profession only, for a report card, means I can’t gain understanding of at least half of what I do, if I understand how it works correctly.
Are you able to view other industry report cards? I haven’t been able to see anything yet because I’m a new user and need to pass a fiscal quarter.
Thanks!
Kristi
7:10 pm
I cannot emphasize how much your service has streamlined my business. Please keep the report card going, it’s an excellent benchmark and greatly appreciated. Multiple categories would be nice now that I read Kristi’s remark.
Perhaps I’m reading my report card incorrectly but it appears that having a large client base hurts some of my stats since they’re based on relative percentages.
Your product is excellent as well as your willingness to constantly accept feedback and ideas (I’m not nearly as brave with my customers but I’m considering adopting more of your style).
I wish all my technology partners worked out so well! I’ve referred many folks to the service, can’t believe how they don’t just jump for joy.
Peace,
Susan
7:55 pm
Susan, I’m glad to hear it. If you’d like, get in touch at support[at]freshbooks.com, or give us a call at 1-866-303-6061, and we’d love to hear more of your story.
Glad to hear you’re a fan of our style, too—casual professionalism. It’s the new wave, I suppose.
5:49 pm
[...] few months later, the Small Business Report Card service will launch tomorrow at the Web 2.0 Expo as well as online. The service will be free to all [...]
4:48 am
I’m a great fan of the report card too! I don’t believe you guys at Freshbooks have taken your eye off the ball in developing a non-core feature to the product. As long as the core invoicing functionality is performing as I expect I’m delighted to use the added value report card. I run a Web Design agency in England and this is a great place to benchmark against other companies alike. For the first time I can really see how my businesses is stacking up, I suppose it will really come into it’s own when there’s a large volume of the same type of businesses in the same geographic region – and I can see a true picture of widescale stats. I’m guessing that my figures look so good at the mo due to only a handful of other users in the same field using the report card. Keep us the good work guys, Freshbooks is a really inspired web product!
12:35 pm
Being a small business owner, one of the biggest challenges is trying to figure out how much to charge and to really gauge your value in the world… The report card feature is a great first step into opening up a wealth of information about a business without having to do all of the leg work and stealth recon that you normally have to do to make sure you’re competitive and fair but also profitable.
I really hope to see the report card feature become more useful (realtime graphing?? plz!!!) with maybe some drill downs about different types of individual services or areas of the country… basically a google analytics for biz – great great tool guys.
Keep up the great work… Freshbooks has made getting paid so much easier… now we can just make cool apps and not worry about the power being turned off.
7:03 pm
The most useful tool I find in the report card is how much of my business was recurring (existing) and how much was from brand new clients. I love that little percentage. It tells me about growth. That part is cool.
I’d love to see a report card generated at the end of each month. Then be able to see “graphs” over the course of the year. That would be awesome. Then a final end year report average. Keep up the good work!
James
9:49 am
So, one year later what does the future (near or distant) look like for the report card?
5:22 pm
That’s a great question Erik….we have some thoughts. anything you’d like to see.
1:11 pm
Thanks for asking Mike (I think that was a question). What about making these “averages” browsable by industry? Limiting services to one industry can be a bit inaccurate to many businesses. Either way – I’d love to see where the FB team takes this.
Thanks!
1:20 pm
Thanks for getting back to me Eric. Not sure you were aware, but we do share the results from selected industries here:
http://www.freshbooks.com/reportcards/all-industries.php
9:17 pm
That’s fantastic. I didn’t know that. Thanks for letting me know.
7:43 am
This is really very good website where we know various types of information.
8:54 am
I think this is a great service to offer your Freshbooks customers. It is intuitive and helpful. My numbers are similiar to the industry average, so things are going well!
1:48 am
I have to say, that I find this feature an absolute gem! I can see this being expanded in so many ways.
I’d like to see it move from it’s rather hidden bottom of the page area to maybe reports. It would be good to see where my peers are coming from? Is it in UK (where I’m from), and how many people am I benchmarked against?
I’m a new business so have a bit of catching up to do billing-wise, and I know this because of this feature, so thanks!