Updated: Basecamp/FreshBooks Integration
One of the very first integrations we did at FreshBooks was with 37Signals’ web based project collaboration tool Basecamp – it’s an amazing service for anyone who wants to do project management with your clients and team. Today we are pleased to announce that we have made a series of improvements to the integration, and courtesy of our friends at 37Signals, we have a discount to offer you if you want to purchase a Basecamp account.
What’s changed?
Mostly we’ve tightened the integration. Previously, if you were tracking time on a project in Basecamp, and invoiced that project multiple times in FreshBooks, you had to remember which hours you had already billed (filtering by date, or memory skills). Now we remember which hours you’ve invoiced and offer links to the past invoices when you re-import the project. So if you add hours after the fact, they won’t get lost in the shuffle. This is a series of little things, that when you put them together, is a big deal.
We’ve also made other improvements that make configuring your integration with Basecamp smoother. To learn more about Basecamp and our integration, check out our adds on page or visit the Basecamp website.
Basecamp Coupon Code
The good folks at 37Signals have provided us with a Basecamp coupon that will give you a 25% discount on of your first month’s fee . The coupon code is FRESHBC. It expires Sept 30th, so hop to it!
As a historical side note, FreshBooks first integrated with Basecamp back in March 2007. That’s like 1000 years ago in Internet time. If you don’t believe me, just watch the screen cast we made way back then and look at how much our interface has change.
helps invoice enough money to buy a 
10:01 am
I think it would be a good idea to be able to duplicate invoices and estimates with the ability to send them off to customers at one time…Just a thought!
12:11 am
[...] recently turned 8 which is about 4000 in internet years (its true, freshbooks claims 2007 was 1000 years ago). Its pretty neat that so many corporate users are relying on a web browser that is actually an [...]
8:27 pm
I’m glad you guys are improving this, as I consider this to be your weakest point. I still don’t completely understand the two options. I’ve tried to get it for over an year now… my basecamp projects still show as a complete mess inside fresh books… I wish this integration was intuitive, but it’ not. not for me at least
11:44 am
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1:36 pm
I have just begun using this but there are a lot of kinks in it. For example even though I select a certain time frame for importing the tasks it ignores that and imports all of them. Additionally if I don’t put the task description in the time tracking description box- it won’t show up in Freshbooks which means I have to enter the task in basecamp twice??? Sort of repetitive. It also doesn’t add the task list name- well it does sort of but in a separate section of the invoice which just creates more work because I have to delete all those line entries…hoping this will get better.
3:56 pm
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for your feedback on the Basecamp integration. I wasn’t able to replicate the date range issue you mentioned, but if you could send our support team an email we would be happy to look into it.
As for importing the task name for Basecamp time entries, I agree that this would be a great feature, but I’m not sure if it’s possible to automatically tie your time entries to a specific to-do. Basecamp does have to-do lists, which are somewhat like tasks in FreshBooks, but these are not associated with the actual time entries entered into Basecamp.
Great feedback though, and if you have any thoughts on how we could adress the task issue please do contact support and let us know.
Thanks,
Peter