We have always wanted to give a big, elaborate acceptance speech and get the classical music cut-off and with your help, we may finally get the chance! Put on by GigaOm, VentureBeat and TechCrunch, The Crunchies is an award ceremony that recognizes and celebrates the most compelling startups, Internet and technology innovations of the year. The winners are chosen by folks like you, so we’re asking for your help.
Please nominate us for Best International StartUp and help spread the word! Voting closes Friday, December 4 at midnight PST.
GigaOm, VentureBeat and TechCrunch are pillars in the startup community and — despite the title of this post — winning this award means more than a trophy on our shelves; it means recognition from our peers.
Past Crunchies winners and runners-up include Evernote, Dropbox, Twitter and a bunch of other really smart companies. But, these folks are all based in the U.S. Help us prove tech happens outside Silicon Valley!
Your support throughout the years has helped us win a Webware 100 award and the PICK 20 Award and we are eternally grateful. Thank you for voting for us!
Xero makes your accounting easy like it should be.
Here at FreshBooks, we want to make your accountant happy too. The day your accountant says you need double ledger accounting and a balance sheet, we’ve got your back. That’s why we’re excited to announce that the online accounting service, Xero, has recently released their FreshBooks integration. Your accountant will never stop thanking you.
Xero is a web-based accounting application that’s loaded with all of the accounting essentials, and then some. Xero even connects to your bank account to reconcile your banking transactions.
This integration allows you to export your FreshBooks invoices into Xero to include with the rest of your financial data. The combination of FreshBooks and Xero will likely make a killer combination for many small businesses out there.
Use Relenta to communicate with your leads and then manage them as clients.
As your business grows, so will the amount of emails you receive and relationships you have to manage. Relenta is an email management and CRM application that allows you and your team to effectively communicate with your clients.
What separates Relenta from other applications is the collaborative email feature. Have a generic email address your customers use to contact your business? Using Relenta is an easy way for multiple people to manage that account.
Once you’ve created contacts in Relenta, it’s very easy to pull up a client profile and view everything from email conversations, activities and up-coming tasks.
With this FreshBooks integration, you can now import your FreshBooks clients into Relenta and view invoicing activity within a client’s profile. That way you can always stay on top of your customer transactions without having to leave the application.
If you’re a growing business that’s looking for a new way to manage your customer relations, Relenta might be the solution for you.
If you liked this, check out our other add-ons. We’re always looking for better ways to fit into your world.
There comes a time in any application’s life when it needs more than a new coat of paint to keep up with the times. New technologies make new things possible, and help you grow and save money at the same time. Over the years, FreshBooks has been consistently updated with newer and better technology under the hood, but the time has come for something a little more radical than small-scale refactorings can manage.
We started building the business in 2003 with a PHP application, written in the dark days before web frameworks were in widespread use. Much of the sort of functionality that modern developers take for granted in their frameworks we had to build from scratch, like access control, session management, and database connectivity. Over the years we’ve steadily improved and updated that code, to bring it into line with modern practices, but there’s a law of diminishing returns at work here.
Any successful application eventually reaches a point where it’s more costly to continue refactoring the existing platform than it is to make a switch to an entirely new platform. Early in 2009 the technology team at FreshBooks agreed that the current platform was reaching that point, and that a new platform should be chosen and prepared for a migration.
This was not an easy agreement to reach. FreshBooks’ technical team is a team of peers, so there was never just one voice that could lay down the law and decide for everyone. Many possibilities were explored in months of discussion, review and testing, but in the end the team came together around a specific set of technologies that everyone agreed would serve the business best.
We’ve got a bunch of stories coming out of this process — it’s a huge part of the evolution of FreshBooks, and so it’s fitting that the new technology has been named “Evolve” by the developers. Evolve is already in production, although there’s no way to tell from the application, and there’s a lot of work still to be done. Our developers will be talking more and more about this new technology, however. There’s lots to tell here, but we wanted to kick things off with a general announcement. Most of the technical details will be emerging on our developer blog, but we’ll have plenty to talk about here. Stay tuned!
And don’t forget, FreshBooks is hiring developers and designers! If you’re looking to help create the future for our technology, send in your resume — or send in a friend’s. We offer a $1500 bounty for folks who direct us to a new hire. Don’t miss out!
For those who don’t know, every new hire at FreshBooks starts in Support. At least two full months in fact. Frankly there’s no better way to learn our customers and our product then to be on the front lines. The really cool thing is that when their Support training is completed they officially become a Support Rockstar and we hold a crazy graduation ceremony. We do this for each individual person. And it is always a total surprise for the person.
On Tuesday, Tim Lee, our latest Support Rockstar graduated Super Mario style (he’s a big Mario fan). We surprised Tim by turning the entire FreshBooks HQ into the first stage of Super Mario Bros. We made him go through the entire “level” as Mario. It was ridiculously awesome! Watch the video.
A short while ago we announced we’d be bringing our How to Build a Web App Business workshop to Boston, Vancouver and Chicago in the coming months. Many of you have been asking about dates, times and places and we’re really excited to let you know our itinerary is in place!
Our Chicago workshop will be on Tuesday, December 08 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at MacHero HQ (1307 W. Hollywood Ave.). Seating is limited to 40 people and the cost is $100 per person. 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:MacHero HQ (1307 W. Hollywood Ave., Chicago, IL) When: Tuesday, December 08, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. How much: $100 per person Register here!
Big thanks to Gino from MacHero for sharing his offices for the day!
Leave a comment or drop me a note at rayanne [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! Tell us where we should go next!
A short while ago we announced we’d be bringing our How to Build a Web App Business workshop to Boston, Vancouver and Chicago in the coming months. Many of you have been asking about dates, times and places and we’re really excited to let you know our itinerary is in place!
Second stop stop is Vancouver on Wednesday, November 25 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Earl’s Yaletown. Seating is limited to 40 people and the cost is $100 per person. Lunch and refreshments 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:Earl’s Yaletown (1095 Mainland St. — Upstairs in the Private Dining Room, Vancouver, B.C.) When: Wednesday, November 25, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. How much: $100 per person Register here!
Special thanks to the folks at Bootup Entrepreneurial Society for helping us organize this event and making it run smoothly!
Leave a comment or drop me a note at rayanne [at] freshbooks.com if you have any questions you want Mike to address.
And if you want us to take the workshop to your town, vote here! Maybe we’ll be seeing you soon.
Here at FreshBooks, we’re always looking for awesome ways to provide the best customer service we can. So, we’re trying something new: In-Person Support!
Yup! FreshBooks’ own Support Rockstars will be on-site in downtown Toronto at the Dark Horse Cafe on Wednesday, November 11th 2009 to answer any questions you have about FreshBooks, provide support or just to chat.
The Details:
Where? Dark Horse Espresso Bar, 215 Spadina Ave.
When? Wednesday, November 11, 2009.
When exactly? 4 P.M. – 8 P.M.
Who? YOU (and us!)
Process leads and online orders collected from your Wufoo form with FreshBooks’ invoices!
We all do business on the Web. Your customers are there and so you want to be there, but we aren’t all web designers or developers. That’s why you need easy tools to turn your prospects on the Web into leads and orders for your business.
Wufoo is a beautiful Web application helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. All you need is a browser, an Internet connection and a few minutes to build a form and start using it right away.
And now, you can quickly and easily create Wufoo forms to collect online orders and leads directly into FreshBooks. Set prices in your Wufoo form and generate invoices immediately in FreshBooks.
Talk about making something seemingly impossible, easy. With Wufoo, you’re only clicks away from doing more business on the Web.
If you liked this, check out our other add-ons. We’re always looking for better ways to fit into your world.
FreshBooks is an online invoicing, time tracking and expense management service that helps people save time, get paid faster, look professional and focus on what they love to do - their work.
We have always wanted to give a big, elaborate acceptance speech and get the classical music cut-off and with your help, we may finally get the chance! Put on by GigaOm, VentureBeat and TechCrunch, The Crunchies is an award ceremony that recognizes and celebrates the most compelling startups, Internet and technology innovations of the year. The winners are chosen by folks like you, so we’re asking for your help.
users collect enough money to buy all 
