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New release: Multi-lingual invoicing, French and Spanish invoices and estimates

by Ben Coe  |  March 23/2010  |  , , ,

Bonjour bons amis! Earlier in the year, we introduced multi-currency invoicing into FreshBooks. With this release we’ve cooked up a new dish for our customers with an appetite for international billing – multi-language invoices and estimates.

You can now choose to have your invoices and estimates appear in Spanish and French.  Pretty sweet!  More languages will follow of course, and check out the Wufoo form we’ve created so you can tell us the languages you’d like supported.

Language and Currency Tags

When incorporating the new multi-lingual capability we also took the opportunity to both clean up and enhance the usability around multi-currency.  Now, when you select a client from the pull down menu two tags will be displayed which indicate the language and the currency of that invoice for that client.

tags2

Need to change the language or currency?  No worries, click on either tag and witness the new advanced settings widget. Select the language and/or currency, click done, and ba-da-bing it’s now saved for that client.

language-pop2

When you select a different language all of the headings on the invoice itself are translated.

headings

Help us introduce more languages

As mentioned, we’ve launched with Spanish and French invoices, and we’ll add more languages based on demand.  Want to help us choose the next language?  Translate the FreshBooks invoice template into your language and your translation (or something close to it) may make it into a future release.  Thanks in advance!


 

43 Comments (add comment)

Mar 23/10
11:11 am
Simon says:

I can see how to edit the English emails, but how do I edit the content of the Spanish email that is sent out?

Mar 23/10
12:09 pm
Delia says:

Excellent feature! I can also see how this would be great for user-defined “tax applicable” tags, so certain taxes would be applied to the client’s invoice automatically. Maybe one day in the future…? :)

Mar 23/10
12:10 pm

Vous venez de faire un client très heureux!

I’ve been asking for this feature for a while now and here it comes! Thanks a lot, you made my day!

Mar 23/10
12:46 pm
Ben Coe says:

Hello Simon. At this time we are translating the contents of invoices, not the emails that go out. When creating and sending a new invoice, however, you can enter a message in another language if you wish.

I will definitely note this as a feature request :)

Mar 23/10
1:21 pm

[...] New release: Multi-lingual invoicing, French and Spanish invoices and estimates [...]

Mar 23/10
1:39 pm
Simon says:

Hi Ben Coe,

If you look at my account (stipladynet) you will see I have combined Spanish/English emails that are sent out.

Simon

Mar 23/10
3:43 pm
TradiArt says:

Bravo! Thank you very much fo this amazing feature!! Keep the good work!! :-)

Mar 23/10
5:31 pm
Mathias says:

Great stuff! I just completed your wufoo form and translated the app into norwegian.

Mar 23/10
5:32 pm

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by BusinessApps: New release: Multi-lingual invoicing, French and Spanish invoices http://bit.ly/axsZgz #erp #smallbusiness…

Mar 23/10
8:12 pm
Rob Hall says:

1. Can we have some reports for Estimates?
2. Can you change the layout of the PDF invoice to show the tax per line item rather than as a total. If there are different tax rates per line it is very confusing to read the PDF (since it totals all the VAT)

I would really appreciate some movement on functionality like this. Can we vote on the features we would like to see next?

I’ve helped you guys by testing several features in the past and helping solve the odd bug with some of me testing. I’d really love to get some more advanced functionality as a pay back!

Regards,
Rob

Mar 24/10
11:53 am
Corrado Mella says:

Here we go! Eventually some multi-language tools begin to float to the surface…
I have contributed with an Italian translation.
Good job lads. Now it should be a doodle to have different templates for each language for all outbound messaging, so each customer gets messages in its proper language.
As we are on this, is there any chance to have proper Credit Notes against an existing invoice?
Especially here in the UK, a proper Credit Note is compulsory to compensate for an irrecoverable invoice. I know this is a major step up, but it’s well worth it.
Cheers

Mar 24/10
1:39 pm

Hi,

We would like to contribute with the Bosnian version of the invoicing and the emails that get sent out as we need this feature.

In addition to the above we also have a requirement to show VAT registration numbers for both us and our clients on each invoice.

How feasible is the above and whom would we have to contact in order to contribute with the translations?

Regards,
Amir

Mar 24/10
2:00 pm

How about a translation of the GUI to more languages? Could use a Pootle server: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pootle

Mar 24/10
5:04 pm

Formidable!! Many English entrepreneurs living in France still have customers in the UK and/or US, this will make their life much easier.

Merci beaucoup.

Mar 24/10
9:24 pm

please add german!

Mar 24/10
11:30 pm
chesnel says:

Déjà que j’étais très satisfait de votre système. Maintenant je suis encore plus heureux !

Bravo continuer comme ça !

Mar 25/10
8:51 am

Merci d’améliorer votre produit comme vous le faites.
Continuez votre bon travail!

Mar 25/10
9:41 am
Benjamin says:

Great job!

It’s really a feature that most billings apps don’t have !

Mar 25/10
2:27 pm
France says:

Bravo!! Le français est une loi (gouvernemental) que nous devons respecter au Québec.

Prochaine étape la taxe sur la taxe. Nous sommes la seule province au Canada (probablement dans le monde entier) qui fonctionne de telle façon. Il serait bien de pouvoir résoudre ce problème pour nous.

Bonne amélioration!!!

Mar 25/10
4:04 pm

This is great, folks. Merci!

Mar 26/10
7:35 am
Stefano says:

I have contributed with an Italian translation.
Good job. Now it should be a doodle to have different templates for each language for all outbound messaging, so each customer gets messages in its proper language.

GOOD JOBS.
S:

Mar 26/10
11:44 am
Stefano says:

I hope not to wait another year to see italian translation here…

Mar 26/10
7:43 pm

This is something I was looking for… as we both operate in North America and in Europe

Problem is that lay out is different in France. Recipient address is on the right side plus other details

It can’t be used like this in France (unfortunately!)

€ should be after the amount, no “.” for cents, but “,”, HT has to appear (before VAT) and TTC (VAT included)

These are legal requirements….

If you want some samples of French invoices, please let me know… I would be really happy to get Freshbooks for my invoicing here

Mar 28/10
4:24 pm
Stefano says:

In Italy we use the same layout of France (and I think like all others europen countries):
Recipient address is on the right.
€ should be after the amount.
In Europe:

2,100,000.43 € —> no legally valid
2.100.000,43 € —> it’s the only legal way

Mar 29/10
7:55 am

I support Guirchaumes and Stefanos suggestion: the dots and commas have to be exchanged. I also would love to see a German translation, I already filled out the form so you have something to work with.

Is there any information on which languages you are working right now?

Mar 30/10
2:39 am
Travis says:

Another vote for Stefano’s suggestion from Germany.

Mar 30/10
10:08 am
Sebastian Fuentes says:

I would like to see a German Translation too, the German Tex Office is quite picky about invoices in different Languages

Thx
Sebastian

Apr 14/10
1:23 am
Matt says:

Is Freshbooks set up for Australian dollars and our GST (10%)?

Apr 14/10
9:35 am
Stefano says:

any news?

Apr 17/10
5:21 pm
Robin says:

I’ve submitted the Dutch translation. When will you release some extra languages?

Apr 21/10
4:15 pm

[...] New release: Multi-lingual invoicing, French and Spanish invoices and estimates [...]

Apr 23/10
5:58 pm
nicov says:

Hi when will the next translation come out?
dutch?

Apr 26/10
11:16 am

Thank you very much. I was impressed by your service offering, but didn’t use it because my clients are mostly French speaking. I am very happy about this news and will use Freshbook regularly now !

May 24/10
11:54 am
Kevin says:

Yes, Dutch would be so great!
I’m asking this for more than a year now and I know several other company owners asked the same in Belgium and The Netherlands :-)

Jun 3/10
2:20 am
Pascal says:

another vote for a German language pack! :)

Aug 21/10
2:55 am

I am very pleased to find this site. I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post. Thanks….

Oct 27/10
12:23 am

Do you think that would be possible for a customer to see the interface in the language we selected for him?

So if I selected “Spanish” for one when he gets to his invoice list, estimates and all of that at his panel he sees everything in spanish??

Too much to ask? :)

Regards.

Nov 26/10
5:58 pm

[...] New release: Multi-lingual invoicing, French and Spanish invoices 23 Mar 2010. I hope not to wait another year to see italian translation here…. I am very happy about this news and will use Freshbook regularly now ! New release: Multi-lingual invoicing, French and Spanish invoices [...]

Mar 26/11
9:22 am
Lori says:

I clicked on Facebook icon, a picture pops up next to the post. Whose picture is that? Go back to this page, see that Ben Coe writes this blog; link brings you to FreshBooks team, then I can’t find Ben Coe! Who are you Ben Coe and is that your picture?

Jun 23/11
8:38 pm
Carl says:

Would be nice to have the GUI translated too. Nice to have invoice in french but when they log it’s in english. It’s kinda odd.

Why so long to introduce that very important feature ?

Oct 5/11
5:18 pm
nessys says:

Fully agree!! would be nice a complete web GUI translated to spanish, french, german (the main international languages) because the software I love it but not all my spanish customers understand english when they log in to my dashboard, check statatements, etc.. please :) por favor!!! gracias lol

Dec 21/11
10:23 am
Thierry says:

Hi,

I am using the the timesheet reports and wonder if it is possible to have the info in the template in French instead than in English?

That would be useful, as I use those timesheet details reports to communicate data to my clients, who are for the most part French speaking.

Thank you!

Jan 18/12
8:19 am

Bonjour,

Thanks for making French available as one of the earliest languages, that comes up really useful!
I agree with other users that translating the client interface would be great as well. I can help with translations if needed.
Keep up the good work!
PS: I love the style of the website, very nice, and fresh :)


 

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