Archive:
June, 2010
Yes – that’s right. And today is Canada Day, just like the 4th of July in the US, with fireworks and all. So FreshBooks employees are taking a long weekend or a mid-week break, which means the support lines are closed today (July 1st). If you do contact us, we promise we’ll get back to you on July 2nd.
If you’re looking for a place to celebrate Canada day, we highly recommend checking out Ottawa. Even the Queen (our Queen too) thinks it’s the place to be this Canada Day.
Or maybe it’s best just to take some time for you and relax by a lake:
And for all businesses based in British Columbia and Ontario, HST starts tomorrow, Happy Canada Day!
Create recurring invoices from your website with Formstack.
Our good friends over at Formstack (formerly Formspring) recently announced updates to their FreshBooks integration!
If you’re not familiar with Formstack, it’s a form building application that helps you put together web forms for collecting data that you can link to your website or emails. The integration with FreshBooks lets you turn regular forms into FreshBooks order forms. Customers fill in the form, submit, and with some Formstack magic, a FreshBooks invoice (or estimate) is automatically generated.
The update adds recurring invoice creation, the most requested feature for the integration. So once the form is submitted, an invoice is created immediately in FreshBooks, and then again every week, month, or whatever period you choose. Businesses that bill on a recurring basis can now automate the sign-up and billing process straight from their website. They’ve also added the option to create the invoice as draft, or send it out immediately by email or snail-mail.
If you’re already a Formstack user, you’ll want to check out the Formstack blog post for more details on the updates. Right about now would also be a good time to leave a review on our add-ons page and let us know what you think.
If you enjoyed this post, checkout the FreshBooks add-ons directory to discover all kinds of ways you can get more out of FreshBooks.
This is first part in a three part series on using FreshBooks and an Accounting package. You also may want to read the blogpost “Do I really need an Accounting package?” The workflows can be found in Part 2: Workflow #1 – Using General Account Entries and Part 3: Workflow #2 – Entering in Each Transaction.
We all know accounting and reporting can be a headache for any business owner, especially when you’d rather run your business than spend time bookkeeping. If you’re a sole proprietor or a (very) small business owner, you can probably use FreshBooks for all your accounting needs. But if your business requires a balance sheet or more financial reporting (e.g. if you’re incorporated), you might be using or are considering a double-ledger accounting program such as QuickBooks.
Looking to avoid this?
If you fall into the later category, you’re likely taking advantage of FreshBooks to manage your billing, your team’s timesheets, run your subscription billing, generate invoices, and provide a premium billing experience for your clients, but still need an Accounting package for your backend office needs. This series will help you determine a workflow for getting your invoices or accounts receivable into an Accounting package. As with any workflow, there are a number of different options so there are some general questions and rules that need to be considered.
A few questions to ask:
The first consideration is determining what reporting you need. You likely need information for tax season (profit and sales taxes) and others to help you run your business (forecasting).
This leads to the second question, where do you want your reporting to be? Is it better for you to grab reports from one place, or is it efficient to run certain reports from FreshBooks, while others from your accounting package.
The last thing to consider is time (which ironically is the first thing if you are a small business person!) How can you minimize your administrative workload and increase the time you have to run your business.
Some rules:
When planning to use an accounting package, you’ll need an understanding of double-ledger accounting, for example, knowing what a “chart of accounts” is. It is very easy to mess up your initial setup of your double-ledger bookkeeping application. Do you know what debits and credits are? Depending on your background, you may want professional advice when determining your workflow. At the same time, challenge your accountant – they think first about their needs, which can be different than your needs of running a business. Most service-based businesses, especially if you’re under certain revenue levels, do not require a balance sheet, only a profit and loss statement.
When you do choose a workflow to use, be very disciplined and consistent. For example, balance sheets are a snap shot in time of your business so timing is key. You also do not want to under or overstate your income, important for taxes.
The last thing to sort out is how often do you want to reconcile with your accounting program. It varies for most FreshBooks users depending on their time, needs for reporting, and tax obligations from monthly, to quarterly, and for some, yearly.
Quick overview of the two suggested workflows:
Before covering the details of the workflows (available in the next two posts), it’s good discuss them in a general manner. These workflows are all accrual based (which is likely the way you do your bookkeeping if you are using an accounting package).
The easiest, most effective, and least time consuming is entering in your journal entries as sums. This is good because it saves time, and you can still do your specific accounts receivable reporting from FreshBooks (client time to pay, total receivables, accounts aging).
The other option is to enter in all your invoices/sales transactions from FreshBooks into your accounting program. This is time consuming but gives you very specific reporting in your accounting program so you can run all your reports from your accounting program which may or may not be useful for you.
For any workflow you choose, one excellent rule to follow, is putting all your invoices / income into your accounts receivable account before you put it into cash. But this depends on your business.
The detailed workflows:
The next two posts will cover the workflows in detail as so you know what reports to extract and how to enter the information into your accounting program.
The workflows: Part 2: Workflow #1 – Using General Account Entries and Part 3: Workflow #2 – Entering in Each Transaction.
It’s summer in Canada! Woo! And as the weather warms up, more and more of us break out our bikes. Even better, it’s Bike Month in Toronto, a perfect time to talk about riding your bike to work.
FreshBooks has a pretty high number of employees who choose to bike into work daily; some of us happily cover 20km (13+ miles) each way. Our most impressive day was when just over a third of FreshBooks employees opted to ride in last summer (pictured above).
If you’ve ever thought about riding your bike into work, but you hesitated for any reason, I’m here to try and get you saddled up.
Why bike to work?
I think our director of product management, Casey McKinnon, said it the best: “I just feel refreshed and ready to go when I come into work”. I feel the exact same way. It’s better than a double espresso (my personal coffee consumption is a lot lower during the riding season). Of course, there are a number of other great reasons to ride:
- Easy way to get regular exercise
- Save time by avoiding traffic or transit
- Cost – save gas money everyday
- Reduce your carbon footprint
Basically, it doesn’t matter how fuel-efficient or fancy-ass hybrid your car is; miles per gallon can never compete with the direct miles-per-burger fuel economy of a bike.
You’re getting fit, saving money, and saving the planet: what’s not to like?
The downside
With all these great reasons to ride, there are a few points holding people back.
- Danger. Wear a helmet, stick to bike paths and routes or side streets and be smart, and you should be safe every time you go out. Also keep your bike in good maintenance.
- Sweat. Bring a change of clothes or renovate to include a shower in your workspace.
- Time. Depending on your current commute, it might take a little longer. Why not time yourself to see the actual difference?
- Bike theft. There are a lot of good options for locking your bike and most employers will let you store your bike somewhere safe.
- Carrying Stuff. You can always use your car on those days you cannot avoid it, or you can get one of these:
Great, how do I get started?
Step 1. Get a bike. You do not want your standard mountain bike, but something with slicker tires for roads but can still handle your route. But generally, you will want this bike to be speedy. A hybrid is typically good choice as it will be a comfortable ride, looks good with fenders, and has slick tires. Many commuters ride road bikes as well as they are a lot speedier. Or you can ride a comfy cruiser if time is on your side:
Step 2. Choose a safe route. I recommend looking at a local map or bike map (bicycle routes are always great to use) and asking your colleagues and friends. You will want to ride on side streets as much as possible, especially ones with little stopping. Once you have a potential route, try it out when these is little traffic to test it out and get comfortable. You can always tweak it later. Then just start off once or twice a week commuting on it to work. It’s ok to start slow.
Step 3. Pick a good bag. You’ll need a good bag so you can bring everything you need for your day or after work activities. A backpack is always a great place to start as you likely already have one. But saddlebags are the best option, as you avoid sweat on your backside, and less weight on you means more comfort while riding.
Step 4. Avoid bike theft. You need a safe place to store your bike during the day. Hopefully your company allows you to bring it right into where you work, or has a safe place to lock it up.
Step 5. Learn some basic mechanics. You will want to learn some quick bike mechanics, especially how to change a tire and tighten your brakes. There is probably a local bike clinic you can go to if you do a quick search on Google. Or, there are a lot of books to help you get started.
Step 6. The Rest. You’ll also need some safety gear, a helmet, lights; riding clothes that you can sweat in, light or bright colors are good; and fenders to keep you and your drive train dry (important for maintenance) on those wetter days.
Making your office bike friendly
Now, you might need to do some convincing to get these items in your office, but you’ll be a much better employee because of such changes.
- A safe place to keep your bike during the day – you’ll be less nervous and more productive
- A shower – you’ll be less smelly
- A bike pump – keeping your tires inflated reduces flats and improves your speed
- Simple bike tools – you’ll probably want a set of metric Allen (hex) keys, tire levers, tubes, wrenches and chain grease (increases office Zen)
- A full time bike mechanic – maybe I’m getting too ambitious!
In conclusion:
Bicycle commuting is a great way to start and end your day, get some regular exercise, and save some money. If you are smart about it, it’s safe, fun and speedy. Remember, if you feel the weather is bad and you don’t feel safe, STAY OFF THE ROAD. Also, start off slow, maybe just one day a week, until you build your confidence.
Other resources
Our FreshBooks friend, Carlton Reid, has created a wonderful guide with all the details to get you started.
There is also a good post on Wikihow.
If you’re in Chicago, Toronto, or Columbia, South Carolina, you have a chance to have a beer on FreshBooks in the next week!
FreshBooks Supper Clubs in Chicago and Toronto
Join FreshBooks and a roomful of our awesome customers at our famous FreshBooks Supper Clubs this Saturday in Chicago and on Tuesday here in Toronto. Talk shop with your fellow small business owners, raise pints, and have a good time on FreshBooks. Don’t forget to bring your business cards!
Startup Weekend Chicago
Sunir Shah, our Chief Handshaker, will be flying to Chicago this Friday for Startup Weekend Chicago, a weekend-long event where teams furiously work to launch a product in 54 hours, which is going to be a ton of fun. Be sure to say hi if you’re there!
Converge SE, Columbia, South Carolina
John Coates, our (very) Small Business Consultant, will be in Columbia, SC for Converge SE this weekend speaking to freelancers/web designers on the “Art of Getting Paid”. Based on lessons learned from our own customers, he’ll explain how not only to ensure you get paid, but how to get paid faster!
Grab him for a beer if you get a chance!
A little while back we took a week and cast aside our usual plans. Why? So the entire company could work on whatever the heck they thought would most help our Rockstar Support team be even more extraordinary.
And I know you’re all wondering with desperate concern WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT GOT BUILT? WHOSE LIVES WERE CHANGED FOREVER???
Well, let me tell you. Here’s a small selection of the awesome output from this week…
CALLER ID PSYCHIC
Okay, not actually psychic, but Daniel built this amazing web app that plugs into our phone system so you can check in on any currently active call, see who the customer is, get their whole history of communication with us, and all like that. It’s seriously awesome. Our customers get in the habit of talking to us, so its important for us that we can see what they’ve asked of us previously whenever they call in. With Call Psychic, we can pull all that up right there on the call.
LOLCATS SUPPORT BOARD
Casey (with a bunch of help from folks like Sellens and Sarmiento) put up a fantastic live status board that shows how many unanswered support emails we have, how many phone lines are in use, number of forum posts and everything. It keeps the Support team focused each day, and lets everyone know where they need to pitch in when the phone is ringing like a madly ringing phone. Most importantly, it randomly displays custom LOLcats with “motivational” messages to cheer the team on.
SCHEDGY
Support at FreshBooks is a rotating role. Scheduling FreshBookers into the many shifts each month is a huge pain — emails go back and forth as people forget their shifts, discover conflicts or want to change things up. So Ben Coe and Jeff Sarmiento built a drag-and-drop calendar app for scheduling support shifts at FreshBooks. You can just grab a FreshBooker, drag them to a day, and tada! Everyone gets alerted, shifts get filled, and FreshBooks phones get answered. Magic!
There were a number of other improvements, updates and exciting projects undertaken, but those are the ones having the biggest impact. Overall, FreshBooks will have saved thousands of hours this year in Support time just based on those three apps alone.
Asking our team to spend a week working on whatever they wanted to do was a bit of a gamble for FreshBooks. We weren’t sure what would happen, but we had faith in the team here and that they would jump at the chance to build solutions that really addressed key pain points for our Support team. And they did.
We’ll definitely be doing another Support Support Week down the road.
Small Business Web Cupcakes!
One of the reasons some of our buddies in The Small Business Web seem to work so well together is the overlap between the things we’re all trying to do for customers.
FreshBooks is focused on helping you answer simple questions like: Who owes me money? How much am I billing? How do I get paid faster?
Shoeboxed lets you take care of that big old pile of crumpled receipts and business cards. You can mail them all in to Shoeboxed in a pre-paid envelope, send expenses by email, or even from pics snapped with your cellphone camera. They’ll scan everything in, enter the data, and organize everything for you.
Outright comes at things from the other end. For sole-proprietors and small business owners, Outright is a simple online accounting system that helps business owners manage their finances and automate much of the work in prepping their taxes at the end of the year.
Put the three together and it gets better: Shoeboxed exports billable receipts straight to FreshBooks so they can be recouped from your clients and it lets you pull the receipts through into Outright to keep your accounts all straight. Of course, Outright also records income from the invoices you raise through FreshBooks, alongside those expenses brought in from Shoeboxed.
This year, at tax time, one of our users confirmed how cool this integration is. Check this out:
Being a young entrepreneur the last thing I want to spend time on is tedious accounting work. I’ve been using FreshBooks for a few years for invoicing, billing, and pseudo expense tracking but when I stumbled upon Shoeboxed.com and Outright.com, I felt like the accounting weight was taken off my shoulders. It may sound over-dramatic but I am really not disciplined enough to keep proper records, and my accountant would not be happy with my scattered shoebox and spreadsheet full of notes – usually done at the last minute.
Shoeboxed.com makes it easy for a simpleton like myself to keep track of expenses. Just snap a picture of a receipt, send it on and I’m done with it. No more spreadsheets or boxes full of crinkled receipts makes me happy. Add Outright into the picture and it imports all of my expenses from my business accounts, via Shoeboxed and Expensify, categorizes them and puts my accounting on autopilot.
Having this all done automatically and up to the minute is amazing. It’s so much easier to handle accounting issues like expenses, estimated tax payments, etc. and I feel more in control and aware of my business than ever before. I’m positive without these tools my accounting book would be a mess and my accountant wouldn’t have bought ME a box of chocolates on tax day.
– Evan Roberts
PPC Lab
@evroccck
Nice.
The only challenge now is what should we call this thing? We’ve been going back and forth with our friends at Outright and Shoeboxed:
FreshOutBoxed? ShoeBooksRight? OutBoxedBooks?
Either way: great to hear it’s working for Evan, hope it’s working for you too.
FreshBooks Rockstar Support Crew
I had a great revelation a few weeks ago doing support here at FreshBooks.
Every two weeks (roughly) we release an update to our app, and I was on support the day after a pretty heavy release. Our customers were calling in with questions about this new update to their business, and we were a bit swamped keeping up with the phone calls.
I looked at our status board, and six of six support phones were in use – then the phone rang again.
If this were almost any other company, the customer would have been put on hold, gone into some soul-destroying IVR system, or been transferred to voicemail.
But this isn’t any other company – this is FreshBooks, and my big revelation came from the way this scenario played out.
With the support team all tied up on other lines, someone from our development team picked up the call. A minute later, yet another call came in. This time, our CEO Mike McDerment picked it up.
Later that afternoon, our email support tickets were getting a bit overwhelming too. We sent out a quick SOS to the company and, within minutes, the ticket count had dropped from 55 to 12.
So what’s the difference? Aside from our core team of six Support Rockstars, everyone who works here spends their day doing support at least once every two or three weeks. If that day’s support team is unable to take a call, the phones in the entire company will ring until someone dives in to help.
No one is left behind; no ticket goes unanswered. Why? Because support at FreshBooks isn’t just a job: it’s a core part of our culture and key to the FreshBooks user experience.
As support at FreshBooks is so important, the people that we hire to be our Support Rockstars aren’t your average cubicle monkeys. We have to be fun, personable, empathetic, adept problem solvers, and – above all – willing to listen, help, and teach.
Providing Rockstar Support is only part of the job – we’re also responsible for training all the new FreshBooks hires and throwing them really wicked graduation parties when they’re done. You can see examples of our handiwork here, here and on our Tumblr feed.
You may have heard about the intensity of our hiring process. There’s a reason we screen our candidates pretty heavily for the Support Rockstar position: because it pays off. We expect you to be able to prove that you’re top notch, with great customer service examples, and a rock-solid personality. The result is a chance to work with the most creative and amazing people, and probably the only opportunity you’ll get to sumo-wrestle on company time.
Think you have what it takes to rock this coveted gig? Let us know.
Beyond invoicing and keeping track of who’s paid you, there’s a ton of other stuff you can do with your FreshBooks account that you may not know about.
Here’s a quick sampling of tweaks & tips to save you time, get you paid even faster, and ease pain points in your business:
1. Automate Payment Reminders
Your FreshBooks account can automatically ping customers to remind them they owe you money and even follow up again when they’re late paying.
Hop into your Settings link in your FreshBooks account. Click on the Emails sub-navigation tab. Click the edit link next to Late Payment Reminders.
You can set up nagging emails to go out automatically at pre-defined times and use neat email “variables” to automatically plug things like the invoice amount or client name into the email template for you.
Play around with the options and the three different reminders you can set up. If you’re not sure how any of this works, just drop us a note. Set it, forget it: get paid!
2. Use Search for fast navigation and ad-hoc reporting
If you haven’t already found it, it’s worth checking out what you can do with the built-in Search feature in your FreshBooks account.
You’ll find the Search link at the top right of all list pages in your FreshBooks account, as shown here.
What you can search for changes automatically as you move through the system, with different search fields in your Client list, your Invoices list, your Expenses list, and in many other places throughout FreshBooks.
Try this, as just one example of what FreshBooks Search can do:
- From your Invoices tab, click on the Search link shown above;
- Now select “unpaid” from the Paid/Unpaid drop-down list on the right of the Search criteria screen;
- Click your Search button, and;
- Scroll to the bottom of the list and make sure to click the link to view all pages.
Bingo! That “Invoice Totals” number at the foot of your screen gives you a quick read on exactly how much money you’re owed by all your clients right now.
3. Manage sub-contractors’ time
As your business grows, you may find yourself pulling in help on projects from freelancers or other sub-contract colleagues.
If you depend on FreshBooks to track and manage the time you’re billing to clients, how awesome would it be to have sub-contractors’ timesheets running through the same system?
Without adding to your staff costs in FreshBooks you can totally do this. You can invite contractors to bill time against your projects – they’ll get their own free FreshBooks account and you’ll get to see all their timesheets and invoices showing up right where you want them.
Now you’ve got all your contractor invoices in one place and in one format. When it’s time to invoice, you can instantly re-bill your clients for your contractors’ work with your own set mark-up.
Less chasing + less pain = woo!
4. Track & Categorize Expenses
In a small business, you’ve got to keep expenses under control, run lean and recover every cent you can.
Drive your business with your Profit & Loss report – it’s the clearest way to get an instant snapshot of how much you’re making and how much you’re spending. For it to work, though, you’ve got to log the expenses as well as what you’re billing out.
Entering expenses in your FreshBooks account couldn’t be easier. Here’s a few things you can and probably should set up:
- Recurring expenses that ding your business every month (think of your phone bill, office rent, equipment leases, etc.)
- Categories to make expense filing easy. We already put some pre-defined ones in your account, but you can easily add to or change these.
- “Cost of Goods Sold” expenses (materials costs, contractors’ bills, etc.) – you can define what gets counted into your costs from the Profit & Loss report.
5. Drive your business with CRM
As you’re getting serious about your growing business, juggling client relationships can get tricky. You’ll want a system to help stay on top of your contacts and your sales pipeline.
FreshBooks looks after who’s paid you, who owes you money, who you’ve sent a quote to. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system can help you track who you’ve talked to, what you talked about, and what you need to do next.
Better: a FreshBooks-integrated CRM tool makes this whole thing seamless. From a lead, to a prospect, to a customer, to an ongoing relationship in one smooth flow.
Check out the killer CRM partners in the FreshBooks Add-Ons directory.
The Golden Rule by Flickr user Burkazoid
As the Chief Handshaker at FreshBooks, I have negotiated many integration partnerships. Believe me when I say that how you negotiate speaks volumes about what kind of partner you will be. FreshBooks wants to be the best partner you’ve ever had, so we have developed some guildelines to help us negotiate.
The most important guideline is The Golden Rule. Partner with others as you would have them partner with you. It seems easy to follow, but it’s easier to break.
Recently, I was asked by a potential new partner to reveal the confidential numbers of his competitor that already integrates with FreshBooks. The partner felt this would help demonstrate the business value of an integration deal. That may seem like a perfectly reasonable question from his side of the table, but the Golden Rule teaches otherwise.
If he considered the converse situation, he would see what this question revealed about him. Would he want me to share his numbers with his competitor? What would you think of me as a partner if I did? Indeed, what kind of partner would I be?
Further, do I now have to expect that he’ll be sharing my numbers with my competitors? As you can see, the risk in this partnership has gone up based on one question.
It’s unfortunate because he asked the question so he could help me. I would benefit by closing the deal with his organization. Nevertheless, it’s much more important to me to be a good partner than to close a single new one.
sends more invoices than there are 
