FreshBooks Supper Club June 2008

Welcome to the June edition of the FreshBooks Supper Club. This virtual gathering of intelligent and very good looking people happens once a month and is delivered directly to your inbox. In here we jam an assortment of profiles of the beautiful and talented people who use FreshBooks (Fresh Faces), Contests, FreshBooks Tips and Tricks, and my favourite, news and stuff from inside the FB walls. Among other things this section will also outline what events and cities we will be visiting to spread the good word of FreshBooks.

News and Stuff From Inside the FB Walls

How Design Conference: I want to start this months Supper Club with a colourful story! Ya see a few weeks ago we attended and exhibited at the How Design Conference and instead of having a fancy booth made for us we decided to get two 8 Foot x 8 Foot Canvases. Jazz Martin - an artist who is also a FreshBooks user - took some glue and paint and created a living breathing (always changing) art installation that started at the first moment that the conference began and was worked on until the last moment of the event.

Here are some pictures and a cool video showing the work that went into it...and in case you are wondering, this mural now sits in our office and we are pretty jazzed about it (get it? Jazzed!)

Book Winners – Amanda’s Q&A: This month’s installment of FreshBooks advice got the biggest response rate yet! As promised we gave away all of our copies of the Andy Sernovitz book Word of Mouth Marketing. One of our winners was Amanda K. and her question was.....

My answer was simple......

I am collecting some new prizes so stay tuned for another contest next month!

Success Stories

Sometimes the Supper Club feels like it is too much about us...so to change this I am asking all of you to send us some cool success stories about your company! Your stories do not have to be about FreshBooks, but rather, about the cool stuff happening at your company.

Still not sure what we mean? Here is a great example in an email we received recently!

Want to Host a FreshBooks Party in Your Home?

Tupperware parties have always been a curiosity to me...mostly because I have never been invited to one but the concept of themed house parties is super cool to me.

So because of this we are launching FreshBooks Parties!

If you are interested and/or willing to invite a handful of friends over to your house or office to show them what FreshBooks is all about we will not only send you everything you need to plan the event but we will also send you $25 to cover some snacks or maybe one of those really fancy pies!

Here is how it works:

• The first 50 people who drop me a note saying they wish to host a party and with an approximate idea of attendee numbers will qualify.
• We will send you a FreshBooks party kit full of FreshBooks stuff...and it will all come in a Tupperware like storage container.
• Host your party!
• Send us some pictures or post some pictures online and send us an invoice (through FreshBooks) for $25 to cover the snacks and we will send off your payment!

If nothing else comes from this you will at least get one of those really fancy pies! Pretty simple!

Don’t Be a Stranger

We really pride ourselves on being a company that listens so (and you should know this already) feel free to drop us an email or give us a call whenever you feel like!

...and for those who don’t like to call or write, do you think you can fill out a short 4 question survey? We would love to hear what is up with you all and if you like the survey tool you can grab your own at www.surveygizmo.com (a FreshBooks user!)

Fresh Faces: Michelle Wolverton

I’m the director of chelpixie.com, a virtual assisting and new media consulting company. I am a business owner and Freshbooks user as well as an organization freak. Most people know me as Michelle Wolverton and more likely as ChelPixie. I run on coffee, Matthew Ebel, Black Lab, and my iPhone.

As a virtual assistant, I handle the boring, time consuming tasks while you do what you love and that’s what I rock at. I also work as a marketing intern for musicians, and a remote agent for Undercurrent. I also volunteer for Podcamp’s SWAT team as a organizer and I'm getting excited for Podcamp Boston 3 in July!

Now I have all of my billing, time tracking, invoicing and reports in one place. I have a cool widget on my Mac dashboard that makes it really easy to track the time that I spend on tasks. I can write the notes directly in the window and remember what I did for those two minutes that I billed my clients for and THEY know where their hours are going so they can adjust as needed.

When I need to invoice, it’s two buttons away and I have an invoice and report ready to email or even snail mail to my clients. I love using the interface and having all my billing in one place with easy online access to everything anywhere I go.

Freshbooks saves me time and helps keep my accounting organized and easy so I can focus on my clients. Thank you, Freshbooks!

If you’d like to be our next Fresh Face, let us know how FreshBooks helps your business!