December 11, 2007 — Online billing service FreshBooks is celebrating Nebraska college student Cory Becker and mobile expense tracking service Xpenser, who have developed the first commercial offerings on top of the FreshBooks API.
Marketing and Community Development Manager Sunir Shah of FreshBooks says,
FreshBooks got into the business of billing because we felt it was the best way we could contribute to other entrepreneurs' successes. Now, the API has opened up a new level. I can't tell you how good it makes us feel when we see entrepreneurs like Cory Becker and Xpenser growing their businesses by helping our customers! We're committed to supporting them to become successful as well as every other integrator that comes after their pioneering lead.
FreshBooks is an online billing service for creative professionals best known for time tracking, online invoicing, online payments, and easy recurring billing. Toronto-based FreshBooks brings small business values to the Web: we pick up the phone (1-866-303-6061) and mail Triscuits to Fiji! (Contact Scott Baldwin, +1-212-445-8107)
Becker Web Solutions. Cory Becker, an 18-year-old student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is paying his way through school doing custom development on top of the FreshBooks API for FreshBooks customers, such as custom project managment software designed for IAC Professionals. Click here for more info. (Contact Cory Becker, +1-402-218-2110)
Xpenser helps mobile FreshBooks customers track their expenses and expense reports from any device they have, and quickly create invoices inside FreshBooks through the FreshBooks API. Click here for more info. (Contact Parand Darugar, CEO, +1-858-231-4582)
Please see the Spotlights below for more on Cory and Xpenser. You can discover more about FreshBooks by:
We relaunched our FreshBooks API on June 28, 2007. We're committed to giving our customers access to their data. Since June, we've been steadily exposing more and more of the system. In fact, we'll soon be releasing our first API for our time tracking service very soon. Stay tuned!
FreshBooks
Scott Baldwin, Weber Shandwick
(on behalf of FreshBooks)
www.FreshBooks.com
+1-212-445-8107
Becker Web Solutions, LLC
Cory Becker, President
www.BeckerWebSolutions.com
+1-402-218-2110
Xpenser
Parand Darugar, CEO
www.Xpenser.com
+1-858-231-4582
People find all sorts of ways to pay for their college education, from waiting tables to donating blood, but Cory Becker, an 18-year-old student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, decided he would do things a bit differently. His graduation present from high school was his own Limited Liability Corporation: Becker Web Solutions, LLC. As he puts it, he designs websites for million-dollar businesses because "it's better than flipping burgers."
Becker Web Solutions has developed several custom integrations for FreshBooks customers. "I'm really interested in API development, which is why I love FreshBooks," says Cory Becker. "Not only does FreshBooks make my business life easier, the open API gives me a canvas to create useful plug-ins for myself and my clients."
Project Manager & Employee Time Sheet. Becker's largest project so far is a project management and task delegation system. It allows a company manager to create projects for a client, break that project into tasks, and assign the tasks to employees. Employees then can keep track of what they have to do next, and quickly track their time. Project managers can then generate an invoice in FreshBooks based on the hours their employees worked.
Employees quickly learn what tasks they need to do.
Supervisors can then track employees' billable hours.
Client enrollment website plug-in. Becker Web Solutions created a plug-in form you can drop on your website that allows your prospective customers to set themselves up as new clients in your FreshBooks account. FreshBooks then automatically sends them a welcome email. See his glowing reviews on the FreshBooks forum.
FreshBooks
Scott Baldwin, Weber Shandwick
(on behalf of FreshBooks)
www.FreshBooks.com
+1-212-445-8107
Becker Web Solutions, LLC
Cory Becker, President
www.BeckerWebSolutions.com
+1-402-218-2110
Xpenser is an easy way to track your expenses with any device while you're on the go. Now, you can create FreshBooks invoices from inside Xpenser. "We saw an opportunity to bring mobile access to FreshBooks customers, some of whom are the most mobile professionals around," said Parand Darugar, CEO of Xpenser. Now when FreshBooks customers are on the road, they can record their expenses by email, PDA, SMS text message, Twitter, instant message, or voice all through Xpenser's easy-to-use integration.
Parand Darugar, CEO of Xpenser, came up with the idea for the integration by listening to customers.
We built Xpenser for our own needs. We were mobile professionals with too many restaurant receipts to track, so we created Xpenser to be a fast, streamlined system to track expenses from the road. The next problem for us was turning these expenses into invoices. Our customers are small-and-medium-sized businesses, and they wanted something simple, easy, clean, and reliable for their invoices.
The natural choice was FreshBooks. Moreover, FreshBooks has outstanding customer service. When I send my customers to FreshBooks, I'm sure they will be treated well.
Xpenser's choice to integrate with FreshBooks was bolstered by feedback from mutual customers, such as Brendan Nee of Horne Nee Inc., who posted about both services on their corporate blog. When approached, Nee explained,
Xpenser has a really easy-to-use interface. It is very effective. They've got the input part down. Being able to send things by SMS, email, voice and more is great. I'm anxiously awaiting being able to import expenses into FreshBooks.
FreshBooks' Marketing and Community Development Manager Sunir Shah says,
Xpenser is fantastic. I've even started using Xpenser to track my expenses from the road. As we introduce more expense tracking features in early 2008, I could not be happier that Xpenser has already completed the critical mobile dimension our on-the-go customers will love. We're committed to supporting companies like Xpenser who are bringing FreshBooks to important new places faster than we could even dream of going by ourselves.
FreshBooks
Scott Baldwin, Weber Shandwick
(on behalf of FreshBooks)
www.FreshBooks.com
+1-212-445-8107
Xpenser
Parand Darugar, CEO
www.Xpenser.com
+1-858-231-4582
Spotlights
Cory cleverly finances college tuition with FreshBooks integrations.
Xpenser helps mobile FreshBooks customers track their expenses.
