How to Use FreshBooks to Help Your Business Through COVID-19

As a business owner, you know better than anyone how difficult it can be to navigate COVID-19. It’s likely changed the way you interact with customers, the way you sell your product to customers, and even how you manage your business.

You may even be finding that you need new ways of doing things, like tracking loans you’ve received from the government. Or, needing a way to categorize costs and expenses related to COVID-19.

As always, FreshBooks is here to help. We’ve highlighted a list of new and existing features and functionality in the FreshBooks app that you might find useful in managing your business through this time.

Features to Shift Your Business Online

If you’re looking to move sales online, FreshBooks has functionality that will help make the transition seamless for you and your business.

• Quickly set up FreshBooks Payments to get paid online fast, minimizing the need for in-person transactions.
• Use Advanced Payments to securely store client credit card info, set up subscription-based billing and charge credit cards with tools like Virtual Terminal.
• Seamlessly shift your sales online with new eCommerce integrations for Shopify, Squarespace, and more. This will allow you to easily track all of your revenue in one place.
• Invite your Employees and Contractors to FreshBooks so they can track time and progress on projects. This will help ensure you’re all on the same page and up-to-date.

Features to Help You Find New Business

Whether you’re serving existing clients or trying to win new ones, FreshBooks helps you showcase everything your business has to offer.

• Create and customize Proposals to show your customers how your business can continue to deliver amazing work for them through COVID-19
• Give clients a full breakdown of the work you do, how long it will take to do it, and how payments can be managed over time with detailed Estimates

Features to Show Your Clients You Care

Your clients are experiencing the challenges of COVID-19 too. So, it’s as important as ever to work with them to understand their needs, so you can continue delivering. FreshBooks has the features to help.

• On a new Invoice, you can now add a personal touch by customizing the attached, pre-filled message your customer receives.
• If you use Online Payments, you can now accept Partial Payments on invoices to provide your clients payment relief. This feature is available on both WePay and Stripe for all payment types:
• Provide Payment Deadline Extensions for your invoices, and update Due Dates to provide more relief for clients that may be struggling due to COVID-19.

Features to Get You Paid

Having money coming in has never been more important. FreshBooks has a variety of ways to bill your clients, so you can continue to get paid while providing flexible options for your clients who need them.

• Set up a Payment Schedule for a client to allow them to gradually pay for your work over an extended period of time.
• Allow your customers to pay using Partial Payments. This allows your client to pay for an invoice in smaller, manageable portions, and is available on both WePay and Stripe for all payment types.
• Get paid for a portion of an Invoice upfront using a Deposit. This allows you to use the initial payment as working capital, while ensuring you get paid the full amount down the road.
• Set up automatic Payment Reminders to gently remind your current clients of overdue invoices.
• Withdraw funds from your WePay account daily, to receive your balance faster:
• Take advantage of Same-Day Deposits on WePay if you’re a Chase bank account holder.
• Reach out to clients directly on an invoice to remind them when it is due.

Features to Help You Stay Organized

Relief funds, disaster loans and government subsidies may help you get through these times. But they can also create more complicated paperwork for your business. FreshBooks has added functionality to make it easier to track everything related to COVID-19.

• Invite and work with your accountant to properly track any government loans you receive.
• Track COVID-19 related Expenses for government reimbursements by adding “COVID” to the entries description. This includes payroll expenses if you use Gusto.
• Connect FreshBooks to your bank account to automatically import Expenses, then easily organize them within your account.
• Run an Accounts Aging Report to see which clients currently owe you money.
• Keep track of how much a client has paid and how much they still owe with an Invoice Details Report.
• If you need to zero out an Invoice that you know will never be paid, add a Bad Debt line item with a negative amount. This will help you keep accurate reports.

Features to Show You Where Your Business Stands

This is not the time to put your head in the sand when it comes to your business’ financials. Knowing where every dollar in and out of your business is going is an important way of managing the challenges caused by COVID-19.

• Use Reports to see where your business stands today, so you can plan for tomorrow:
  • Invoice Details Report: A detailed overview of all invoices you’ve recently created
  • Profit & Loss Report: A summary of income and expenses, so you can see your net worth
  • Expense Report: A breakdown of spending, so you can see where exactly your money is going
  • Payments Collected Report: A detailed breakdown of all the payments you’ve recorded in your account
  • Accounts Aging Report: Shows you which clients or invoices are outstanding, so you can predict your income
• Import older Expenses, or Expenses you’ve tracked offline by uploading a CSV file into FreshBooks. This will help give you a more accurate picture of where your business stands.