Freelancers: Invoice your clients
February 6, 2008 by Oli · 21 Comments 
Continuing our freelancing series, today we are going to take a look at web apps and software you can use to invoice your clients. This is important to do properly and well-organized as your livelihood depends on it!
Blinksale – Blinksale is perfect for anyone who needs to invoice clients for services or products sold. Blinksale is an excellent choice for attorneys, accountants, designers, IT professionals, software developers, journalists, contractors, engineers, architects, videographers
Simply Invoice – Simply Invoices is the easiest way to create invoices from the time you’ve logged in your Basecamp project
Freshbooks – FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional
The Invoice Machine – The Invoice Machine is a free web 2.0 application that let’s you create free and beautiful PDF invoices in a snap
Simply Bill – Simplybill brings simple invoice management to all. Instead of wrestling with overly complex accounting software or trying to mash-up a spreadsheet into some sort of design, begin sending attractive invoices in minutes
Cashboard – Cashboard tracks time and money so you can worry about more important things. Have you ever forgotten to send an invoice or collect a payment? Are you spending more time doing paperwork than actually making money? Do you just need an easy to use invoicing solution
Invoice Place – Manage your billing from any computer connected to the internet. Create professional tax invoices, quotes and track payments – perfect for small business, consultants, contractors and freelancers
Less Accounting – We’re a business improvement app that saves you time by streamlining accounting, assisting with the sales process and integrating with other important apps
Simple Invoices – a simple web based invoicing system designed to get the job done, Free/Open source software, community developed, no hype, no buzz words, and no whizzbang features you’re never going to use
Invoice Journal – The fast, easy and free way to send invoices to anyone in the world from anywhere in the world
Not to sound unappreciative of your last two posts, but rather than just creating huge lists of time tracking and invoicing applications, it would be helpful to know what some of the pros and cons of each are, or some other type of comparison of the many options. A simple Google search will turn up most of these anyway. Even the screenshots are just of the splash pages.
Justin, Im afraid I haven’t got time to try them all out and review them properly, it would take me far too long – just think of them as lists you can use to find the perfect one for your needs.
Out of interest Oli, which one do you use personally (if any)?
yeah like this list hasn’t been done to death already…
Very nice selection!
Thanks for the mention Oli! Following up on Justin’s comment if you want more detail about the features of Invoiceplace please let me know.
Dmitry: Personally I have used Blinksale in the past, my company has changed direction so I dont invoice clients so much anymore.
It did the job brilliantly for me, hence its top place on the list.
john doh : I know this type of list has been done before, not on this site and not for our readers it hasn’t though.
Hey folks, if you don’t mind, I’ll help you ween down the list. When choosing any web application to run your business, the most important thing to consider is the reliability. Not just in terms of server up time, but in how frequently the company updates the software, how often do they update the blog, how quick they are to respond when you email them or phone them (can you phone them?), and how likely they are to stay in business in the future.
Most web applications are portfolio projects of web consultancies, which is fine (think 37signals). The question though for you is how dedicated are they in the long haul. If it looks like they are spreading their focus thin, your data and business may be in jeopardy 2 to 3 years out when they fold. Caveat emptor, after all.
(And while I have the floor, I will toot our own horn a little, and mention our Editor’s Choice award from PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2254091,00.asp)
Good Selection bro ^^
Would be nice to see a detailed review on each one. I use Cashboard and I like it a lot. I haven’t tried any others besides Blinksale and Freshbooks.
It is hard to tell from this list, but Cashboard has a lot more features and end up being cheaper in the long run than every other application mentioned.
try this app: invoice from http://www.kedisoft.com/invoice/ – it lets you put an pdf as background, so your invoices really look like designobjects…
I’m not an expert in this sphere, but I kind of like Freshbooks. They work perfectly with my project management software Wrike.com [http://www.wrike.com/]
nice tools, bit not for every country… ;(
For 18 years, many people have been using our invoice programs found at http://www.mrtec.com and many customers have been with us since our first version.
Let’s add Time59 (www.time59.com) to the list. It offers Time and Expense Tracking, Online Invoicinig, and Payment Management. $19.95 per year for unlimited use. 30 day free trial.
We use actiTIME (http://www.actitime.com) It allows effective collection of time expenses for billing and invoicing purposes.
Personally I love Blinksale. I was going to test a few different ones out but Blinksale did everything I wanted.
Had a look at these services a year or so back and none really appealed to me. Will check out the new ones you’ve posted and see what they’re like.
Very nice article,
Thanx
Nice list…surely most can find something that suits them. Freshbooks work very well…even the free account. Give it a shot and then pony up the $14 dollars a month so you can and your brand/logo to emails…it’s worth it.