Best Tools for Invoicing, Accepting Payments, Sending Receipts
-
Hey All!
I recently started my business about 1.5 years ago and am loving it, doing well, and learning new things every day! I am very curious what others in the industry use for proposals, invoicing, accepting payments and sending receipts. What we are doing now seems like a lot of trouble and we are using different platforms for almost all of it.
Since starting, my goal has been to use as little paper as possible, so I do almost everything over the computer.
- We send out proposals using Quoteroller and that has been very useful because clients can click to the proposal from their email and they can also accept proposals through that link.
- We invoice clients from Quickbooks Online (QBO) and can have those sent directly to clients' email inbox.
- We have to manually create a payment link through one of Bluefin's payment platforms. We can send this link through email or add it to the proposal email sent from Quoteroller.
- After they accept proposals (hopefully!), and make payment, we have to go back into QBO and "receive payment" and this does not send out a receipt to the client. Maybe someone knows a way to fix it to where it does send an automatic receipt when we "receive payment?"
- If client requests a receipt, we must go into QBO and generate a "sales receipt."
So, now that you know our process, are we making ourself work too much? Is there a more simple approach?
-
We have been using http://www.getharvest.com/ for the last few years.
It's decent, but I think we'll move away from it shortly as we no longer really use time tracking.
I'll be looking at something that integrates into Xero, or if Xero does recurring invoices, I'll just use that.
-
If client requests a receipt, we must go into QBO and generate a "sales receipt."
Not sure why you would need to create a sales receipt since you have already created an invoice. Once you "receive payment" the invoice will be marked as "Paid" by QB and you can simply email that to the client.
Intuit does have a payment link for online payments as well. Not sure if it works with QBO but does with premiere. When you send the invoice the link is included. You might want to check out the QB support forums for more info.
Good luck!
-
I have since moved to Freshbooks, because I wanted a light weight billing system, but I did use a pretty powerful one once. What I used was WHMCS, it is what web hosts use. It has a ton of features and it is all hosted on your server. You can set it up with say a Namecheap api and offer domain registrations through your billing too. Since I am a developer more than an SEO guy, I recommended and developed a site for a client that shudders sells alexa ranking increases. I talked them into using that and they love it. It has a very large payment gateway support, it can suspend accounts, charge late fees, and a whole host of other things. It might be something to look into.
One I would not recommend is box billing. I tried it for like a week, it double charged every single client.
-
Hi Ben,
Based on the volume of transactions, you might want to consider FreshBooks. Although not as comprehensive an accounting solution as QBO, it is very focused on invoicing and payment and is an ideal solution for small agencies/businesses providing services. I've provided a link to their features list below:
Cheers,
SEO5
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best Way to Promote Other Authors SEO?
Wanted to get the communities feedback on this. WDAC is designing a new section of our site. This new section is aimed at helping small businesses that want to get SEO help, but are not in a position financially/do not want to pay an agency for help. The page can be viewed here: http://www.webdesignandcompany.com/expert-seo-tips The page is called "Expert SEO Tips" and we are going to promote other authors content that focuses on high quality articles around SEO tactics, methods, tips, tricks, etc. There are a few articles listed on the page based around what we have shared in the past, but you can see that the page/section is still in its infancy and may change to a new layout/design in the near future. The section will summarize the article we are linking to , and provide a link to the authors Twitter/G+ profile, depending upon what they have setup. We have reached out to a few places in the Google+ communities asking for articles and submissions, but have had little success. Strange due to the fact that we are providing outgoing links without requesting one back...hmmm. Anyway, what do any of you think would be the best way to get people to respond? Also, does anyone see any issues with adding this type of content to our site using followed links, specifically since we are linking out to relevant articles related to our own services? Does anyone see any potential pitfalls? Does anyone have any articles they think would be a great addition or provide help to business owners? All input and insight is appreciated! Looking forward to hearing your input.
Industry News | | David-Kley1 -
How to remove the inbound links of a website from Google Webmaster Tools?
Hello viewers, One of my projects (BannerBuzz.com) is having linked with this Site: http://www.article-niche.com/ and we can see so many inbound links in our Webmaster account from this site, we have already disavowed this site but still it is found in our Webmaster Tools and we don’t have option to mail them as the site is down, so kindly anyone help us out how to remove this back-links and I want to remove it from my Webmaster account as well as from “Search Results” as the site is down. Currently as this site is show down from long time and because of its back-links, our website (BannerBuzz.com) has been penalized by Google.
Industry News | | CommercePundit0 -
Webmaster Tools Keyword Rankings Explanation
While analyzing the Google Webmaster, I found several keywords that are ranked in the top 10 search results with words such as: they, was, mai, and chiang. (For example:they)After reviewing the top pages shown under the keyword "they", I did not find the keyword or its variant "them" repeated in the content of the page. I am not sure why "they" is ranking so high and of course, the word "they' is not effective for finding significant content. Also word such as Chiang Mai are never used separately but the two words are ranking far apart from each other. Mai is ranked at 5 and chiang is ranked at 11. I would think that the rankings would be very close together since the two words are usually used in conjunction with one another. Can anyone explain the reason this may be happening please?
Industry News | | jimmyzig0 -
Best Places to Post SEO/Marketing Jobs?
I have several colleagues in the industry (and some fellow marketers) who have asked me where the best places are to look for and post SEO job opportunities. I personally like InBound.org and LinkedIn. Where do you recommend marketeers look for job opportunities? D
Industry News | | danatanseo1 -
Duplicate Content Tool - sketchy or good?
BloomReach announced a new software product named Dynamic Duplication Reduction (DDR), that aims to eliminate duplicate content issues on web sites. Anyone have any feedback on this yet - seems to go to be true if you ask me. Your pal Chenzo
Industry News | | Chenzo0 -
What is the best seo software?
This question is in relation to doing site audits and creating branded reports for clients. Do seo agencies create there own software or do you use one that is accessible for all? Also what do you think is the best general seo software?
Industry News | | paulbaguley0 -
Which pieces of content in the online marketing/social media space were the very best of the best in the past 12 months?
As you may be aware - SEOmoz are hiring for a marketing oracle (one of 8 jobs going at the moment: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/8-open-positions-at-seomoz). Their key responsibility will be to produce world class content about online marketing, seo and social media. So, let ask you - what are the best examples of content in this space from the past 12 months? The very best of the best. Don't just think SEO, but any kind of online marketing content. Whether it's editorial, infographic, research etc etc.
Industry News | | TomCritchlow2