Review of Billings: A Time Tracking & Invoicing App
A Brief Intro
Most of us in the design community love working on projects, but dread the small rather important details like time tracking and invoicing – at least I do. My lack of zeal for invoicing has led me to look for ways to make that part of the job a little more tolerable. So when the guys over at Billings asked me to check out their invoicing app, I was more than happy to give it a try. Through my exploring, I’ve found that Billings is a simple and professional way to customize and take control of your invoicing.
First Impressions
At first glance Billings is rather sleek and wonderfully simple. During the intitial startup you’ll be asked to step through a setup wizard that will get you up and running quickly. You can add clients via your contacts in your address book or import from Daylite. Which is a cool project manager app from the same folks. No worries, if you don’t add everything you need through the setup wizard, changing these configurations at a latter point is a breeze.
Once you’ve added in a client, it’s easy to start a project. One of my favorite features it the time tracking system. You can start and stop the menu bar timer as much as you need during a project no matter what application you are in. You can also specify an hourly rate, and the invoicing system will dynamically bill the amount based on the time spent on a project.
More Cool Features
For your invoices you can choice from a slew of professional looking templates or upload a customized version (which is definitely the preferred route for branding yourself). Sending out an invoice is just a click of a button. When clients are past due they display in red. Once a client has paid, you can add a payment and Billings will produce a receipt and log all the details. And by the details, I mean Billings will produce elegant reports on everything from top clients to overdue invoices.
If you are billing a client for the same amount each month then the reoccurring invoice feature is awesomely convenient. Billings will give you a reminder the day the invoice is set to be send out, and then its one click to send it out.
The Cost
Many of the other popular invoicing options charge on a monthly basis. I’m sure plenty of you reading this are all too aware of how quickly pay per month apps add up. Billings is extremely reasonably priced at $39.99 per user. As far as I’m concerned, a one time license cost is a huge selling point.
Conclusion
Overall, Billings is a fantastic option for affordable, simple and painless invoicing. That being said, I’d be remised if I didn’t mention that their are a ton of other online invoicing apps worth checking out. I’ve tried or heard quality things about Freshbooks, Ronin and The Invoice Machine, just to name a few. It’s always wise to do your homework and try out a few before committing to the first one you try.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. What do you use for invoicing? Have you tried out Billings? What has your experience been?
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CONTRIBUTE
Josh
August 28, 2009
I have used billings for years and found it to be fantastic. It’s simple and it lets you send professional invoices and estimates without really doing much work.
Steven Bradley
August 28, 2009
I’m actually using Billings. I’d be lying if I said I took advantage of all its features, but I do like it for all the reasons you mentioned. I do need to get in there and customize the invoices more and also make better use of the time tracking.
One thing it lacks that most, if not all, invoicing programs seem to lack is a way to charge people. The two seem to go together and I don’t understand why you don’t see the functionality in the same program more often. One thing I did see in the Billings support forum is talk of embedding links directly to PayPal where people could pay. That would be nice. Integration with some other merchants would be even better.
Because of the need to charge credit cards I also use a program I had bought in the past for managing a hosting company called ClientExec. I’d like to switch everything to Billings, but I still need to charge credit cards for some clients. At the moment ClientExec really holds all of my invoicing while I slowly migrate things to Billings.
BebopDesigner
August 28, 2009
This is handy! thanks for the review.
John Gallagher
August 28, 2009
Nice review. Thanks.
Other invoicing systems out there to try include the recently revived Blinksale and the incredible Harvest. On the desktop side of things, there’s also Billable (soon to become Profit Train) and iBiz, not to mention On The Job, which has got some real fans out there.
I find the partner products page at Basecamp a great place for finding out when some really nice web apps have come out.
On a final note, I’m building my own time tracker without timers that will integrate with a lot of these systems, so if anyone’s interested, please visit my site for more info.
.-= John Gallagher´s last blog ..The Tyranny of Mistakes =-.
Gary
August 28, 2009
Billings is great if your whole company is on a Mac, but my company isn’t.
We’ve transitioned to CashBoard, which is a web based invoicing application. It seems to work well and lets us collaborate even when we’re not in the office. You can customize the invoices using html which is a bonus.
http://www.GetCashBoard.com
Andrew Houle
August 28, 2009
@Steven – Good call. That is definitely a feature that I would love to see added.
@John – Thanks for listing all those other apps to check. Lapsus looks like it will be quite the handy app. When do yoy think it will be launched?
@Gary – I forgot to mention in the review that Billings was only for the mac os. Thanks for mentioning that and linking to a good pc alternative.
Joni Geels
August 28, 2009
Thanks for the info everyone. I was wondering if anyone uses a service like this that can also link to your business bank accounts (like Quicken does) so that you have everything you need in one package. I’d appreciate the input!
Esther
August 30, 2009
Thanks for the excellent article. I used it for awhile and then switched to Freshbooks as I found it more convenient, especially with the option to accept payments online. Also I like my billing app to be a web based service because it gives me the added advantage of using it from anywhere I go whether I have my mac or not.
That said, couple of months ago I came across a new competitor for Freshbooks named Curdbee (http://curdbee.com) and gave it try. I really liked the simplicity and the excellent user interface over Freshbooks. I’ve been spending over $25/month on my Freshbooks account and $50/month for basecamp where I manage projects before selecting CurdBee for my invoicing/estimates. With the new combination I am saving almost $20 per month on my billing app. Besides I don’t want to pay for two time tracking applications anymore (I used Basecamp from the beginning for that purpose over Freshbooks).
Luis Lopez
August 30, 2009
Great review, Its been a while I am working with a free app called ORA time and expense and is not that bad you can great options, but i am thinking on a professional and paid app that may be more complete, I could take a try for billing as is not to expensive.
Thanks Andrew
.-= Luis Lopez´s last blog ..500 Custom Greeting Cards Giveaway From Digital Room =-.
John
August 31, 2009
For those looking for something web-based they can use on other platforms, have a look at Intervals. It also happens to work great on the mac using Safari or Firefox.
Anne
September 1, 2009
I keep hearing good things from my customers about their experience using Microsoft Accounting Pro linked to Outlook with Business Contact Manager.
Now that MS Accounting Express is available for free and contains most of the features of Pro it may well be a decent option. The downside is MS Accounting doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as slick as other MS products. The upside is it is a full accounting package which does integrate with other Office apps.
Ben Rama
September 4, 2009
i can’t do invoicing and receipt stuff online has to be on paper in box file old school but it just feels safer and easier
.-= Ben Rama´s last blog ..Weekly freebies : 215 + Professional Photoshop Plugins to enhance your workflow =-.
Denver Commercial Photographer
September 4, 2009
I’m amazed at that price. That’s cool, after having to create an invoice for the first time last week, I’m just starting, this sounds like something I’m going to have to look into getting.
erkasoft
September 7, 2009
price is cool. thanks for tip.
phxwebguy
September 25, 2009
I have tried Freshbooks and an application called Mac Freelance. I tried Billings and I am glad that I did. I have used Billings for a number of months now for several client projects and I absolutely love it’s ease of use, the ability to customize invoices, statements and quotes as well as the reporting. I also like the ability to create custom reports and the quick invoice generation. The built-in timer is awesome and I can’t wait for the iPhone counterpart! Marketcircle has done a wonderful job.
.-= phxwebguy´s last blog ..iPhone Task Management App Review =-.
John Gallagher
October 19, 2009
@Andrew Sorry to have only replied now – only just noticed your comment.
A Beta of Lapsus will be out in Spring 2010. You can check out the promo video at http://lapsusapp.co.uk
Thanks.
.-= John Gallagher´s last blog ..Software as Subtitles =-.
Andrew Thomas
November 20, 2009
Hey All
I have been using the services of http://www.invoicera.com for quite sometime now and they are coming up with the new Invoicera with features like time-tracking, expense tracking, import function, and much more. Check out their blog at http://www.invoicera.com/blog for updates
Cheers!!!
Anne
February 10, 2010
The Billings software could be just what I have been looking for. As Andrew points out, time tracking and invoicing are not the most exciting things to do but need to be done on time and efficiently.
The interface looks really easy to use and could save me a lot of time during my day. I will definitely be downloading the trial version to make sure it is indeed the one for me.
Thanks for the review Andrew.
Adera
May 17, 2010
I am using something much more simple http://www.e-tim.org and its grate for me.