Do you know that Invoicing Software is not just a design or a drawing? It is a strategy. It tracks the prices of purchase orders and it has immediate access to human resources. Put simply, Invoicing Software is a transaction record software. It keeps a record for the invoices and items purchased with complete details of customers and actual providers. The outcome of this program is that it facilitates online transactions in finance department of an organization which helps accurately track whether all discounts were given or not.
Billing and Invoicing Software
Invoicing orders for payments and clients process account payables accordingly. A dedicated system that functions at the back-end is a billing and invoicing software that shortens the invoicing time and proceeds faster payments.
This software sends out the invoices in the e-mail or through the cloud-based model. It makes the users track payments, calculate fees, send official-invoices and give online payment options to the clients. It offers strategic and operational benefits to the users like suppliers, shop owners, etc. In addition to being a cost-saving method, the ability to automate the invoicing and billing process and further integrating it with other business functions leads to better efficiency and revenue generation.
It is a surprising fact that sending a paper-based invoice is 57% costlier than electronic invoicing and receiving it is even 60% more expensive than receiving an e-bill. So, the paper, ink, and pens are better to use where they are needed best!
Bills and Receipts Years Back!
The handwritten paper invoices were in huge prevalence earlier and they were the only source to keep the documentation of the deal. However, it went challenging to manage and maintain, especially for the organizations engaged in multiple businesses and hundreds of transactions in a day. Just check out an example of how the old-school bills looked.
How the E-Invoices look now?
The new age invoices are well-documented and professional-looking e-receipts. They are electronically generated. Hence, the chances of errors are comparatively less. They are easily maintainable and can be stored safely on your computer, laptop or mobile. Just check out how an e-invoice looks with a sample given below.
Recent research forecasts a significant growth of Global E-Invoicing Market at a (CAGR) of 18.91%, i.e., the Compound Annual Growth Rate during the period 2018-2022. The amateur and professional computer coders from the open source community are contributing significantly to this ratio with everyday introducing new and promising free invoicing software solutions for small businesses. Hence, the Small to Medium level market players can now take total advantage of these cost-effective and time-saving solutions.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in a vast majority confirm a 9% increase in on-time payments when using e-invoicing. They call it a more comfortable and safer option to deal with their verified vendors and suppliers online. These researches also depict that an average buyer spends $15.02 and 12 days to process one invoice which is far lesser than the outcome of the traditional invoicing options.
Types of Billing and Invoicing Software
The market comprises a wide variety of billing and invoicing tools. Some are just basic suites or programs, whereas others are advanced and come with a substantial price factor. Their features may also differ. For example, some programs take online record of their customer’s details, whereas others come with robust features and they allow the businesses to setup currencies, to use predefined communication templates and even perform some custom branding. Deployment can also be considered an essential factor behind them. Here are the types of different Billing & Invoicing Software solutions that will help you understand them better and choose the best one to use.
- On-premise billing & invoicing software: They cover a single license and host on the local server of the client. They are most expensive among all as they need a complicated setup and some hardware installation, occasionally.
- Software-as-a-service (SaaS) billing & invoicing software: Usually these software programs are paid per month and are hosted on the server of the vendor. The vendor remains responsible for the installation, upgrading, and maintenance of the software.
- Cloud-hosted billing & invoicing systems: Most of these software programs offer free basic plans. They are the most affordable plans with universal access to all types of buyers who do not need to update them or pay for their maintenance.
- Open Source billing software is another category that comes with its source code made available to the users under a specific license. One can use them or disseminate them at any point. The source code is open to use as well as modified as per the requirements.
Key Features of Billing and Invoicing Software
- Creating professional and customized invoices.
- Creating customer records including personal and purchase details of the customers.
- Predefined communication templates for more personalized accounting.
- Currency setting for seamlessly connecting the billing & invoicing system with the rest of the software architecture.
- Accept PayPal or credit card for time-saving and securing customer management requirements.
- Import/export customers including sending quotes to them using a centralized database.
- No external system needed for invoicing, payment, and tax reporting.
Benefits of Billing and Invoicing Software
Additional to managing all invoice-related jobs, the best billing software should provide certain benefits to their users. Let us explore them all.
- Minimizes late payments: Selection of best open source billing and invoicing software streamlines the entire process and allows the users to receive payments on time. They also keep their data and schedule organized.
- Minimizes missed payments: Billing and invoicing software monitors and tracks billing commitments so that one receives all the payments timely.
- Maintains a professional image: A billing and invoicing software program helps in improving the reputation of a business in the market. Most software systems also have the feature of supporting customized logos and other design improvements to invoices and payment documents.
Open-source invoicing and billing solutions
1- InvoicePlane
InvoicePlane is a free self-hosted open-source invoicing and billing software for companies and freelancers. It is built with PHP works seamlessly with LAMP stack.
The system helps companies to manage quotes, invoices, payments, clients and offers integration with 25 online payment service. It comes with a simple user-interface with multi user-interface support.
2- Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja is another self-hosted invoice management system for small and medium size businesses (SMB) and the enterprise. It is also built with PHP and uses several NPM packages.
In addition to invoice management, Invoice Ninja features deposits, partial management, remainders, auto payment, alerting, real-time PDF creation, tax settings, multi-languages and multiple currencies support.
Invoice Ninja has pro and enterprise editions which both contain several features not found in the community edition.
3- Carter
Carter is a free self-hosted mobile-ready invoicing and billing management system built with Laravel PHP framework and Vue JavaScript framework. It allows companies to manage their expanses, invoices, payments and inventory.
Carter has a simple install wizard, modular structure with several active modules, supports multiple companies, and languages.
It accepts payments through with a seamless Stripe integration.
4- InvoiceLion
InvoiceLion is a free self-hosted invoice and payment manager for small companies. It is built from the ground using PHP7 and MariaDB (MySQL) as a database.
With its responsive design, InvoiceLion works smoothly on mobile and tablet screens.
InvoiceLion features a smart dashboard, integrated time tracking, a recurring invoice management and customizable invoices templates.
5- SolidInvoice
SolidInvoice is yet another free self-hosted invoice and payments manager. It has a rich dashboard with shortcuts access to all features and functionalities.
SolidInvoice helps managers to keep track of their payments, bills, contacts, clients and quotes. It also offers a RESTful-API and several notification methods.
6- Opensource Billing
7- Logic Invoice
Logic Invoice is designed as an invoice and payment manager. It can be configured to support multiple languages, multi-currency, simple CMS, and several email templates.
Its basic features include customers and contact manager, reporting, payment management and recurring payment manager.
8- Killbill
The name may refer to the famous Kill bill movies, but it is not certainly not going to kill you bills but manages them.
Kill Bill manages customers, bills, invoices, payments and subscription with support of external third-party payment methods. It features custom fields, timeline view, auditing and bill tagging.
The system is built with Ruby and requires several ruby gems
Conclusion
Invoice is one of the most important document for business. Businesses need to send invoices with the relevant invoice numbers for their customers to be able to identify their payments. Invoicing software is designed to help with this process. It is able to print out correct invoices that are attractive, templates, along with printing several copies if needed. Invoicing software also allows users to send emails receipts easily with just a click of a button. Â Invoice software is essential tool for any business, big or small