Bonsai Review: Invoicing Software Features, Pricing and Alternatives

As a freelancer, you are often confronted with challenges when it comes to managing and organizing your freelance invoices in one place, and this can be very difficult at times. You will be able to reduce tension and clutter when you keep all of your invoices in one place, you will be able to focus better, and you will be more productive. The question is, what kind of software is best suited for this purpose?

With Bonsai, you can manage all of your receipts in one place and keep track of your invoices in an easy manner. You can create recurring invoices with Bonsai, choose a template that matches your role and send beautiful billing receipts as soon as you’re ready to submit a bill.

Freelancing has flourished for such a long time due to the convenience provided to the workers through the means of which they are able to do their work. Basically, this is due to the fact that all the jobs are computer-related, and the research that needs to be conducted with the use of the internet is also easily done with the use of the internet. There have been a number of software and tools developed in the recent years in order to make freelancers’ lives easier, and they have had a great impact on the freelance industry.

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WHAT IS BONSAI?

Bonsai is an accounting software that is designed specifically to assist freelancers with their accounting needs. There are two pricing plans to choose from with this app, with a simple interface and a convenient app.

Aside from providing a full-text search platform, Bonsai is also a website intelligence tool that can be used by businesses to customize search results based on product preferences and performance. This software is hosted on SSD servers, which means that visitors to the website will be able to access search results as soon as possible. Additionally, Bonsai.io allows your business to embed suggested search results on your website as well as promote search keyword-related products to your visitors. The backend of the application also provides users with access to complete search reports and analytics that can be accessed through the backend of the application. There are several things that businesses can do to enhance their search results experience, including making custom landing pages, reports, and search result suggestions.

BONSAI AT A GLANCE

The Bonsai software package is specifically designed for freelancers, providing them with tools and features to make their lives easier, such as invoicing and tax preparation.
The service offers an all-in-one package at a rather affordable price point that can make it easier for freelancers to automate some of the more tedious aspects of their work.
With only a few clicks, your proposals, contracts, and time tracking will be sorted out in just a few seconds with Bonsai’s intuitive and simple interface.

BONSAI FEATURES

As Bonsai is designed for freelancers, you may not find all of the bells and whistles that you would find with other more advanced software designed for larger businesses, because Bonsai is designed for freelancers. In spite of these drawbacks, Bonsai offers a fair number of features that are suitable for its target audience. Whether you are a freelancer, a self-employed individual, a contractor, or a small business which needs basic invoicing and project management, you will be able to use this tool to manage your gigs, clients, and contracts all in one place whether you are a freelancer, a self-employed individual, a contractor, or a small business.

Main features of Bonsai are:

Ongoing upgrades
Complete user dashboard
Guidelines available
Free consultation
Online blog
Export to Excel
Scalable packages
View custom reports
Bespoke packages available
SSL & secure API
SSD servers
Quick installation
Real-time updates
Live reports
Email support
Ongoing backups

Dashboard: In addition to providing an overview of important statistics and features, the dashboard offers an at-a-glance feeling that doesn’t feel disorganized or cluttered. You will be able to view your project timelines, total income, upcoming tasks and tasks that are overdue, time tracker, and recent activities with ease. On the left-hand side of the screen, you can find all of the features that can be accessed easily. There is an in-software live chat option located in the bottom left corner of the program, and there is also a search feature available at the top of the program to help you easily locate tasks and other information.

Invoices & Estimates: The software makes it easy and quick for you to send invoices to your customers. In Bonsai, there are five free standard templates that can be downloaded for free. If you are a paid subscriber to Bonsai, you will also be able to create, customize, and send invoices through the app. Depending on your company’s needs, you can customize your invoices by adding your logo, adding late fees, allowing partial payments and tipping, linking a timesheet, attaching files, or adding a background image as a background to your invoices. As well as setting up recurring invoices, you can also automate the process.

Proposals: There are six different templates that Bonsai offers for you to use when creating proposals for your clients.
Contracts: With Bonsai, you can create contracts — an ideal solution for freelancers that take on multiple clients. You have the option to use Bonsai’s standard contract template or you can customize your own contract based on your needs.
Client Portal: For subscribers to WorkFlow Plus, there is a branded client portal that can be used to manage projects and download files on the backend.
Contact Management: Bonsai allows you to add information about your clients to the system, such as their name, business name, phone number, email address, project information, forms, and notes.
Expense Tracking: Bonsai Tax offers an add-on service called Bonsai Tax that offers the ability to track expenses for a fee to those who subscribe to the service. The ability to automatically import and categorize expenses from your bank account, credit cards, and debit cards can be purchased for an additional fee.
Project Management: In the form of Bonsai, you can easily and easily manage the projects that you work on, which is perfect for freelancers. With this application, users have the ability to create tasks, track time and expenses, attach contracts and proposals, upload files, and chat with collaborators about the tasks.

Time Tracking: It’s easy to use Bonsai’s time tracking feature, and it’s also included in the Limited plan, so it’s a great option for small businesses. You will however need a paid plan if you have other people working for you who need to track time as well. Adding collaborators to a project will allow them to track time along with you, and there is no charge for adding collaborators to a project. The only downside of this plan is that you have to pay an additional fee every month in order to allow other people to create their own projects and track their time separately.

Reporting: The reporting of profits and losses is available only to paid subscribers who have also added the Bonsai Tax add-on to their subscription.
Budgeting: The Bonsai Tax add-on allows subscribers to create and track budgets and goals as part of their subscription.
Tax Support: Bonsai Tax is a paid add-on that enables subscribers to access features such as automatic deductions from their taxes and tax estimates on a quarterly basis.

Bonsai.io’s main advantages are the speedy search tool, great customer support, and the security of the website. Detailed information about the event can be found here:

In order for Bonsai.io to provide fast results to your site visitors, it is designed on a platform that is deployed on servers that run on solid state drives (SSD). A wide range of packages are available which can be customized according to customers’ needs, complete online support is available, as well as regular server backups to ensure the security of the contents. There is a dashboard that gives you access to reports, listings, and listings history through a simple interface. Moreover, the application assures quick deployment, and on top of that, it doesn’t require any maintenance operations on your part no matter how long you use it for.

Technical Specifications

Devices Supported

iOS
Web-based

Customer types

Small business
Medium business
Enterprise

Support Types

Online

Bonsai Integrations

The following Bonsai integrations are currently offered by the vendor:

Excel

PROS

Good customer support
Easy to use
Strong mobile apps

CONS

Limited features
Limited integrations
Potentially expensive monthly cost

BONSAI PRICING

There are two plans offered by Bonsai, both of which come with a low monthly fee. You can take advantage of Bonsai’s Workflow plan for a free 14-day trial when you create a free account with Bonsai. For the free trial to be activated, you will need a valid credit card in order to sign up. There is no obligation to keep your subscription, and you can cancel it at any time. In case you forget to cancel your trial, you can receive a refund if you contact Bonsai within two weeks of the date of your charge in order to get a refund.

Bonsai Plans	Price	When To Use
Workflow	$19/month	If you want unlimited users, basic accounting tools, and access to mobile apps
Workflow Plus	$29/month	If you have subcontracting needs and want access to priority support

Bonsai Workflow Plan

The Workflow Plan costs $19/month or $192/year and includes:

Contracts
Invoicing
Project management
Client CRM
Task management
Time tracking
Unlimited clients
Unlimited projects
Proposals

Bonsai Workflow Plus

The Workflow Plus is priced at $29/month or $288/year. This plan includes everything from the Workflow plan, plus:

Client portal
Calendly integration
Priority support
Workflow automations
Client questionnaires & forms
Subcontracting

Extra Bonsai Costs & Fees

Besides your subscription fees, there are a few extra costs that you need to be aware of in addition to your monthly or annual subscription fees. These include, but are not limited to:

Additional Users: There is no charge for adding collaborators who have limited access to the system. Nevertheless, you can add users with full access to your account for $9 per month, if you wish to do so.
Bonsai Tax: With Bonsai Tax, you can keep track of expenses, identify write-offs, and estimate your quarterly taxes in one place. For an additional $10 per month, this service is available to you.

Bonsai Extra Costs	Price
Partners (give other others account access)	$9/month
Bonsai Tax	$10/month

Bonsai Alternatives

PandaDoc

With PandaDoc, you will be able to create, manage, and eSign all of your documents with an ease of use that more than 40,000 customers already know and love. It is our goal to provide our clients with a digitized and centralized workflow platform that minimizes inefficiencies in the workflow, which can lead to an overall increase in productivity.

Compared to Bonsai, It is:

Slower to reach roi
More expensive
Better at meeting requirements

GetAccept

The GetAccept platform is an all-in-one solution for e-signature, contract management, proposal creation, sales collateral management, document tracking, and prospecting for companies and organizations. The tool is widely used by sales, HR, customer success, and product development teams; among the popular features are personal video messaging, live chat, and analytics.

Compared to Bonsai, It is:

Slower to reach roi
More expensive
Easier to do business with

Proposify

With Proposify, you will be able to control your sales process completely and have full visibility into it during the most crucial part of the process, the proposal stage. Bringing things to a close. You’ll be able to dominate deals from start to finish, with the confidence and flexibility you need. Maintain a consistent and error-free sales process by creating impressive sales documents.

Compare to Bonsai, It is:

More expensive
Easier to do business with
Better at support

Qwilr

It is possible to save time and win more work by replacing your sales documents with interactive & mobile-friendly webpages that plug into your systems and are easier to build and reuse than your sales documents.

Compared to Bonsai, It is:

More expensive
Easier to do business with

DealHub.io

The DealHub award-winning Sales Engagement and CPQ platform lets you share relevant content, create error-free quotes in a matter of seconds, track buyer engagement, automate sales workflows, and even automate customer approvals for your sales leads. Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are both fully integrated with DealHub.

Compared to Bonsao, It is:

Slower to reach roi
Better at support
Easier to do business with

Bonsai FAQs

Is bonsai a good product?

Overall, Bonsai has racked up a number of positive reviews from its users. It features multiple positive testimonials on its website, and it also has earned a rating of 4.6/5 (based on 11 reviews) on G2. Users most like: Ease Of Use: The ease of use of creating proposals and contracts through Bonsai was mentioned by several users.

What freelancer resources does bonsai offer?

Freelancer Resources: Bonsai has numerous calculators, guides, eBooks, and user insights geared toward freelancers. Blog: Bonsai has a blog that features a number of articles geared toward freelancers on topics such as writing contracts, taxes, and freelancer tools. Social Media: Bonsai has profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

What is Hello bonsai?

Is a tool (tool or suite of tools) whose purpose is to help you run your freelance business more efficiently. With that intro, let’s dive into the full Hello Bonsai feature review. From what I can see, Hello Bonsai started by first offering primarily two tools: Contracts and Payments.

Does bonsai have a time tracking feature?

Time Tracking: Bonsai’s time tracking feature is easy to use, and it’s even available on the Limited plan. However, if you have other people working that need to track time, a paid plan is required. Collaborators can track time on projects you add them to, and there is no cost to add collaborators.

What is Microsoft Project bonsai?

Microsoft Project Bonsai is a low-code AI platform that speeds AI-powered automation development and part of the Autonomous Systems suite from Microsoft. Use Bonsai to build AI components that can provide operator guidance or make independent decisions to optimize process variables, improve production efficiency, and reduce downtime.

What is bonsai and how can you use it?

Use Bonsai to build AI components that can provide operator guidance or make independent decisions to optimize process variables, improve production efficiency, and reduce downtime. The intuitive interface lets users create AI with their knowledge and experience without requiring additional resources.

Do I need any programming experience to use bonsai?

No programming experience required. Bonsai is a visual programming language that allows you to rapidly prototype custom workflows for processing data streams. A Bonsai workflow begins with a Source, such as a video camera, a microphone, a digital acquisition board, or a stored data file such as a photo or movie (C and K in diagram).

What is a bonsai workflow?

A Bonsai workflow begins with a Source, such as a video camera, a microphone, a digital acquisition board, or a stored data file such as a photo or movie (C and K in diagram). Transform nodes (T) let you process incoming data into a new form.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Bonsai doesn’t have a ton of advanced features, the feature set that it does offer to freelancers is pretty solid. I really like the way the UI is organized and all of the features are easy to use, even for beginners. It is easy to learn how to use the software, and there are numerous resources to help you get the most out of it, along with knowledgeable and responsive customer service.

Although there are some upsides to this method, there are also some downsides. In the event that a business requires accounting features or if it is a larger business, it will need to find other software to meet its needs. For $19/month, you can take advantage of most of the features of the Workflow plan and is suitable for you if you oversee the projects and only collaborate with a small number of people. There is no doubt that upgrades and add-ons for businesses with multiple users can quickly add up, which is why you may want to shop around and compare prices before making your decision.

The freelancers that use the software have very positive reviews, so it’s certainly worth giving a shot. Give it a try with the 14-day free trial or sign up without a credit card to give Bonsai a free test drive.