If you are looking for the best free open source billing software, then you will love to use open source invoice software. It is user friendly and easy to set up. These invoice software are best suited for small scale business or freelancer. With the help of these applications, you can save time and money.
In this article, we have carefully analyzed and categorized the best billing softwares suitable for your small business.
InvoicePlane:
InvoicePlane is one of the excellent free and open-source invoicing applications. It is the successor of the formerly open source project FusionInvoice. The first official version 1.0.0 of InvoicePlane came on July 12, 2014, and the software was downloaded more than 100.000 times from 196 different countries till January 2017. It is web-based software, written in PHP and works on Apache server or ‘nginx.’ It supports MySQL or MariaDB DBMS and can work on any modern and updated web browser.
(Source: InvoicePlane)
Features:
- InvoicePlane is a self-hosted open source application and can translate into 23 languages.
- One can customize amount formats, application interface, and email & PDF templates as per their needs.
- This application provides CRM-style management for the clients. Users can also add their contact details, notes and custom fields for project identifiers.
- The software can easily create new invoices with some simple clicks like entering saved products, save tax-rates and then send the invoice through the mail to the customer within the app.
- The software lets the users keep track of their clients balance by linking all payments to an invoice involving different payment methods.
- Users can register their merchant account at PayPal with entering their credentials and InvoicePlane will readily forward easy and one-click payments through PayPal to their clients.
BoxBilling:
BoxBilling is a 100% open-source and free billing & client management platform. It is powered by Intuitive Web 2.0 AJAX interface with 100% usability score. The initial release year of the software was 2011. It supports automated billing, invoicing, and product provisioning. It operates on Linux OS, written in PHP, supports database MySQL with latest Version 4.20.
(Source: BoxBilling)
Features:
- Experts always recommend installing BoxBilling on VPS server with APC cache enabled for security reasons and best performance.
- The software automatically creates the hosting accounts when the payment is received.
- It accepts multiple currencies for a transaction and one/or multiple time payments.
- BoxBilling software is perfect for selling shared and reseller hosting accounts, downloadable products, software licenses or any recurrent billing product.
- It facilitates help through the helpdesk system, news, knowledge base, and announcement systems.
BambooInvoice:
BambooInvoice is one of the best free and open-source software for small entrepreneurs and independent contractors. It is built on AJAX framework, using PHP 7.x and needs a database; MySQL and MySQLi 5+ and databases MSSQL, Postgre, OCI8, SQLite, and ODBC. It works with all modern and standard compliant web browsers.
(Source: BambooInvoice)
Features:
- BambooInvoice is easy to use and actively used software program among the users.
- It is build using modern coding standards.
- It stands on one of the excellent web frameworks, i.e., CodeIgniter.
- It is available in more than 11 languages with more languages are being added continuously to the list.
- It holds MIT licensing.
jBilling:
World’s leading open source billing solution – jBilling produces more than 10 million monthly invoices to its clients. The software is deployable on the cloud platform on-premises basis. It evolved in 2002. It supports English language and works on Windows, web app platforms and for Small to Medium level enterprises and agencies.
(Source: jBilling)
Features:
- jBilling is an Enterprise-grade open source billing system that comes with a scalable design.
- It facilitates deep configurability, integration API and plug-in expansions.
- It facilitates customized invoice presentation, accurate invoicing and flexible invoice delivery.
- It provides payment gateway plug-ins, credit control, and automated payment processing facility.
- It assures internationalized language support, tailored invoicing and flexible currency options.
CitrusDB:
CitrusDB is a well-known open-source billing and customer service software. It operates on Linux/Unix, Amazon Linux 2018.03.0. It requires PHP 5.2 and recommends MySQL 5 or later. It holds the GPL version 2 license. Many different service providers including consulting, internet service, subscriptions, and telecommunications use this software program.
(Source: CitrusDB)
Features:
- CitrusDB facilitates custom billing cycles for each product.
- It supports sending email invoices and allows the users to send prepayment reminders.
- It lets the users import/export credit card batches.
- The software also handles service records and account management.
- It also provides services like searching old bills, printing the required billing statement, adding multiple users and an admin user for controlling the working of the platform.
LogicInvoice:
LogicInvoice is known as a powerful, user-friendly and feature-rich invoicing and billing software. It is an open-source software solution that is free to download under GNU General Public License Version 3. It works on PHP 5.3 version and MySQL Database.
(Source: LogicInvoice)
Features:
- LogicInvoice creates journal entries and manages users’ accounts.
- It keeps track of bills and invoices that need to be cleared by the customers.
- It automatically generates recurring invoices for the customers.
- It provides necessary reports for accounts, invoices and recurring payments.
- It is a multi-language and multi-currency based system.
- It offers customized email notifications to the users as well as their customers.
- This system also supports integrated payment gateways.
Siwapp:
Siwapp is free open-source invoicing software that helps the users in managing and creating invoices simply and efficiently. It supports PHP 5.2 or higher and MySQL database server 5.0 or higher. It runs on UNIX/Linux, Windows XP or later and is an online invoicing software program that facilitates automatic invoices generation on the periodic basis and rectification invoices management.
(Source: Siwapp)
Features:
- Siwapp is a flexible software that manages invoices with different serial numbers.
- It saves the draft of the bills and invoices, and one can continue editing them later.
- Users can obtain the printable PDF version of their invoices.
- One can manage customers and invoices programmatically directly from the application.
- One can create, search and list invoices on the dashboard in a slap-up style.
We have taken one more Billing Software for discussion-ZohoBooks. Zoho Books outstands all if we are talking about the commercial billing and invoicing tools. Let us see what it holds for its users that makes it extremely popular in the world of e-invoicing.
It is a premier online accounting, billing and invoicing software solution that is GST compliant, automates business workflows, and aids in collective working across all departments in an organization. It has powered thousands of businesses with its out-of-the-box integrations. The best thing is that the Zoho Books mobile app lets you easily manage your finances wherever you go.
(Source: Zoho Books)
Features:
- Zoho Books is a cloud-hosted software, available in English language and supports Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone/iPad, and web-based platforms.
- The software belongs to the Zoho productivity suite and takes care of all requirements of the users related to accounting and invoicing.
- It automates bank feeds, payment reminders, helps engage customers, and sends and tracks invoices.
- It is well integrated with robust and restful APIs to be exposed to third-party systems.
- It is fully responsive and mobile-ready tool.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Opensource Billing
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
jBilling
jBilling is a cross-platform billing and invoicing management system which built using Java, Grails and PostgreSQL.
As other solutions on this list jBiling focuses on invoicing, bills and payment management.
It runs on Windows, Linux and macOS.
Conclusion
For entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers and startups who wish they could cut costs by reducing monthly payment or subscription services fees for their most common expenses, most often the solution is …..to just keep it simple….with free open source billing software. Simple open source invoicing systems are nothing new. There are many scripts available to try. I think it’s good to be familiar with most of them because each one offers a certain package of functionality that may complement your business needs. Never limit yourself to just one system! The easiest way to know which one you might need is by making a list of your requirements and then go through the list and check which billing script has those functionalities. This will save you time from installing 9 different billing