Small businesses have a common problem: getting paid. In fact, some small business owners complain that collecting on past-due invoices is almost more work than collecting revenue. This article helps you to resolve this problem by introducing some of the best invoice software for small businesses and free invoicing software for small businesses. These products can help you get paid faster while keeping a tight rein over your cash flow.
Billing software for small businesses can be incredibly useful in maintaining your company’s cash flow. If you are like most small business owners, time is of the essence and invoice software can help alleviate stress by managing billing in one convenient location. There are many different types of invoice template, but if you are looking for pricing software for small businesses, you will want to start with the invoicing software free.
Zoho Invoice
Price: Free for businesses with up to five customers and one user, $9 per month for up to 50 customers and one user, $19 per month for up to 500 customers and three users, and $29 per month for unlimited customers and 10 users.
Pros:
- Users can create estimates, log expenses and track task hours and staff hours. All three types of information can be converted into or added to invoices.
- Clients can access a password-protected portal where they can see their estimates, payment history and receipts.
- The free version is robust. The only features it lacks compared with other versions are Twilio integration and the creation of a custom domain.
Cons:
- Zoho Invoice integrates with other software programs via Zapier, but offers native integrations with Zoho Books, Zoho CRM and other Zoho apps. If your business uses accounting and CRM software, it may be easier to use the whole Zoho suite.
Why we like it: Zoho Invoice is comprehensive yet feels easy to use. You can keep track of hours or tasks on a variety of projects in an app or browser. When work is complete, you can send highly customizable invoices to customers, along with automated email reminders when payments are overdue. And Zoho Invoice’s pricing structure means that small businesses can take advantage of almost all of its features, even if they’re using the free or lowest-cost versions.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is free invoicing software that helps you build and send invoices online and get paid faster. FreshBooks lets you know when clients view your invoices, track overdue invoices, auto-schedule payments, charge late payment fees on invoices, and more. You can even customize invoices to impress your clients-choose an invoice template, add your company logo, and modify colors and fonts. What’s interesting about this tool is that it lets you send invoices in your client’s preferred language!
Due
Due’s cloud-based invoicing and digital wallet integrates with Basecamp project management software, QuickBooks and PayPal. It’s completely free to set up and remains free forever. Due offers an incredibly easy way for clients to pay you. You can even embed invoices in your website, allowing clients to pay online. The software and services are completely free except for a 2.7% pay-as-you-go charge on credit-card transactions. (Editor’s note: Due is a content partner of Entrepreneur Media.)
PayPal
PayPal has been around for more than 20 years and is one of the biggest names in online payment processing. In addition to the benefits of PayPal’s name recognition and credibility, it also has the best free mobile app for invoicing.
The PayPal Business app allows you to create and send invoices, review account activity, and issue refunds on the go. Despite the name of the app, you don’t actually need a special business account—logging in with your usual PayPal credentials works just fine.
Once logged in, you’ll see a dedicated tab just for invoicing, where you can create a new invoice and view paid and unpaid invoices. Creating a new one takes a few seconds, with PayPal pulling in the contact information of your recent “customers” (people who you have paid recently). The editor is also strategically reconfigured for mobile, with big buttons and easy data entry. You can create a basic invoice with just a few line items or create something more advanced that allows tips, partial payments, or for photos to be included. The entire experience is quick and intuitive.
Customers will receive the invoice through their PayPal account, where they can pay via credit card, debit card, or PayPal balance. The funds will then be deposited into your PayPal account, where you can transfer the balance—subject to certain limits—to your debit card or bank account.
You can automate PayPal with PayPal’s Zapier integrations, allowing you to do things like logging new PayPal sales in a spreadsheet or subscribing new PayPal customers to your email marketing list.
Wave
Wave is the best free invoice software for all-in-one invoicing for small businesses. This invoice software allows you to keep track of your payments, bills, and expenses. You can design a professional invoice template to give your business an edge. With Wave, you can create and send invoices to customers in just seconds, set up recurring billing for repeat customers, accept payments online, view customer transaction history, get cash flow insights, and more!
Sighted
The newest and brightest invoicing company out there, Sighted offers easy invoicing, integrated global payments, expense recording, CSV Excel downloading of all of your data and more, all using top-of-the-line security. The starter plan is free forever, and offers 20 invoices and quotes a month for a single user and 10 clients.
Square
If you want to synchronize your online and in-person payments, Square is your best option. Not only does it come with eCommerce capabilities for your online sales, but it also offers quality point-of-sale hardware that lets you accept payments in person (whether in your store or on your phone while at a customer’s house or business) or post-sale payments from an invoice. For invoicing specifically, you can choose to use the standard Square point-of-sale app or the Square Invoices app.
To speed up the invoice creation process, Square lets you build an item library of your products and services. Once an item is in your library, you can add it to any invoice. This helps to standardize the naming convention and price of each item that you bill for.
Square also lets you create recurring invoices, schedule invoices to be sent at a later date, and schedule automatic payment reminders. And within your account settings, you’ll find a few options for customizing your invoice: add a logo, select a color, choose whether or not to display your address, and add custom text or a return policy to every invoice you send.
You can streamline your processes even more by automatingSquare with Square’s Zapier integrations. Add new Square customers to your email list, post sales to a Slack channel, and more.
Square price: Free for point-of-sale payment processing and invoicing
Square payment processing fees: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for credit/debit card payments made on invoices. 3.5% + $0.15 if processed using Card on File.
Nutcache
Perfect for small businesses, Nutcache is invoicing and project tracking software combined. You can create, customize, and monitor unlimited invoices, invoice your project, track delayed payments, and get paid faster. If you have a recurring invoice, simply automate it to get paid on time. Their free plan includes a maximum of 20 users and 1 GB of storage.
Handdy
Small businesses will love Handdy for its “pay me now” feature, which sends automatic reminder emails to clients if their payment is nearly due or is overdue. The free trial is for one user, but it’s free forever for an unlimited amount of invoices. The only downside is that the free version comes with Handdy’s logo in addition to your own on the invoices.
Conclusion:
In fact, if you have a small business you will certainly want to be aware of the latest software trends. The smallest businesses can use an invoice software because there are always expenses that must be tracked and invoices that need to be created. There are a lot of products out there that claim to be great products for tracking expenses and creating invoices.