Freshbooks Accounting Software in the startup or small business office

Starting a new business or managing a small but growing team can be challenging, especially when it comes to accounting. Many startups and small offices operate without a dedicated accounting role, relying instead on the business owners or team members to manage finances. This is where FreshBooks comes into play. FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software designed specifically for small businesses and startups, offering a range of features to simplify financial management. This article explores how FreshBooks can benefit startups and multi-person offices, highlighting its best applications and presenting a balanced view of its pros and cons.
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In this Article

FreshBooks Overview

FreshBooks is an intuitive accounting software that caters primarily to small businesses, freelancers, and startups. It offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies the often complex tasks associated with accounting. FreshBooks provides solutions for invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, project management, and financial reporting. Its cloud-based nature ensures that users can access their financial data from anywhere, making it ideal for remote teams and businesses with flexible work arrangements.

Best Applications for Startups

Invoicing and Payments: FreshBooks excels in its invoicing capabilities. Startups can create professional-looking invoices quickly and easily, which can be customized with logos and personalized messages. The software also supports recurring invoices for ongoing projects or subscription-based services. Furthermore, FreshBooks integrates with various payment gateways, allowing clients to pay invoices online, thus speeding up the payment process and improving cash flow.
Expense Tracking: For startups, keeping track of expenses is crucial. FreshBooks offers a robust expense tracking feature where users can snap photos of receipts with their mobile devices and upload them directly to the software. This functionality ensures that all expenses are logged accurately and can be categorized for easy reference and tax preparation.
Time Tracking: Time tracking is essential for service-based businesses and startups that bill clients based on hours worked. FreshBooks includes a time tracking tool that allows users to log hours spent on different projects. This feature can be directly linked to invoicing, making it simple to bill clients for the exact time spent on their projects.
Project Management: Managing projects can be a daunting task, especially in a multi-person office without a dedicated project manager. FreshBooks helps streamline project management by allowing users to create projects, assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor progress. The integrated time tracking ensures that all billable hours are captured, and team collaboration is enhanced through shared access to project details.
Financial Reporting: Understanding financial health is vital for any business. FreshBooks generates a variety of financial reports, such as profit and loss statements, expense reports, and tax summaries. These reports provide valuable insights into the business’s performance and can assist in making informed financial decisions.

Best Applications for Multi-Person Offices

Collaborative Access: In a multi-person office, it is essential that all relevant team members have access to financial information. FreshBooks allows multiple users to access the system with different levels of permission. This ensures that while some team members can view financial reports, others can manage invoicing or track expenses, depending on their roles.
Automated Workflows: FreshBooks supports automation of routine tasks, such as sending invoice reminders, late payment notices, and recurring billing. This automation reduces the administrative burden on team members, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks that can drive business growth.
Mobile Accessibility: For teams on the go, FreshBooks’ mobile app provides full access to the software’s features. Team members can track time, manage expenses, send invoices, and review reports from their smartphones or tablets. This mobility ensures that accounting tasks are not delayed, even when team members are out of the office.
Integration with Other Tools: FreshBooks integrates with various third-party applications that are commonly used in multi-person offices, such as CRM systems, project management tools, and e-commerce platforms. These integrations streamline workflows and ensure that all business operations are synchronized.

Pros and Cons of FreshBooks

Pros:

User-Friendly Interface: FreshBooks is designed with simplicity in mind, making it accessible even for those without accounting expertise.
Cloud-Based Access: Being cloud-based, FreshBooks offers the flexibility to access data from anywhere, which is perfect for remote teams.
Comprehensive Features: It provides a wide range of features tailored to the needs of small businesses and startups.
Strong Customer Support: FreshBooks is known for its responsive customer support, which is crucial for businesses without a dedicated accounting role.
Scalability: The software can grow with your business, offering more advanced features as your needs evolve.

Cons:

Cost: While FreshBooks offers a free trial, its subscription plans can be relatively expensive for very small businesses or startups with tight budgets.
Limited Customization: Some users might find the customization options for invoices and reports somewhat limited compared to other accounting software.
Learning Curve for Advanced Features: Although the basic features are easy to use, some of the more advanced functionalities might require a bit more time to learn.
Limited Inventory Management: FreshBooks is not ideal for businesses that require detailed inventory management.
No Payroll Integration: FreshBooks lacks integrated payroll processing, which means businesses need to use separate software for payroll.

Conclusion

FreshBooks is a powerful tool for startups and multi-person offices without a dedicated accounting role. Its user-friendly design, comprehensive features, and cloud-based accessibility make it a standout choice for managing finances efficiently. While it has some limitations, particularly in cost and customization, its benefits often outweigh the drawbacks for many small businesses. By leveraging FreshBooks, startups can ensure that their accounting processes are streamlined, allowing them to focus on growth and success.

Tutorial on How to use Freshbooks

Fresh Books walk through how to use fresh books, or beginners. Hey guys, welcome in this video I’m gonna show you how to use fresh books for accounting, invoices payment reporting and much more. So let’s go in. First of all what you guys need to do is you’re gonna actually go to freshbooks.com and you will land right here. This is the website right here. FreshBooks is a software for accounting and bookkeeping here we have different features we will be getting invoicing. Then we have expenses, time tracking projects, payments, reporting, accounting and mobile app as well. So you can actually get started for free on FreshBooks. So you’re gonna hit try for free and create your own account. Creating an account is really easy. You can use your email address, and you can sign up with your Apple ID or your Google account. I’m going to log into my FreshBooks so after the initial sign up or sign into your FreshBooks This is where you will get you can see this is my dashboard on fresh books on FreshBooks. You will have your own account and then we have our main dashboard. This is the outline of the dashboard. You can see we have our overview for our profits and we have some of the streams here. Then we have our clients. So this is where I will create different clients on my accounting software I will be able to add different customers. Then we have invoices, payments, expenses estimate. We also have time tracking projects in my team. So here I’ll be able to see my band that I have selected and our bottom here we have reports and accounting again. So the first thing that I’m going to do is I’m going to go to the client section here and add a client. So we can add a new client with a list or we can add it manually. So in order to add a new client on FreshBooks you have to enter their first name, last name, company name, enter their email address and phone number. So I’m gonna repeat you know, enter everything here. So once this information is added we can also add a business phone number we can add the mobile phone number and a address as well. Then we have some of the client settings that we can do we can send reminders we have very late fee that have currency and language and then we have invoice attachments. I will be able to add different attachments to my client right here, different reminders and also change their currency and language so that I can keep track of a difference.

So I’m going to click on save and my new client will be added right here in my client section. So now we can see we have a new client per file. And here I’ll be able to see everything about this context. So once the client is created, we can now create invoices payments and more. So let’s go into the invoice option. Using Fresh Books is actually really easy to see once you go to invoices. Now you will get the new invoice option right here at the top. Click on new invoice. So let’s create a new invoice. First, drag your logo here and select a file so if you want to go for a logo, you can actually do that and then throw it right here. And then we have built to so here I will add the client. I’m going to click on Add declined and it will open up my client list for me this is the kind that we just created. So to enter this client here, now we have date of issue and due date. So I’m going to change the due date right here as we did which was going to be zero. So added number of days. What I’m gonna do is I’m going to add like three days here, click on enter or we can also add a specific date. Let’s say I want them to pay this by 27th or 28th. So I’m just going to enter the date here. So the due date will be added this is going to be the invoice number and then we have the amount. So for an amount we actually have to go to description here and enter an item first. So to enter an item you’re going to enter the name for instance, I have some owning sessions. So this is my you know item, enter here. And then the rate is going to be for instance for each session, we charge less the $60 then we can add a test here as well or we can leave it and then we have to enter the quantity they actually bought two of these. So I’m going to enter the amount here, which is going to be two so we have like one $20 for them. Or I can actually add more and more into every instance I can add another line and this time I’m going to add another item which is going to be another session they had. So I’m going to click on enter and it will be added the rate for this one is actually 100 and about three of these. So this is going to be their total invoice for $20. So they have to pay. So now what will happen is it’s actually the other currency here, but I’m just giving you an example. So here we have again, the different reminders that we can send them so I can actually send them a reminder here automatically send payment reminders for this client invoice so we can actually do this so that we don’t have to remind them manually. An automatic reminder will be sent to them. And then we have accept only payments so this is actually really good that we FreshBooks I accept online payments by connecting stripe. I can also then I will be able to accept credit cards Visa card and we have Apple Pay and more. We can also get a direct debit card. So this is how we can connect these payment methods. And then we have make recurring so if you want to create recurring invoices then you can get the option right here within your invoice option. And then we have invoice attachments if you want to attach any file, then you can add right here, add the option to attach a file so you can just enable this option and then upload the file that you want to add this is how it looks like you can see we have a new invoice and then click on save and the invoice will be saved on our fresh books and I can click on Send to and it will be sent to the client offer which I created. And now if I scroll down you can see we have a new invoice here. Then we have our payments. So in our payments again I can connect different payments here you can see all invoice payments, click on this plus button, add an invoice here and add the payment so here you will be able to keep track of all the different payments that you’re doing the queue different invoices and different payment methods to then we have expenses so here I will be able to track my budget of my business that I have. So click on new experts. So here I’ll create a new expense now. First we need to create a category for instance, we have repairs, we have contracts, we have employee benefits, meals, entertainment and office expenses and more. So what I’m doing is my main expense is the shipping and Courier so that’s what I’m gonna do, when to enter it right here and then we’re gonna add a merchant because I selected shipping and couriers and I will have to add emergent here and add a description. Then we can also drag a receipt image here. The Luca fresh book is actually really cool and romantic because we get these you know pins and we have these cards so that it gives us the look of that we’re doing work on paper. So here we have grand total it’ll show me the grand total for my expenses and again, I can assign this to a client or a team member and then we have make recurring and currency. So within fresh book we can actually add currency for each expenses separately and for each client separately is normally just if you have USB and then you will have to do them USD for all the guys you can change currency for each client. So now I’m just going to click on save and my new expense will be created right here. So now you can see we have an expense, an expense you also have builds and renders here. Then we have estimates. So estimate is the estimates and proposal here professional estimates and proposals of the streamline your invoices. So let’s create a estimate or a proposal so we’re going to click on Create new, we can estimate this the services you will provide and their costs and proposals. So let’s go to estimates. This is where we can actually create different items and then add them to our invoices. So for instance, I can add a client I’m gonna add the same client here and I will create different types of you know, so I will create different types of estimates here. I will add different items and then we’ll have an idea to decide the estimate price and cost for this client is going to be this and how it will work. So that’s how we can add a snack just click on save and it will be added. And then we have time tracking Now it’s really important when it comes to an accounting software. We actually have a billable hours. So if you’re dealing with a business where you have to generate invoices according to billable hours, then what you will do is you will track your time here for instance, I’m going to add a new entry. We have a project going on. So we have a project for this one right here. And then we can add a service for instance there is a person doing something for me. Let’s say there are a actually a freelancer working from home. And now what I will do is I will track your time here in hours, for instance for they’re going to work for two hours, and I’m going to click on done and then this is going to be a billable hour that will be created with for them and this way I will be able to generate different invoices according to billable hours and I will be able to then send them and pay them then we have projects so if you want to create more projects and let them manage them better then you can create a different projects with different clients into different projects and work on them to collaborate better and then we at the end we have my team in my team member on fresh book by clicking in right in here. You can invite a an admin manager, employee, contractor or accountant and just enter their email address. For instance, I want to invite the manager under their first name, email address, sent an invitation to them and they will join you on for your fresh books. So yeah, guys, this is how you use fresh books. It was a walkthrough for you guys. I showed you all the different features that we are getting that I was reaching out to you guys. Don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up leave a comment down below. Turn on notification and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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