Tel: 07737089487
Invoice management for freelancers
Posted by: Rob Lavender on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
There's plenty of open source and commercial finance tools and services that you can use. Most of them of overly complicated to use or are too expensive for the casual freelancer to warrant paying for. If you're looking for a decent straight forward invoicing management service then here's a couple of applications that I would recommend you check out.
Bamboo Invoice
Requirements: PHP5+, MySQL 4.1+,
PHP Compatibility: All Major Browsers
Website: http://bambooinvoice.org/
Demo: http://www.bambooinvoice.org/index.php/login
Based on CodeIgnitor framework Bamboo invoice was created by Derek Allard as an example of what can be built using CodeIgnitor. Once you installed Bamboo Invoice on your server it's easy to start using it.
1. Setup your invoice template
Simply setup a invoice template with all your business details, add a logo, add a footer with your terms and conditions.
In the settings you can also:
- Choose to add tax or not.
- Choose the your payment terms - 15 days, 30 days etc.
2. Enter client details
- Create a client - enter the business details.
- Add a contact - enter personal details of your contact.
3. Send out an invoice
To send out an invoice:
- Create new invoice and select the business or client that you're going to send the invoice.
- Add your billable items Choose to email the PDF direct from Bamboo Invoice or download the invoice as a PDF and send using your normal email client.
Other features:
- The system will automatically show you any outstanding invoices and lists the invoices by the date due.
- Overdue payments are highlighted.
- When you receive payment you can add full or partial payment against due invoices.
- There is also an option to view payments by month so you can compare how much you've been paid.
Cannybill
Requirements: Any Major Browsers
Website: http://www.cannybill.com
CannyBill is a complete online ordering and invoicing system created by DPI Vision who are based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The advantage that this system has over other invoicing systems is that there are several additional key features available. These include the ability to take subscription payments or payments for products and services by creating payment forms, send out email marketing campaigns to your contact list and if you sell webspace you can even manage that through CannyBill.
Packages
Create products or services which your customer can sign up to using web based order forms.
Customers
The customers section enables you to view or create customers in your CannyBill account. Customers can either be created manually or automatically added when they signup via an 'Order Form' (see Packages tab).
Marketing
CannyBill offers several email marketing methods to help you advertise and promote your business online.
Basecamp Users: If you have your Basecamp account configured (Settings -> Plugin Modules -> Basecamp) you can import your customers directly from Basecamp into CannyBill and even invoice them for time tracked!
Other options
About the author
Robert studied graphic design and then interactive design at college and university. Initally finding his feet in the world of work creating graphics for television idents, before turning his hand to creating the company website. This began his love affair with the web. Rob loves to get stuck up to his eye balls in photoshop layers and occasionally likes to frazzle his brain with PHP and Javascript.
Leave a comment...