We understand that it can’t be difficult to find the best invoicing software for small businesses. There are so many choices and some aren’t even worth a try. And just like any other business, yours need to run as soon as possible and the best it can.
This is where the invoice can be very important, especially if you’re just starting out, maintaining a positive cash flow can make or break your business. A great invoice can make everything run smoothly, and great invoicing and billing software can make that happen.
What is the best invoicing software for small businesses?
Invoicing software provides small businesses with an easy way to track payments and bill clients digitally for products or services rendered. This eliminates the need for paper invoices and manual tracking in spreadsheets. Invoicing software helps organize customer information and transaction details to streamline billing operations.
Key features invoicing platforms offer include:
- Online invoice generation – Customizable templates allow small businesses to quickly create professional digital invoices that can be emailed to clients or accessed via online client portals.
- Payment tracking & reporting – Invoicing software logs payments, generates reports on unpaid invoices, sales volumes, etc. to simplify accounting and cash flow monitoring.
- Automated reminders – Overdue invoice alerts and reminders can be automatically emailed improving timely payment.
- Recurring billing – Useful for subscription businesses, recurring invoices for set amounts can automatically generate each billing cycle for ongoing services.
- Invoice customization – Invoice design and details like business logo, contact info, item descriptions can be customized to fit business branding needs.
Top invoicing platforms like FreshBooks, Wave, QuickBooks Invoicing, and Zoho Invoice provide affordable monthly plans for small businesses to ditch manual processes and optimize invoicing digitally. This saves time, and improves organization and cash flow for SMBs.
Do you need the best invoicing software for small businesses? Here are some of the best free invoicing software recommendations that might be worth a try.
1. Square Invoices
Square Invoices
Square Invoices is regarded as the best invoice if you send invoices infrequently. Sending occasional invoices is so easy and very cheap as there is no monthly subscription fee. For small businesses, software like this is a godsend. It is perfect for handling the low-mid workloads and totally free.
If your customers pay online via a card, you’ll only have to pay 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. That fee can go up to 3.5% + $0.15 if you choose to keep the customer payment information on file and charge your clients instantly.
Square Invoices is very basic at its core, it lacks more advanced features of other more expensive online invoicing software. Some of its basic features are customizable invoices, invoice tracking, payment reminders for unpaid invoices, and credit card payments. But, if you’re ready to be committed to using Square Invoices for your business, you can access more powerful features available in your square online account.
Additionally, Square Invoices has one of the best mobile credit card readers available. There is a reason why Square Invoice is on the first of our list of the best invoicing software for small businesses.
2. Intuit Quickbooks
Best Invoicing Software for Small Business
Intuit Quickbooks is the perfect software solution for people who are self-employed and This is suitable for small business invoicing. Intuit Quickbooks is created by the same company that created TurboTax, Americans must know that product.
With only $10 per month, you can enjoy all the basic accounting features of Intuit Quickbooks, such as: invoicing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and a handy app that can automatically track your miles for a self-employed job that involves a lot of driving.
The tracking app alone might be the biggest reason to use Intuit Quickbooks. It also has a lot of integrations available, making Intuit Quickbooks a seamless experience for your business. Using Intuit Quickbooks really makes filing taxes and independent contractors much easier and painless.
Intuit Quickbooks Self-Employed plan offers reports and functions to track and calculate quarterly taxes that many freelancers and independent contractors often submit. Now you can easily see the breakdown of your personal expenses and business costs.
The downside of a Self-Employed plan is scalability, adding new employees to your plan or business can be very difficult. The plan doesn’t have an option to let you scale or upgrade to another plan.
If you hire a new employee, you’ll be forced to start again from scratch using other Intuit Quickbooks plans. This software deserves to be on our list of best invoicing software for small businesses.
3. Tipalti
Tipalti Invoicing Software for Small Business
Need billing software? Tipalti is designed for medium-scale businesses but it can also be used for small businesses. Tipalti works best for international and B2B operations for small businesses. Tipalti is the most technical software in this list that offers the most extensive accounting solution.
It’s a very powerful software with the downside being you need an expert to use it efficiently. The most knows feature of Tipalti is its accounts payable capabilities but it can do a lot more, including handling your invoicing and online billing. If you have the skill or have a skilled employee, Tipalti could be the best invoicing software for a small business that you own.
4. Wave
Wave app
Wave is a completely free invoicing software, that should be enough to attract your attention. And not only that, for a free version, wave has a lot of powerful features, such as unlimited invoicing and estimates, contact management, expense tracking, and reports.
That being said, if you want to send money using Wave, you need to get Wave’s payroll software. That fee is worth it, considering you’ll get a seamless connection between your invoicing and payroll software.
5. FreshBooks
freshbooks
You can’t go wrong with FreshBooks, it can be used by almost everyone without any problems. FreshBooks invoicing is a good solution for freelancers and even for a business with dozens of employees. The secret to this success is the perfect combination of a more comprehensive accounting solution with simple and clean user experience or UX.
Thanks to this, FreshBooks is able to provide more powerful and specialized features than basic invoicing management software. FreshBooks can also deliver the financing basic needs and intuitive customer experience any accounting newbie can and will appreciate.
FreshBooks can accommodate any and more complicated projects, you can create invoices, estimates, and proposals to send to your clients. There are also estimates and proposals which can be very useful for contractors, interior designers, and other businesses that need to plan materials and include any and all contracted workers.
With the collaboration supports, users can easily add team members and other contractors to access accounts and projects. All these features make FreshBooks one of the best invoicing software for small businesses.
The biggest downside of FreshBooks is the price. FreshBooks bills your active client list, so if you’re using the $15 Lite plan, you can only bill up to five clients.
If you add a new active client that exceeds that five clients limit, you will be charged for the $25 Plus plan. On the bright side, the increase in active client limit is very big, the Plus plan has a limit of 50 active clients. If your business has a high active client base, the Plus plan is a great value to have, while the Lite plan might be not worth it at all.
If you are looking for the best invoicing software for freelancers, I strongly recommend Freshbooks Invoicing for you.
6. Billy Free Invoicing Software
billy free invoice software
Billy is one of the cheapest software solutions on the market. The cheapest plan is $15 per month and the most popular Gold plan is $19 per month. Billy accepts credit cards and payments directly and it doesn’t need your credit card information to start a free trial, so if you’re not sure, you can just get the free trial version immediately.
Billy’s interface is very user-friendly, it allows users to create invoices easily and without hassles. If you hate complicated software that needs technical skills and a lot of practice, you will love Billy. Thanks to the simple and intuitive interface and lack of distracting extra features, Billy has managed to attract many non-accountants and non-specialized accounting users.
But don’t get fooled by its simplicity, Billy is still a powerful software that offers important and comprehensive features like accounts payable, accounts receivable, and an insightful financial dashboard.
Billy has some downsides though. The company behind Billy is still young in the business, so don’t expect a lot of integrations like other online bill pay software and there is no PayPal payment option.
The mobile app also still has a lot of things that need to be improved, for example, there are no pop-up timers to keep track of the ongoing project and billing hours. But don’t worry, Billy is still being actively updated and it will only get better from here. We hope that you can find the best invoicing software for a small business that is perfect for you.
7. Zoho Invoice
Zoho Invoice
Looking for invoice management for small business? Zoho provides free invoicing software for small businesses with up to 5 customers, making it well suited for small companies which are just starting out. It is still one of the most economical choices as you scale up, also. Zoho prices only $7 per month with around 50 customers and $15 a month for 500 clients. Not only can it be among those few free invoice programs for small companies, but it’s also among the great invoice systems for small companies.
It lets you make quotes, invoices, recurring invoices, and even retainer invoices. As with other invoicing solutions, Zoho offers time and expense monitoring, complete with pop-up timers. However, each feature is compact to be sure you don’t get lost in the weeds. This makes it a better choice for less finance-minded people who may have overwhelmed with a stronger system.
The largest selling point of Zoho could be the prospect of integration. Zoho offers a host of different services like Zoho CRM, Projects, and Cliq (a group messaging program comparable to Slack), in addition to Zoho’s online payment method. If you would like to take whole advantage of the range of integrations, Zoho provides a subscription for its whole business operating platform, Zoho One, for $1 per day per employee.
8. Xero
best invoicing software for small businesses
Xero is an effective all-in-one solution for your small business. Run everything easily, keep clean records, and also make compliance a cinch.
All Xero features:
- Send invoices
Work smarter by invoicing clients from your telephone or desktop the moment the task is finished.
- Pay bills
Track and pay bills on time. And find a very clear summary of accounts payable and cash flow.
- Claim expenses
Simplify employee expense claims. Catch costs, submit, approve and reimburse claims, and see spending.
- Bank connections
Join your bank into Xero and install bank feeds. Transactions flow securely right into Xero each business day.
- Accept payments
Accept online bill payments and have paid up to twice as quickly by connecting to Stripe, GoCardless along with many others.
9. Invoice2Go
Invoice2Go
Looking for the best invoicing software for contractors or Small businesses? Invoice2Go provides a cheap and powerful invoice software service that’s simple to operate. The most important limitation is the fact that it can only manage 100 invoices annually to 25 clients at the bottom cost of $10 per user per month. After that, the program starts getting expensive enough you might be better off choosing one of the advanced solutions from the listing. Additionally, its reports are not as comprehensive as Xero or BQE Core also it does not offer time-tracking capabilities.
For a freelancer or solo business operator, however, Invoice2Go gives a modern and compact invoicing experience. If you would like to manage expenses, invoices, and payments easily on the phone, Invoice2Go is your thing to do.
Invoice2Go features:
- Send professional invoices and estimates in minutes
Invoice on the place, right once you complete the job. Spend less time on paperwork and more time doing what you really love.
- Accept card and PayPal payments
Provide online payments and get paid 6 days earlier. Clients love having suitable ways to pay. Send an invoice using a button to allow clients to pay now when accepting debit cards, credit cards,s or PayPal.
- Keep track of all your invoices
Know when customers have seen their invoices. Establish automatic reminders to send your customer a friendly note about upcoming or late payments. Remain in control by knowing the status of each invoice.
10. ZipBooks
ZipBooks
ZipBooks is Best free accounting and invoicing software for small businesses. A relatively young company when compared with the others, however ZipBooks is well-reviewed by consumers, who love its simplicity, cost (free!) And easy billing performance. Customer support can be a power based on reviewers, but the business is smaller and newer than a number of its competitors. An iOS app is available but no Android app out yet.
11. Indy
Indy is a brilliant choice for freelancers because its Indy Invoices Tool
is simple, fast, and easy to use. You can use templates to create and send proposals, contracts, and then invoices to clients. Every part of the admin goes faster because it’s all integrated into a single platform.
Invoicing is easy because Indy can import your contacts from your project list, add unbilled hours from the simple Time Tracker, and package all that info in an attractive invoice template in moments. Customers can pay by credit card or bank transfer using Stripe, PayPal, Zelle, or other methods.
Free Option? Yes, a free trial is available
Price: $9 per month or $6.75/mo paid yearly
No extra fees or setup costs
Quick billing
Accept multiple forms of payment
Customizable templates
Eventually, you realize that it would be great to reach out to your customers. While invoicing software is essential for keeping track of your work, it doesn’t often help with generating leads from customers. Fortunately, there are some invoicing software that has added functionality for managing your whole sales process, including customer management and lead generation tracking. I hope best invoicing software above can help your small business.
