6 Best Invoice Software for Small Businesses 2018

The best invoice software allows you to streamline your invoicing process and get paid much faster by allowing customers to pay online. We evaluated each product based criteria such as the ability to create recurring invoices, send automatic payment reminders to customers and run an accounts receivable (A/R) aging report to stay on top of open invoices.

Best Invoice Software for Small Businesses 2018

How We Evaluated Invoice Software Companies

Many small businesses don’t need all of the bells and whistles that an accounting software like QuickBooks offers. Instead, they want an invoice software that can send professional looking invoices that their customers can easily pay online. The best invoicing software should be easy to use and include tools that will help you to get paid faster like automatic payment reminders and recurring payments.

We assessed a total of 17 invoice software products based on the following core functionality:

• Ability to create custom invoices: Brand your invoices by adding your logo, colors and other custom designs to create professional-looking invoices
• Accessible online: Software is cloud-based; no software to install, which means you can access it 24/7/365 from any computer with an internet connection
• Able to set up recurring payments: Customers who pay you a set amount on a periodic basis — weekly, monthly or quarterly — can be put on autopilot so that the invoice is emailed automatically on the date that you specify
• Customers can pay invoices online: When you email invoices to customers, they can pay their invoices online with a debit card or a credit card
• Automatic reminders can be sent to customers: To minimize late payments, you can set up automatic reminders that go out to all customers before and after an invoice becomes due
• Able to produce an A/R aging report: To help you stay on top of outstanding customer balances, you can run an A/R aging report quickly to see what payments are coming due or past due

Based on the above criteria and the time we invested in learning how each product performed, we recommend FreshBooks as the best invoicing software. In addition to meeting our basic criteria, FreshBooks includes many other features that go well beyond invoicing. Best of all, it offers a 30-day free trial, so you can try it before you buy it. If you already use QuickBooks and are looking for an invoicing software that integrates well, head to our Viewpost section.

Best Overall Invoice Software for Small Businesses: FreshBooks

Based on our research, FreshBooks is the total package for a business that has heavy A/R and needs a solution to help streamline the invoicing and payment collection process. In addition to its affordability, you can share data with other users — additional fees will apply —  create unlimited invoices for customers, accept online payments and track your expenses.

FreshBooks Pricing & Features

FreshBooks has three pricing plans that range between $15 and $50 per month. The Lite and Plus plans are priced similar to its competitors while the Premium plan is a bit higher than the top-tier plans for InfoFloPay and Zoho Invoice. Each plan includes one user, and you can add additional users for $10 per user, per month. The primary differences between the three plans are the maximum number of customers, automatic payment reminders, late fees and recurring invoices.

FreshBooks Tiered Pricing & Features at a Glance

FreshBooks Lite

The FreshBooks Lite plan is the most affordable out of the three plans at $15 per month or $180 annually. With the Lite plan, you can bill a maximum of five customers, manage time and expenses, accept online payments from customers, run an A/R report and track projects. However, you cannot send automatic payment reminders, charge late fees or create recurring invoices like you can with the Plus and Premium plans.

The FreshBooks Lite plan is ideal for a startup business that doesn’t need to keep track of sales by customers or have more than five clients that they need to invoice. In all likelihood, you will probably outgrow this plan very quickly since you are limited to billing five customers.

FreshBooks Plus

The FreshBooks Plus plan is the middle pricing plan that runs $25 per month or $300 yearly. This is almost double the cost of FreshBooks Lite, which is $180 annually. In addition to having all of the features that are included in the Lite plan, it also comes with the ability to invoice 50 customers, compared to five for the Lite plan. Unlike the Lite plan, you can create automatic payment reminders, charge late fees for overdue invoices and create recurring invoices.

The FreshBooks Plus plan is ideal for a business that has heavy invoicing and could benefit from by using tools that would streamline their A/R process, like the ability to send payment reminders to customers before and after an invoice is due and setting up recurring payments.

FreshBooks Premium

The FreshBooks Premium plan is the top-tier plan that runs $50 per month or $600 per year, which is double the cost of the Plus plan. There is only one feature included in the Premium plan that is not included in FreshBooks Plus. With the premium plan, you can bill up to 500 clients, which is 10 times the number of clients you can bill with the Plus plan.

The FreshBooks Premium plan is ideal if you have more than 50 clients that you need to automate your A/R process for by sending automatic payment reminders and adding late fees to past due invoices.

What FreshBooks Is Missing

While FreshBooks is not missing any of the features that we expect from an invoice software, when compared to Viewpost and Invoicera, FreshBooks falls short because it does not have the ability to manage accounts payable (A/P), which means that you cannot enter bills or pay bills through FreshBooks. However, you can download payment information directly from your bank or credit card accounts.

FreshBooks User Reviews

FreshBooks customers like the automated invoicing features like recurring bills and the automatic payment reminders that can be sent before and after an invoice is past the due date. However, customers don’t like the fact that FreshBooks is not able to manage A/P or reconcile bank and credit card accounts like most accounting software systems can.

For more information, check out our user reviews of FreshBooks.

Where to Find FreshBooks

Like most of its competitors, you have the opportunity to try FreshBooks out free of charge for 30 days. If you decide to convert to a paid plan, you need to enter your credit card information to continue using the software. Click here to start a free trial.

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Best Invoice Software with an Expense Management Tool: Invoicera

Similar to its competitors, Invoicera goes beyond the functionality you expect to find in an invoice software to include a robust expense management tool at no additional cost. Whether you need to request reimbursement from a customer for a purchase you made on their behalf or a way to keep track of all of your expenses, you can do that in Invoicera.

Invoicera Pricing & Features

Invoicera offers three pricing plans. The starter plan is free but is limited to a single user and three customers. The mid-tier plan called Invoicera Pro runs $15 per month and is limited to a maximum of 100 customers. Invoicera Infinite, the elite plan of the three, is a whopping $149 per month and includes unlimited users and customers.

Invoicera Tiered Pricing & Features Table

Invoicera Starter

Invoicera Starter is a free plan that is limited to only one user, which means that you won’t be able to share your data with a staff member or your accountant. In addition, you are limited to three active customers, which means that you can only send invoices to three customers. Outside of these limitations, this plan includes all of the features included in both of the paid plans, including the ability to accept online payments, create automatic payment reminders and send recurring invoices.

The Invoicera Starter plan is ideal for a freelancer or solopreneur that does not have more than three active customers that they need to send invoices to. This also works best for a company that does not track sales by customer like a retail shop.

Invoicera Pro

Invoicera Pro is the middle plan that starts at $15 per month or $180 per year. Unlike the Starter plan, you can add additional users to this plan for $9 per user, per month. As I mentioned in the Starter plan, all of the features included in each plan are the same. Some of the features included are multicurrency, which allows you to send invoices and receive payments in foreign currencies; project tracking, time and expense management; and the ability to run an A/R aging report.

The Invoicera Pro plan is ideal for a business that has more than three customers that they need to create invoices and manage payments for. In addition, if your bookkeeper or accountant needs access to this information, you can add them as a user for an additional $9 per user, per month.

Invoicera Infinite

Invoicera Infinite is the top-tier plan that runs $149 per month, which is $1,788 annually! While this might seem a bit steep, you can add an unlimited number of users and bill unlimited clients with this plan unlike the Starter and Pro plans while still including the same features as the Starter and Pro plans.

The Invoicera Infinite plan is best for a business that has a sales team with more than 500 active clients between them. With this plan, you can give each sales representative access to Invoicera so that they can create invoices for their customers.

What Invoicera Is Missing

Invoicera is not missing anything when it comes to features you would expect in an invoice software. However, the jump in pricing plans from $15 per month for the Pro plan to $149 per month for the Infinite plan is pretty significant. I believe they would benefit greatly from adding a plan between the Invoicera Pro and Invoicera Infinite plans.

Invoicera User Reviews

Customers who use Invoicera like the fact that they can schedule recurring invoices, and they can see when an invoice has been viewed by a client. However, a few customers felt like Invoicera fell short by not providing complete accounting functionality compared to accounting software like QuickBooks.

To read the individual reviews, visit our Invoicera user reviews page.

Where to Find Invoicera

Unlike its competitors, Invoicera only offers you a 15-day free trial instead of 30 days. However, they do have the free Invoicera Starter plan that you can sign up for and its free forever. If you need to give access to other users or you need to track more than three active clients, take the Invoicera Pro or Infinite plan for a 15-day test drive. At the end of the trial, you will need to sign up for a paid plan to continue using the invoice software.

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Best Invoice Software for Small Businesses Who Use QuickBooks: Viewpost

If you are currently using a version of QuickBooks to manage your bookkeeping, you don’t have to worry about doing double work when you sign up with Viewpost. Viewpost syncs with both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop so that all invoices and payments appear in both systems without the need for manual data entry. The best part is that your A/R balance always remains up to date.

Viewpost Pricing

Viewpost offers the best pricing out of all six companies. First, it does not charge you to send invoices to your customers. You can send as many invoices as you like to as many clients for absolutely free. However, while Viewpost will not charge you to receive online payments made by credit card, merchant service fees will apply. Viewpost will charge you to receive electronic payments from other businesses and direct consumers.

Viewpost pricing depends on whether you’re receiving payments from another business or directly from consumers. The pricing breakdown is as follows:

• Pricing if you receive payments from another business: Up to 1.5%
• Pricing if you receive payments from consumers (by payment amount): 
  • Up to $5,000: 2% of total payments
  • $5,001 – $20,000: $100 plus 1%
  • $20,001 – $60,000: $250 plus 0.5%
  • $60,001 – $100,000: $450 plus 0.25%
  • $100,001+: $550 plus 0.10%

Viewpost Features

Viewpost includes many features that go well beyond our criteria for a best invoicing software. Some of the unique features included in Viewpost are A/P, ability to request early payment from customers, a dashboard that you can manage all customer invoices from, not to mention the seamless integration with QuickBooks.

Unlimited Customers and Invoices

Viewpost allows you to manage an unlimited number of customers and send unlimited invoices free of charge. Unlike Viewpost, both Invoicera and FreshBooks charge a monthly fee to send invoices. Depending on the subscription level that you sign up for, you may be limited to the number of invoices and customers you are able to bill.

Accept Online Payments

Similar to its competitors, Viewpost does allow you to accept online payments from customers. The way it works is your customers will create a Viewpost account, which is 100 percent free. When you send your customers an invoice, it shows up in their Viewpost dashboard. With a few clicks, they can select and pay their invoices via electronic payment from their bank account. This will cost your customers 50 cents or using a debit card or credit card, which results in you being billed for the merchant fees.

A/R Aging Report

Viewpost has a detailed and a summary aged A/R report that will automatically export to Excel when you run it. You can use this report to stay on top of unpaid customer invoices before they become delinquent.

Automatic Payment Reminders

Similar to its competitors, you can create automatic payments to remind customers that payment is due. These reminders can be set up a few days before an invoice is due as well as after the due date has passed.

Charge Late Fees for Overdue Invoices

Like its competitors, Viewpost allows you to add late fees to customer invoices that are overdue. You can set up late fees to be a percentage of the total amount due or a flat amount.

Recurring Invoices

For those customers that pay a set amount periodically, you can create recurring invoices in Viewpost that go out to your customers automatically on a specific date, such as the first or 15th of each month.

Request an Early Payment

If you’re tight on cash, you can keep track of those customer invoices that you have set up with a discount for early payment terms. From your dashboard, you can select the invoices eligible for discounts and send your customer an early payment request. If they accept it, payment will be transmitted electronically to your bank account.

Manage A/P

Viewpost allows you to manage your bills and payments to vendor suppliers at no cost. The process is very similar to A/R where the supplier needs to create a free Viewpost account. Once the account is set up, they send you bills through Viewpost, and these will automatically appear on your Viewpost dashboard so that you can keep track of them.

Integrates with QuickBooks

One of the features that make Viewpost stand out from the pack is that it syncs with QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Invoices created in QuickBooks can be transferred to Viewpost and payments received in Viewpost can be transferred to QuickBooks so that the invoices will be marked as paid. This ensures that your A/R balance is always up to date.

What Viewpost Is Missing

In terms of features, Viewpost has everything you would expect an invoice software to include. However, there are a couple of downsides for your customers. First, they must join the Viewpost network by creating an account. Unfortunately, some customers might not want to sign up for a Viewpost account, even if it is free.

Second, when your customers send you an electronic payment from their bank account, they are charged a fee of 50 cents. While this is less than the cost of a stamp, it still might not sit well with some customers.

Viewpost User Reviews

Overall, we found mixed reviews online from Viewpost customers. On the positive end, we found reviews posted online that said Viewpost is an excellent invoicing software and customers like that they can use it for free. However, customers who were not that impressed with Viewpost said that they tried to integrate it with their existing accounting software, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and have had nothing but issues and poor customer support.

Where to Find Viewpost

Since Viewpost is 100 percent free, it is easy to get started. Head to its website and set up your free Viewpost account. Once you have your account, you can access all of the tools we have discussed to get your A/R process streamlined.

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Best Invoice Software with Built-in CRM: InfoFloPay

InfoFloPay has robust customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities that are extremely rare in an invoice software program. This software allows you to keep track of contact information for leads and customers, create and track web forms like contact us and request a quote and view all of the information for a customer such as contact info, quotes, invoices and payments in one area. Best of all, whether you sign up for its Lite plan or its top-tier Complete plan, a CRM is included in all plans.

InfoFloPay Pricing & Features

InfoFloPay offers four pricing plans that run between $15 and $30 per user, per month. All plans include estimates, a customer portal, built-in CRM, statements, expense tracking and the ability to create invoices and accept payments in multiple currencies. The top-tier Complete plan includes features not offered by its competitors like form builder and e-signature.

InfoFloPay Tiered Pricing & Features Table

InfoFloPay Lite

InfoFloPay Lite is the most budget-friendly plan for $15 per user, per month. The Lite plan allows you to create an unlimited number of invoices and estimates, track unlimited customers in the customer portal, access the built-in CRM capabilities and track expenses. Unfortunately, you don’t have the ability to create recurring invoices or run reports like you can with the higher tier plans.

InfoFloPay Lite is ideal for a solopreneur that uses QuickBooks Online to manage their books but wants to offer their customers a client portal where they can manage and pay their invoices. Since the Lite plan does not include reporting or recurring payments, these tasks can be completed in QuickBooks instead.

InfoFloPay Plus

InfoFloPay Plus is the next tier up from Lite. It is $20 per user, per month, which is an additional $5 per user, per month more than the Lite plan. For the additional cost, you can create recurring payments, subscriptions and run reports, which are features not offered in the Lite plan.

InfoFloPay Plus is ideal for a business that has many recurring payments to manage and doesn’t use QuickBooks or another accounting software to run financial reports. If you want customers to have the option to pay in installments or you need a project tracking tool, the Premium plan is going to be a better option for you.

InfoFloPay Premium

InfoFloPay Premium is the next tier after Plus. It runs $25 per user, per month, which is $10 per user, per month more than the Lite plan and $5 per user, per month more than the Plus plan. For this additional cost, you get access to features like time logs, project tracking and the ability to accept installment payments.

InfoFloPay is ideal for a freelancer that generates most of their revenue based on billable hours. The project tracking and time logs allow you to keep track of the hours worked by employees and contractors for each project that you are working on. Once the project is complete, you can transfer those hours over to an invoice to get paid.

InfoFloPay Complete

InfoFloPay Complete is the top-of-the-line plan. It is a hefty $30 per user, per month. With this plan you get features that are not typically offered in an invoice software:

• Form builder: Using drop-and-drag functionality, you can create web forms like Contact Us and Request a Quote forms and embed them into your website easily with no coding required
• Receive emails from form submissions: Receive email notifications automatically when a form is filled out; you can create custom recipients so that a department or a specific user receives an email when certain criteria are met, such as the request a product demo or a quote on a specific product or service that you offer
• Digital forms with e-signature: Create digital contracts, warranties or registration forms that include a digital signature and send forms to customers using the Mailgun integration.

InfoFloPay Complete is not for your typical business. However, if you need a system that can help you to streamline leads generated from your website or other avenues and help with onboarding new customers, I think you will find the features very useful.

What InfoFloPay Is Missing

A couple of key features that are missing in InfoFloPay are the ability to send payment reminders automatically to customers before and after an invoice due date. In addition, it does not include the automatic application of late charges to past due invoices.

InfoFloPay User Reviews

Overall, customers have nothing but good things to say about their experience using InfoFloPay. To summarize the customer reviews we found online, customers like how user-friendly the software is, pricing that’s affordable to any-sized business and the ability to try the software for 60 days free before you buy it.

Where to Find InfoFloPay

InfoFloPay beats its competitors hands-down when it comes to allowing you to try the product before you buy it. Instead of giving you 30 days to take their product for a test drive, it gives you 60 days! Head to its website and sign up for a risk-free, 60-day trial so that you can check out all of the cool features we’ve shared with you.

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Best Invoice Software for Existing Zoho Users: Zoho Invoice

Zoho Invoice is part of the Zoho suite of products that includes Zoho CRM, Zoho Reports, Zoho Projects, Zoho Expenses, Zoho Inventory and Zoho Books. Zoho Invoice is ideal for a business that is currently using one or more Zoho apps. Zoho Invoice integrates seamlessly with what you’re already using, which allows you to share information easily across applications and avoid double entries.

Zoho Invoice Pricing & Features

Zoho Invoice has one free plan and three paid plans. The paid plans range in price between $9 and $29 per month. Unlike most of its competitors that require you to upgrade to unlock certain features, all of the features available are included in every plan, including the Zoho Invoice Free plan. However, each plan is limited in the number of users that you can add and the number of customers you can invoice.

Zoho Invoice Tiered Pricing & Features Table

Zoho Invoice Free

Zoho Invoice Free edition includes all of the features that the paid plans have like recurring invoices, automatic payment reminders and time and expense tracking. However, it is limited to one user, which means that you won’t be able to give your accountant access to your data, and you can only invoice up to five customers.

Zoho Invoice is ideal for a business that’s starting out and does not have many clients and doesn’t need to give anyone else access to their data. However, you may find yourself growing out of this plan pretty quickly, which means you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Zoho Invoice Basic

Zoho Invoice Basic is the first paid plan at a cost of $9 per month, which is $108 a year. Similar to the Free plan, it is limited to one user. Unlike the Free plan that limits you to invoice five customers, the Basic plan allows you to invoice up to 50 customers. All of the Zoho Invoice plans include the same features such as the ability to create estimates, accept online payments and track projects.

Zoho Invoice Basic is ideal for businesses that currently use Zoho Apps and want seamless integration across all of their systems. Once you get that 51st customer, you will need to upgrade to the Standard pricing plan.

Zoho Invoice Standard

Zoho Invoice Standard is the second paid plan that runs $19 per month, which is $10 per month more than the Basic plan or an additional $120 more per year. For the extra expense, you get to invoice 10 times more customers than with the Basic plan — 500 compared to 50. In addition, Zoho Invoice Standard includes access for three users, which means that you can give a bookkeeper or an accountant access to your data, unlike the Free and Basic plans.

Zoho Invoice Standard is ideal for an existing Zoho customer who has heavy invoicing and needs the ability to give access to other users. If you need to give more than three users access to your data or your billing exceeds 500 customers, then you will need to upgrade to the Professional plan.

Zoho Invoice Professional

Zoho Invoice Professional plan is the top paid plan at a cost of $29 per month. This plan allows you to invoice an unlimited number of customers and give access to up to 10 additional users. All of the features included in every Zoho Invoice plan are included in this plan as well.

Zoho Invoice Professional is ideal for an existing Zoho customer who needs to give more than three users access to his or her data and has more than 500 customers to invoice. Zoho Professional will save you a ton of time by allowing you to put customer invoicing and payment on autopilot.

What Zoho Invoice Is Missing

Zoho Invoice is not missing anything when it comes to the basic criteria we looked for in selecting the best invoicing software. However, if you don’t use any Zoho apps — and you have no plans to — it’s only a good alternative to FreshBooks, our recommended invoice software.

Zoho Invoice User Reviews

Overall, customers said that the time tracking is easy to use, which makes invoicing a breeze. The ability to set up different payment options via WePay, Stripe and PayPal also make it easy for clients to pay online with Zoho Invoice.

Check out our Zoho Invoice User Reviews page to see what customers think of Zoho Invoice.

Where to Find Zoho Invoice

To find out if Zoho Invoice is right for you, sign up for Zoho Invoice Free and take it for a test drive risk-free. This plan is free forever, and you can access all of the great features that we have shared with you like project tracking, accepting online payments and more. Remember that this plan is limited to three customers, so you may want to opt for one of the paid plans instead.

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Best Invoice Software for eCommerce Businesses: Envoice

If you sell products or services via an ecommerce, and you don’t need to track open customer invoices, Envoice E-Commerce will work for you. This is the only plan that we recommend out of the three plans offered. Unfortunately, none of the Envoice plans allow you to run an A/R aging report, send payment reminders or apply late fees to overdue invoices. If you don’t have an e-store, we recommend that you go with FreshBooks.

Envoice Invoice Pricing & Features

Envoice has three pricing plans priced between $12 and $25 per month. Out of its competitors, it is the most affordable paid plan. However, the primary reason why it is so economical is that it is missing key features that any business that invoices customers needs to have like an A/R aging report and the ability to send payment reminders.

Envoice Invoice Tiered Pricing & Features Table

Envoice Essential

Envoice Essential is the most affordable plan at $12 per month. It includes unlimited invoicing for up to 30 clients, and you can bill in any currency and accept online payments from customers. You can also create recurring invoices for repeat customers.

When comparing this plan to its competitors, this plan is not ideal for any business. This plan does not offer automatic payment reminders, the ability to charge late fees for overdue invoices or the ability to run an A/R aging report so that you can track open invoices. These tools are essential to getting paid in a timely manner so that you don’t have to hire a collection agency later on.

Envoice Business

Envoice Business is the middle plan that runs $17 per month. In addition to the features included on the Essential plan, it allows you to add users, create payment links to send to customers who want to pay online and send unlimited invoices to an unlimited number of clients.

Similar to the Essential plan, I would not recommend this plan over any of the competitors that we have discussed in this article. Similar to the Essential plan, the Business plan is missing many of the features that a basic invoice software should have; such as an A/R aging report, automatic payment reminders and an option to charge late fees on past due invoices.

Envoice E-Store

The Envoice E-Store plan is the top-tier plan that runs $25 per month. It includes everything that the Business plan includes plus features that businesses that have an e-store are looking for. This plan allows you to sell via your website, email lists, Facebook, Twitter and other channels. It includes a Buy Now button and an instant checkout for your e-store.

This plan is ideal for a business that receives payment at the time of sale as opposed to invoicing customers and waiting for payment. You can track sales from multiple channels such as your website, Click Funnel, MailChimp and Google Ads.

What Envoice Is Missing

Envoice is missing all of the tools that a business that sells goods and services on credit to their customers’ needs. Without the ability to run an A/R aging report, send automatic payment reminders to customers and charge late fees on past due invoices, it will be impossible to stay on top of your outstanding A/R balances. This could lead to a number of delinquent accounts and cost you a ton of time and money as you attempt to collect on outstanding debt.

Envoice User Reviews

Unfortunately, at the time this article was written, customer reviews of Envoice were scarce. Overall, customers are very happy with how easy Envoice is to use and how great the customer support team is. The few negative reviews that we found were centered on adding more payment gateway options and the ability to have wire transfer as a payment option. Please visit our Envoice User Reviews page to leave a review if you have used this product.

Where to Find Envoice

If you decide to take the Envoice E-Store for a test drive, head to its website and you can sign up for a free 60-day trial. At the end of the trial period, you will have to convert to a paid plan to continue to use the product.

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Alternatives to the Best Invoice Software

The Bottom Line

We’ve provided you with an in-depth look at the best invoice software products on the market, now it’s time for you to pick one. If you’re looking for a user-friendly, customizable invoice software that has all of the tools you need to streamline your A/R process so that you can get paid faster, FreshBooks is our top pick. Plus, if your small business has a loan with BlueVine or Fundbox, integration with FreshBooks makes the process seamless.

The user-friendly interface and streamlined invoicing and payment processing features make FreshBooks the clear winner. Instead of taking our word for it, you can give FreshBooks a try, risk-free. At the end of the 30-day trial period, if you want to continue to use the product, you can then sign up for a paid plan. Check it out today.

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