The best invoicing or billing software allows you to create customized invoices quickly and get paid faster by allowing customers to pay online. Before investing in specialized invoicing software, consider whether comprehensive small business accounting software, which includes an invoicing function, might be better. However, specialized invoicing software can often give your customers’ bills a more customized feel than general bookkeeping software.
Best Invoicing Software for Small Business
- FreshBooks: Best overall invoicing software
- QuickBooks Online: Best invoicing software for collecting sales tax from multiple states
- Invoicera: Best stand-alone invoicing software
- Invoice Ninja: Best free full-featured invoicing software
- ZipBooks: Best free easy-to-use software for simple invoices
- Square Payments: Best free invoicing software with inexpensive credit card processing
- QuickBooks Self-Employed: Best invoicing software for solopreneurs or freelancers
- TimeTracker: Best invoicing software for professional service firms
FreshBooks: Best Overall Invoicing Software
While FreshBooks now provides an entire bookkeeping system, it started as a way to produce great-looking, professional invoices. FreshBooks continues to stress invoicing while adding features like the ability to track hours and assign them to invoices. There’s no credit card required to start a 30-day free trial.
FreshBooks
What We Like
- Produce professional invoices
- Add time and expense to invoice
- Track outstanding invoices
What's Missing
- Extra fee for additional users
- Limited number of clients in less expensive plans
- Expensive compared to other invoicing options
Plans & Pricing
New users can choose a 30-day free trial or 60% off the monthly price for six months through April 30, 2021.
- Lite: $15 per month for one user and five billable clients
- Plus: $25 per month for one user and 50 billable clients
- Premium: $50 per month for one user and unlimited billable clients
Additional users can be added to any plan for $10 per month. FreshBooks is offering 60% off for six months on all subscription packages through April 30, 2021.
Our Expert Opinion
Not only does FreshBooks have great-looking invoices, but it also has all the features of a full bookkeeping system. FreshBooks accepts online payments, calculates late fees automatically, creates recurring invoices, and prints a list of outstanding invoices. Beyond those typical invoicing features, FreshBooks will connect with your bank to import transactions, reconcile bank and credit card accounts, and print basic financial statements like a balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L) statement.
QuickBooks Online: Best Invoicing Software for Collecting Sales Tax From Multiple States
One reason QuickBooks Online is our pick for best overall small business accounting software is its exceptional invoicing capability. Unlike any other bookkeeping software we’ve reviewed, it will calculate the sales tax rate automatically to apply to your invoice based on the customer address. It then tracks your sales tax collected by jurisdiction and helps you file most required returns. You can try QuickBooks Online free for 30 days with no credit card required.
QuickBooks Online
What We Like
- Calculates sales tax rate based on customer address
- Invoicing integrated with the most popular accounting system for small businesses
- All plans include unlimited customers
What's Missing
- Expensive for small businesses
- Limits the number of users in each plan
- Cannot directly contact customer support by telephone
Plans & Pricing
New users receive 50% off for three months or a 30-day free trial.
- Simple Start: $25 per month for one user, which includes all sales tax features
- Essentials: $40 per month for three users, which includes the ability to add time and expenses to invoices
- Plus: $70 per month for five users, which adds the ability to track inventory
- Advanced: $150 per month for 25 users, which adds extensive reporting features and a dedicated customer support team
Our Expert Opinion
If all you’re looking for is the ability to send invoices, then QuickBooks Online is probably more than you need. However, there are many advantages to producing invoicing from within a comprehensive bookkeeping system. For example, QuickBooks Online allows you to designate expenses as billable as you pay them so that you are reminded to add them to invoices later. This ties expenses billed to expenses actually paid, which helps prevent missed billing opportunities. Similarly, by tracking employee time in QuickBooks Online, the hours information used to produce payroll is the same hours information used to bill clients.
QuickBooks Online can produce advanced invoices for nearly any industry. For instance, construction companies can convert estimates to invoices automatically, including creating in-progress invoices by entering the percentage of the projected complete. Companies that bill multiple customers the same amount can produce invoices in batches, and companies billing customers for subscriptions can create recurring invoices.
Invoicera: Best Stand-alone Invoicing Software
Invoicera combines accounts receivable (A/R) management (sending invoices) and accounts payable (A/P) management (receiving invoices) in a single dashboard. While not a complete bookkeeping system, Invoicera makes cash flow management simple by focusing on two of the most important aspects of your business: collecting cash from your customers and paying your vendors. You can try Invoicera for 15 days without providing a credit card.
Invoicera
What We Like
- Track both receivables and payables
- 100% customizable invoices using XHTML
- Track staff time and expenses by project and add to invoices
What's Missing
- Unlimited customers are very expensive compared to other options
- Additional users require the Business plan
- Does not integrate with bookkeeping software
Plans & Pricing
New users can try any plan free for 14 days.
- Starter: Free for three clients and one admin user
- Pro: $15 per month for 100 clients and one admin user plus one staff user
- Business: $29 per month for 1,000 clients and one admin user plus 10 staff users
- Infinite: $149 per month for unlimited clients and unlimited users
Our Expert Opinion
Invoicera is a powerful stand-alone invoicing software. Invoicera allows you to set up staff and track time and expenses by project, and then add them to invoices. You can upload your logo and choose the colors to apply to their seven invoice templates, or if you’re proficient with XHTML, you can create a completely unique template for your business.
Invoicera doesn’t include any accounting functions outside of A/R and A/P management, nor does it integrate with any accounting software. This means, for example, the actual hours used to generate your payroll will not necessarily agree with the hours you track in Invoicera, which could result in lost billing opportunities. Likewise, expenses recorded in Invoicera will not necessarily balance to the expenses recorded on your financial statements. Generally, I recommend that your invoicing be integrated with your accounting system, but if you’re looking for a stand-alone system, Invoicera is a good choice.
Invoice Ninja: Best Free Full-featured Invoicing Software
Invoice Ninja’s free plan is a great place to start for your invoicing needs. As your business grows, you might upgrade to a paid plan, which is still very affordable. The Forever Free plan has most features found in expensive plans like customizable invoices, recurring invoices, product and item library, and customer portal. You can get started in the free plan with just a few clicks.
Invoice Ninja
What We Like
- Up to 100 customers in free plan
- Unlimited invoices, quotes, and proposals
- Dashboard shows current period activity and outstanding balances
What's Missing
- Requires Enterprise plan for more than one user
- No reports are included in the free plan
- Only customization of invoices is to add logo
Plans & Pricing
- Forever Free: Free forever for one user includes most invoicing features for up to 100 customers
- Ninja Pro: $10 per month for one user and allows unlimited customers
- Enterprise: $14 to $44 per month for one to 20 users
Our Expert Opinion
Invoice Ninja’s Forever Free plan is large enough to handle many small businesses with unlimited invoices and quotes for up to 100 customers. You can generate quotes and proposals and convert them to invoices with a few clicks. Recurring invoices can be emailed automatically at whatever interval you choose. Invoice Ninja utilizes a product and item list, similar to expensive software. Once set up, items from this list can be added to invoices quickly to save time.
A major weakness of the Forever Free plan is the lack of reports, which requires the Pro plan. However, you can view the dashboard in Forever Free, which summarizes the current period activity and outstanding balances.
ZipBooks: Best Free Software for Creating Simple Invoices
Creating invoices with ZipBooks couldn’t be easier. ZipBooks provides a template that you can customize with your logo and then input your sales information. While not as customizable as some other software, the invoices look nice and provide a good first impression to your customers. The ZipBooks free subscription is all you need to create, send, and track invoices to an unlimited number of customers.
ZipBooks
What We Like
- Invoices are very easy to create
- Unlimited customers with the free plan
- Accounts receivable report shows unpaid invoices
What's Missing
- Free plan invoices have limited customization
- Free plan doesn’t save products and services for future invoices
- Free plan includes only one user
Plans & Pricing
- Starter: Free forever
- Smarter: $15 per month for five users
- Sophisticated: $35 per month for unlimited users
Our Expert Opinion
ZipBooks doesn’t require any sophisticated setup to create and send invoices. You can type your services and products directly in the invoice template, upload a logo, and send your invoice. The downside is that by not setting up predefined products and services, you’ll need to type the description every time you create an invoice. If you send many invoices, you’ll want to upgrade to the Smarter plan to save item descriptions.
Square Payments: Best Free Invoicing Software From a Merchant Services Account
Square is a merchant services provider with no monthly fee, making it a great choice if your business processes less than $10,000 per month in credit card transactions. Included with your free Square account is free invoicing software.
Square Payments
What We Like
- Free invoicing software
- No-monthly-fee credit card processing
- Easy to set up
What's Missing
- Basic invoicing features cannot track time and expenses
- Businesses with more than $10,000 in monthly transactions can likely find a cheaper credit card processor
- Does not offer automated clearing house (ACH) or digital check payments processing
Plans & Pricing
There are no monthly fees for either payment processing or invoicing. Credit card processing fees start at 2.6% plus 10 cents per transaction.
Our Expert Opinion
You can keep life simple by using the invoicing feature of your credit card processor, and Square offers one of the best invoicing features along with affordable rates for low-volume businesses. While not as feature-packed as accounting or stand-alone invoicing options, Square Payments does let you create, send, and track invoices online or through their mobile apps. You can also create automatic payment reminders and recurring billing.
The downside of Square is that it only accepts credit cards, not ACH transfers or digital checks. If you like Square’s processing fees, another option would be to choose an invoicing option that integrates with Square like QuickBooks Online. You could then use Square for credit card payments and another payment gateway for ACH transfers and digital checks.
QuickBooks Self-Employed: Best Invoicing Software for Solopreneurs or Freelancers
QuickBooks Self-Employed is simple accounting software for self-employed individuals. It makes it easy to track income and expenses, help you calculate your quarterly estimated tax payments, and will even transfer your income and expense information to TurboTax to prepare your return. You can start a 30-day free trial without providing credit card information.
QuickBooks Self-Employed
What We Like
- Easy-to-use invoicing feature
- Tracks income and expenses
- Transfer Schedule C information to TurboTax
What's Missing
- Doesn’t store customer, product, or service information for use on future invoices
- Single-entry accounting system cannot produce a balance sheet report
- Cannot upgrade to other versions of QuickBooks Online
Plans & Pricing
All plans are limited to one user, plus you can share your books with an accountant.
- Self-Employed: $15 per month
- Self-Employed Tax Bundle: $25 per month includes TurboTax
- Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle: $35 per month includes unlimited live help from TurboTax tax experts when preparing your tax return.
Our Expert Opinion
I don’t recommend QuickBooks Self-Employed based purely on invoicing features because they are pretty limited. However, the program is very user-friendly and provides an easy way for self-employed individuals to track their expenses and file their tax returns. Since self-employed individuals generally have very basic invoicing needs, the invoices within QuickBooks Self-Employed will suffice and avoid the need for learning additional software.
If your self-employed business frequently sends invoices, then while QuickBooks Self-Employed might still be a great software to track your income and expenses, I’d recommend stand-alone invoicing software for your invoicing needs.
TimeTracker: Best Invoicing Software for Professional Service Firms
TimeTracker offers lawyers, accountants, engineers, and other professional service firms an invoicing option integrated with powerful features to track the time of your professionals. It makes sense to combine these functions for professional service firms since billable hours are the primary item on your invoices. TimeTracker offers a 14-day free trial without requiring a credit card.
TimeTracker
What We Like
- Tracks hours written-off vs invoiced
- Includes employee management features like GPS tracking and facial recognition
- Includes client portal
What's Missing
- Expensive for firms with many employees
- Invoices are not as elegant as other options
- No integrated accounting software
Plans & Pricing
- Billing: $20 per month plus $10 per month per user
- Legal: $20 per month plus $15 per month per user
Our Expert Opinion
TimeTracker is a unique invoicing option because it is built around a time-tracking system, which makes it perfect for businesses where time tracking and invoicing go hand-in-hand. What sets TimeTracker apart from other invoicing options is that it tracks billable hours that are written off. A billable realization report shows the billable hours invoiced to clients vs written off, which is a crucial report to gauge the productivity of your professionals and the profitability of your firm.
Here are a few crucial features to consider when you are selecting your invoicing software:
- Customize invoices: You should be able to make your invoices distinct with your company’s colors and logo.
- Email invoices: Invoices should be emailed without having to leave the program.
- Accept online payments: Always allow your customers to pay electronically as soon as they receive their invoice.
- Add expenses: If your business passes through the cost of expenses to customers, your invoice program should track expenses and allow you to add them to an invoice with just a few clicks.
- Automate recurring invoices: If your business bills customers a set amount monthly, choose a program that can generate these recurring invoices automatically.
- Track unpaid invoices: You need to be able to review a list of unpaid invoices, or A/R, to identify customers that may need to be contacted. Some software has an advanced feature that will send reminder emails automatically to customers with overdue invoices.
Bottom Line
If you’re unhappy with the invoicing function in your bookkeeping software, or you choose not to use bookkeeping software, there are plenty of good invoicing options available. The effectiveness of whichever software you choose will largely depend on how you use it. Be sure to email invoices whenever possible and always provide a way for your customers to pay electronically.
Mohamed fouad
many thanks
Somide Olaoye
InvoiceApp (https://getinvoice.co) is also a good online invoicing software. It is easy to create invoices in a snap, add your logo, and customize the look and feel of your invoices on the go. You can also track the status of sent invoices like knowing when your invoice is received, opened or paid.
Crystalynn Shelton
Hey Somide! Thanks for sharing this with us and our readers. I will definitely check getinvoice.com out!
All the Best-
Crystalynn Shelton
Himani
Awesome and much useful information. Nice and detailed explanation.
Thanks for sharing this excellent info and tweeted 🙂
Crystalynn Shelton
Hey Himani! Thanks so much for the positive feedback. Glad you enjoyed our article on Best Invoice Software for SMB’s!
All the Best-
Crystalynn Shelton
SMACC
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Crystalynn Shelton
Thanks for sharing another option for invoicing. I’ll have to check it out.
All the Best-
Crystalynn Shelton
Anthony
Great post on invoicing. Different products for different markets.
I’m a freelancer from Nigeria and my favourite tool for invoicing is https://invoice.ng.
It’s a good invoicing software for small business and startups also.
Crystalynn Shelton
Hi Anthony, thanks so much for reading the article and for sharing your favorite invoicing tool.
I will definitely check it out!
All the Best-
Crystalynn