7 Best Invoicing Software for Small Businesses 2023

QuickBooks Online’s excellent invoicing capability is one of the reasons it’s our overall best small business accounting software. Its invoicing features can be customized to almost any type of industry.

For instance, construction companies managing long-term projects can set up progress invoicing when they have the Plus or Advanced version. It offers greater customization options than most other similar software, such as add your company logo, change invoice colors, and add a personalized message for your customer.

With QuickBooks, you can set up recurring invoices, which is useful for collecting regular payments, like equipment rentals and subscription-based services. Freelancers and service-based businesses can convert their hourly rates into invoices for work done. If you have multiple customers who purchase the same product or service from you, Advanced’s batch invoicing feature lets you send similar invoices to all of them in one go.

After sending an invoice, you can track the status in real time, helping you ensure that the invoice gets paid on time. You can even set up automatic reminders to gently alert customers of overdue invoices. Additionally, unlike any other bookkeeping software we’ve reviewed, it’ll calculate the sales tax rate automatically to apply to your invoice based on the customer’s address. It then tracks your sales tax collected by jurisdiction and helps you file most required returns.

Finally, if you have QuickBooks Payments, you can set up and send a payment link where your customers can instantly pay you. Payment links only work once and will automatically expire after your customer pays their invoice. If you don’t yet have the solution, our review of QuickBooks Payments can help you decide if you should get it.

FreshBooks has almost the same invoicing features as QuickBooks. However, since it includes only one user in all its plans, we believe it’s a more suitable option for solo business owners and freelancers.

Not only does it have great-looking invoices, but it also has all the features of a complete bookkeeping system. It accepts online payments, calculates late fees automatically, creates recurring invoices, and prints a list of outstanding invoices. Additionally, it 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.

The main difference between QuickBooks and FreshBooks in terms of invoicing is that QuickBooks automatically calculates tax sales to apply to an invoice based on your customer’s location. With FreshBooks, you need to set up the sales tax for each state manually. See how else the two differ in our comparison of QuickBooks Online vs FreshBooks.

Generally, we recommend that your invoicing be integrated with your accounting system, but if you’re looking for a standalone system, Invoicera is a good choice. It combines A/R management and accounts payable (A/P) management in a single dashboard.

It allows you to create your own invoice template or select from seven templates. You can customize your invoices and schedule them to be sent at a later time. You can even request a personalized invoice template by sending your specifications to Invoicera. Additionally, the solution lets you send recurring invoices, set up and send reminders, and charge late fees.

You can also track time and expenses by project and then add them to invoices. On the downside, the software doesn’t include any accounting functions outside of A/R and A/P management and needs accounting software integration.

Zoho Invoice is our recommendation for a totally free invoicing software, making it suitable for very small businesses, startups, and freelancers new to invoicing. Unlike other software on this list, it doesn’t have paid options. Also, it only offers basic to intermediate invoicing features that are suitable for small businesses.

You can choose from numerous templates or create your own. You can also clone a template so that your brand remains consistent in all your sales forms. Before you can start invoicing, you can toggle on or off several settings, allowing you to enable only the features you need. For instance, you can include a detachable payment stub in snail mail to make it easier for you to track payments.

On the downside, Zoho Invoice is good for one business only. We recommend upgrading to a more sophisticated invoicing software like Invoicera if you need to manage multiple businesses under a single account. Also, while Zoho Invoice integrates with most other Zoho products, it doesn’t connect with Zoho Inventory, which we found a bit surprising since inventory and invoicing are closely linked for most companies.

Square is a merchant services provider with no monthly fee, making Square Invoices a great choice if your business processes less than $10,000 per month in credit card transactions or if you’ve been using other Square services. Square Invoices, included in your free Square account, lets you offer multi-package estimates, which is useful for managing projects that require different types of work.

It has good invoicing features, along with affordable credit card processing rates for low-volume businesses. While not as feature-packed as accounting or standalone invoicing options, it does let you create, send, and track invoices online or through its mobile apps. You can also create automatic payment reminders and recurring billing.

ZipBooks’ accounting features aren’t as robust as QuickBooks Online, but the invoices look nice and provide a good first impression to your customers. In addition to invoicing, it offers many other basic features, such as project accounting, income and expense tracking, and banking and cash management.

When creating an invoice, ZipBooks provides a template that you can tweak with your logo before entering your sales information. You can set up general invoicing preferences, such as the ability to add your accent color, set up a credit card and PayPal for customer payments, and track taxes as payables to facilitate easier payments.

After creating an invoice, ZipBooks will automatically generate a link that you can share with your customer for easy payment collection. You can send the invoice via email and print it if needed. ZipBooks also offers a free subscription option, which is all you need to create, send, and track invoices for an unlimited number of customers.

TimeTracker by eBillity offers lawyers, accountants, engineers, and other professional service firms an invoicing option integrated with powerful time tracking features. It makes sense to combine these functions for professional service firms since billable hours are the primary item on your invoices.

What sets it apart from other invoicing options in this guide is that it tracks billable hours that are written off. A billable realization report shows the billable hours sent to clients vs written off, which is a crucial report to gauge the productivity of your professionals and the profitability of your firm.