FreshBooks Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives

FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting program that allows you to create and send unlimited invoices, manage clients and projects, and accept payments online. It offers a robust set of features, including double-entry accounting, recurring invoices, project management, and mobile accounting.

It has four plans with monthly fees starting at $23 for one user. You can pay for more seats as needed ($11 per user, per month). Continue reading my in-depth FreshBooks review and evaluation for details on features, pricing, and user reviews.

FreshBooks Alternatives & Comparison

ComparisonUse Cases

	Monthly Pricing	Users Included	Banking	Inventory	A/R	A/P
	$23 to $70	1$11 per user, per month	1.3★	✕	4.6★	3.7★
	$38 to $275	1 to 25	5.0★	3.9★	4.9★	4.9★
	Visit QuickBooks Online
	$0 or $16	1 or unlimited	2.4★	✕	3.6★	3.6★
	Visit Wave
	$20 to $80	Unlimited	4.4★	4.3★	4.4★	4.6★
	Visit Xero
Rating explanation: 5★: Excellent; 4★: Very good; 3★: Good; 2★: Fair; 1★: Poor; ✕: Feature unavailable

Not what you’re looking for?

See more options in our guide to the

best small business accounting software

.

FreshBooks Reviews From Users

4.5 / 5

Overall, FreshBooks receives some of the best reviews we’ve seen for small business accounting software. Reviewers consistently praise its ease of use and customer service.

Below is the summarized feedback from users and my expert opinion:

• Excellent invoicing features: Reviewers said that they like its invoicing features. They also mentioned that the time-tracking tool works perfectly when invoicing clients. I definitely agree and think that invoicing is one of FreshBooks’ biggest strengths, as you can produce very professional-looking invoices that perfectly represent your brand.
• Expensive: Some find it pricey for multiple users because each additional is $11 a month. I agree that FreshBooks is too expensive when you get more than about four seats. For example, the Premium plan is $104 monthly for five seats. If you subscribe to QuickBooks Online Plus, which includes five users for $99 a month, you get much more powerful accounting software.
• User-friendly interface: Some like the easy interface; however, larger businesses find it too basic and simple for their needs—I think both are really good points. FreshBooks is definitely designed to be easily used by nonaccountants, which can create weak features that larger businesses won’t like.

For instance, when recording an expense, you can’t designate which bank account it is paid from. This is great for nonaccountants who often forget to designate an account but terrible for businesses needing to track the balance in bank accounts before the transactions clear.

As of this writing, here’s how Zoho Books is rated on third-party sites:

• Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 from over 4,475 reviews
• G2: 4.5 out of 5 from around 880 reviews

Fit Small Business Case Study

To determine how FreshBooks stacks up against similar software, I used our accounting software case study to compare it with QuickBooks, Wave, and Xero. The chart below sums up the results.

FreshBooks vs Competitors

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• FRESHBOOKS PREMIUM $60 PER MONTH
• QUICKBOOKS ONLINE PLUS $99 PER MONTH
• WAVE PRO $16 PER MONTH
• XERO ESTABLISHED $80 PER MONTH

FreshBooks scores lower than QuickBooks Online in every category except Value, Integrations, and User Reviews. I believe FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online offer a comparable value because while FreshBooks is slightly less expensive, it also isn’t as powerful.

FreshBooks scores the lowest among all providers in Banking, primarily because you can’t track checks and expenses until they clear the bank, as discussed in the banking section below. Its strongest category compared with its competitors is A/R, which includes invoice customization. FreshBooks started as an invoicing software, and it shows with its professional, customizable invoices.

FreshBooks Pricing

FreshBooks pricing took a hit in my evaluation because the platform’s Premium tier costs $104 per month for five users, which is $5 more than QuickBooks Online Plus ($99 a month) and $24 more than Xero Established ($80 monthly). Both platforms accommodate five seats and have much better features, such as inventory. Although FreshBooks is affordable for one user, I considered the fact that some small businesses might need to add more seats.

Its four plans have monthly fees starting at $23. They vary in terms of the maximum number of billable clients and the advanced features available, such as automated recurring invoices, double-entry accounting reports, and access to support. You’ll need to subscribe to Premium to manage unpaid bills—which is offered in the QuickBooks Simple Start plan for only $25 monthly.

FreshBooks New Features

• Timestamps are now in the invoice, proposal, and estimate history.
• Advanced search is now available to find specific invoices using different filters or tags.
• The dashboard is now customizable, which enables you to rearrange the dashboard and hide the information that you don’t need.
• A dedicated journal entries section is now available.

If you’d like to learn about other accounting software options and how they compare to FreshBooks, check out our guide to the

best FreshBooks alternatives

.

General Features

4.3 / 5

FreshBooks has most of the general features I expect to see in small business accounting software. You can modify the chart of accounts, turn account numbers on or off, and make adjusting journal entries. Importantly for nonaccountants, you can invite an accountant user to access your books to help keep things straight or get information to file your tax return. Thankfully, you don’t have to pay an additional user fee to add an accountant user.

While FreshBooks allows you to track income and expenses by project, it doesn’t provide for bigger-picture separations like class or location. It also doesn’t allow for custom tags that can be used to classify transactions—something that QuickBooks, Xero, and Zoho Books all do.

Banking

1.3 / 5

The banking features in FreshBooks are disappointing. In its noble quest to make user-friendly software, I think FreshBooks went too far in simplifying and arrived at a banking function that is nearly useless to businesses that actively use their software versus those that simply accumulate income and expenses after the fact. In other words, if all you want to do is record transactions as they clear the bank, then FreshBooks is extremely simple and almost foolproof.

Let me explain how banking works in FreshBooks.

When you record expenses or checks, the transaction is not assigned to a particular bank or credit card account until the transaction clears the bank and is transferred into FreshBooks via a bank feed. Instead, the check or expense always comes out of the Petty Cash account. At that point, the imported transaction is matched to the existing transaction, and the existing transaction is transferred to the proper bank account.

So, if you need to keep track of your available bank balances after subtracting outstanding transactions, then FreshBooks isn’t for you. This is particularly problematic if you write paper checks because paper checks can take months to clear the bank. However, it’s also not great for credit card charges that can take several days to clear and come through your bank feed.

Because of how the banking is set up, you must establish a live bank feed to track expenses from multiple accounts. Bank feeds are the only way to import transactions into FreshBooks—it doesn’t allow importing transactions from a bank statement or CSV file. This might be problematic if you don’t wish to give FreshBooks access to your online bank accounts. I believe FreshBooks is a secure platform and wouldn’t hesitate to provide my bank sign-in credentials, but not all are comfortable with it.

Accounts Receivable

4.6 / 5

Accounts receivable is FreshBooks’ strongest feature, which is unsurprising since it started as an invoicing software. It covers all the basics like printing or emailing invoices, accepting short payments from customers, and issuing credit memos. Some advanced features include invoices and the ability to set prices for commonly used items and quickly add them to invoices.

My favorite invoicing feature of FreshBooks is the ability to quickly add time and expenses to invoices. You can designate time and expenses to specific customers and projects as they are incurred. The next time you invoice that customer, you’ll be prompted to add the unbilled items. This makes FreshBooks a great choice for professional service providers that charge an hourly rate.

Invoice Customization

I agree with the many users who praise FreshBooks’ invoices. They look great and can be customized to reflect your company style. You can choose from multiple templates, customize the colors, upload your logo, and create a personalized message to include on each invoice. Beyond just cosmetics, you can easily designate which fields to include on your invoices, thus keeping the invoice simple and focused on just the information the customer needs.

Create a New Invoice Screen in FreshBooks

Our FreshBooks A/R Video

Accounts Payable

3.7 / 5

Available for Premium and Select subscribers, the A/P tool includes bill and vendor management features. I was a bit surprised to find there isn’t a feature to issue credit memos to your customers, something that seems like a pretty basic requirement for many businesses. Beyond that, FreshBooks doesn’t provide a vendor portal or allow the recording of purchase orders. Moreover, it makes it hard to record expenses without bank connections as I discussed in the banking section.

However, I was able to create a new vendor on the fly while entering a bill, which definitely saves time if you have a lot of clients. You can enter a bill from scratch or upload a receipt as discussed below. To enter a new bill, click on the Expenses menu, select the Bills drop-down menu, and then hit the New Bill button. Provide the required details in the New Bill screen and then click Save.

Add a New Bill Screen in FreshBooks

FreshBooks has great receipt scanning features, which is something I expect from accounting software. Receipts can be submitted via email, uploaded from your computer, or sent through the FreshBooks app. They are read using OCR technology and can be attached to an existing transaction or create a new transaction.

Inventory

While you can easily set up inventory descriptions to be added to bills, you cannot track the number of items on hand, the value of stock available, or the cost of your inventory sold.

Project Accounting

4.3 / 5

If you need project accounting, FreshBooks is ideal—unless you also need inventory accounting. It can’t record inventory used in projects but includes project management features that work directly with its invoicing tool. This helps you manage timelines and simplify project workflows.

You can create an estimate and add items such as labor, inventory, and sales taxes. Once approved, you can convert an estimate to a project and allocate actual labor cost details. You can also compare estimated costs against actual costs, which is important for budget planning.

If you need specialized accounting software for project management, check out our list of the

best project accounting software

.

Sales Tax

3.4 / 5

FreshBooks does a good job of basic sales tax accounting. You can create multiple sales tax items from different jurisdictions and them to your invoices on a line-by-line basis. I like that you can designate particular invoice items as either always subject to sales tax or not. Of course, you can always override that when issuing a particular invoice. It’s easy to view and pay your sales tax liability.

Beyond the basics, FreshBooks doesn’t offer much for sales tax management. It won’t help you decide which jurisdiction a particular customer is subject to, nor will it help you file your sales tax returns. If you operate in multiple jurisdictions, I recommend integrating FreshBooks with Avalara, which offers both of these features.

Reporting

4 / 5

If you only need basic financial reporting, you should do fine with FreshBooks. It generates a wide range of reports, but they aren’t as detailed as QuickBooks Online’s.

For instance, the balance sheets only show main categories, which means I can’t drill down in reports for more specific levels of detail, such as classes and location. Other reports available include A/R aging, A/P aging, income or loss by month or by customer, trial balance, and general ledgers (GLs).

Mobile App

3.5 / 5

FreshBooks has a capable mobile app that you can use for sending invoices. It can execute almost all the functions of the desktop interface—you can enter bills, accept payments, attach receipts, and record time worked. If you often do your business on the go, the app won’t disappoint.

However, there’s no way to enter bill payments, categorize bank feed transactions, and assign expenses to projects on the app. I praise FreshBooks for its project accounting features—and I’d like to see this in the app as well.

Integrations

5 / 5

FreshBooks has what I view as the most critical integrations, which are for payroll, payment processing, sales tax management, time tracking, and electronic bill payment. It integrates with over 70 software programs, including

• Gusto
• Zoom
• Shopify
• Squarespace
• Google Workspace
• Fundbox
• Stripe
• Bench
• QuickBooks Online
• HubSpot
• Dropbox
• PayPal
• Slack
• Mailchimp

Usability

1.5 / 5

I evaluate usability in four areas: bookkeeping assistance, customer service, ease of setup, and ease of use.

Bookkeeping Assistance

My biggest usability concern for FreshBooks is the lack of bookkeeping support. Customer service is good, but that’s not the same as providing direct bookkeeping support.

It doesn’t have a formal advisor network where you can locate a bookkeeping expert in your area. For instance, QuickBooks ProAdvisors are easy to locate almost anywhere in the US. While the website does invite accounting partners, there isn’t a list the small business owners can see that provides contact information for these accounting partners.

FreshBooks also doesn’t offer any monthly bookkeeping services to subscribers, though it does partner with third-party bookkeeping provider Wave. In contrast, QuickBooks, ZipBooks, and Wave all offer monthly bookkeeping plans where they will classify transactions, reconcile accounts, and provide financial reports.

Customer Service

Users often praise customer service in their reviews, but I’d like to see FreshBooks expand the ways in which it provides it. I love that clients can pick up the phone and call customer service directly, but it would also be nice if they could chat with an agent directly from the software. It would also be good to get 24-hour customer service.

Ease of Setup

FreshBooks is missing a few features that would have made it easier for me to set up my sample company. For instance, there wasn’t a wizard to walk me through all of the necessary steps. I was also unable to import my chart of accounts and input beginning balances; instead, I had to enter them as a journal entry. This isn’t a big deal for a pro, but FreshBooks is targeted at business owners, and they might struggle with this opening entry.

Ease of Use

FreshBooks is easy to use. Its dashboard is laid out so that the major accounting functions are readily accessible. You can create any transaction by clicking on the Create New button and then selecting the transaction type.

Create New Transaction Button in FreshBooks

I also like how most of the information you need to manage your business is available within FreshBooks without having to print a report. For instance, you can view customer and vendor balances, outstanding invoices, and transaction summaries.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Bottom Line

FreshBooks may lack some important features like managing your inventory and tracking income by class, which are present in slightly more expensive software, such as Xero and QuickBooks Online. However, FreshBooks’ powerful invoicing and project management features and excellent customer service make it a terrific choice for your small business.