Leave the boring task of generating invoices to an invoicing software and generate error-free invoices that will get you accurate due from your clients or customers for your goods and services.
Collecting payments from customers for goods and services is an important part of a business. Regardless of whether you are a large firm or a small firm or even, for instance, a freelancer, it is important that you bill your services accurately. An invoicing software for small businesses can help you in this endeavor.
It ensures that you are fair to your customers, to yourself, and charge only for services or goods you have rendered. An invoice software generates invoices that look professional apart from displaying all the elements.
In this post, we have enlisted some of the best invoicing software for small businesses. These are easy to use, are packed with features, and will help you convert your projects into invoices. While most of these invoice generators are free to use, you can pay up for advanced services.
What Is Invoice Software?
As the name suggests, invoicing software is an application that helps generate invoices. The main intent of invoicing software is to streamline the process of billing for you.
The tool helps create a list of services and products along with their corresponding costs including taxes, payment cycles, terms and conditions, and much more. Once you have generated the invoice, you can share it with your customers on the platforms they desire.
Why Does A Small (Or Large) Business Need Invoicing Software?
At the outset paid or free invoicing software eliminates the need to manually create invoices like you would do when creating invoices in Microsoft Word, Excel, Google Docs, or any other platform. For every aspect of your invoice – Whether it is adding client details, setting payment gateway, adding items or services, their quantity, you name it, the software lets you populate fields. Furthermore, the invoices generated instantly translate to various accounting aspects that you can use for later reference. As, most billing software for small businesses let you automate your billing system where you can create recurring invoices, and schedule reminders via various channels
What Should You Look For In An Invoicing Software?
– The invoice generator should help generate free invoice templates that can be used again and again.
– Check if your invoicing software can cross-integrate with other systems such as human resources, payroll, accounting, etc.
– You should be able to customize your invoice in a way that it resonates with your brand.
– Most invoice software integrates a payment link so that the client can make payments in a hassle-free manner.
– It should include features to automate payment reminders and handle recurring invoices.
– An invoicing software for small businesses instantly translates ongoing or completed projects into invoices and other things such as accounting.
– There are many online invoicing software that let you import Excel sheets or scan documents and generate invoices.
Best Invoicing Software for Small Business
1. QuickBooks
As an online invoicing software, Quickbooks lets you create professional invoices. Even as a free invoice generator you can generate professional-looking and free invoice templates that you can use for recurring payments. It also doubles as payroll software with which you can easily manage your employees’ wages, benefits, timesheets, etc.
Features
- Progress invoicing helps split the amount of bigger projects.
- Send automatic reminders for overdue invoices.
- Track all your invoices in real time.
- Schedule invoices especially those that are recurring.
- Accommodate tax deductions.
- Easily convert estimates into invoices.
- Accommodate elements like discounts, VAT, payment details, etc.
- Generate invoices keeping in mind the client’s currency and language.
- Organize and track business bills online.
- Slight issue in onboarding.
Personal Experience
We liked how QuickBooks is able to handle various kinds of invoices such as Credit Invoices, Interim Invoices, and various others with ease. The only minor issue we faced was while logging initially but we were able to resolve that. Also, the customer support is prompt.
Pricing – Free 30-day trial. After that pricing starts at $18/per month
2. FreshBooks
As a billing software for small businesses, FreshBooks covers you on fronts like invoicing, payments, and time tracking. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes. This means even freelancers and self-employed professionals can use FreshBooks. With Freshbooks, you can keep track of your projects and in accordance with these generate invoices.
Features
- Create professional-looking invoices with appropriate taxes.
- Customize invoice style; choose from various templates, change font and color, and do so much more.
- Set reminders at customizable intervals.
- Add expenses and billable hours to your invoices.
- Cross-integration with over 100 apps.
- You can request a portion of the deposit from the customer and reflect it in your invoice.
- Keep track of changes in project deliverables.
- Preview invoices before sending them.
- Collaboration with contractors can cause issues sometimes.
Personal Experience
On a personal front, we liked the feature where you can snap photos of your receipts. Here you can scan and save bills and receipts in both paper and digital form. Then, you can auto-capture line items, merchants, taxes, and totals.
Pricing – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $19 per month
3. Zoho Invoice
Zoho Invoice is an online invoicing software that helps small businesses generate invoices. Apart from generating invoices, it reminds you to collect payments and keep track of billable hours so that you can steer clear of scope creep. It also lets you keep a record of all your expenses so that you don’t overshoot your budgeting needs.
Features
- You can download customizable invoice templates.
- Schedule recurring invoices for regular transactions.
- Automatically convert a quote to an invoice when a customer accepts it.
- Easily record offline payments.
- Functionality to upload expense receipts.
- Schedule invoices for future dates.
- To ensure smoothness in the sales process, you can set quote expiration dates.
- Generate detailed reports and look into customer payment patterns.
- To handle multi-currency you will have to sign up for Zoho Billing.
Personal Experience
At the outset, we liked Zoho Invoice for its simplicity. You can easily add items or services for which you want to generate the invoice. What we also liked is how it handles taxes and accommodates them in the invoice thereby generating accurate invoices.
Pricing – Free invoice software
4. Invoice Ninja
If you are a freelancer, a self-employed professional, or a small business, consider trying Invoice Ninja. Despite being simple, it lets you generate accurate invoices. It’s a specialist when it comes to handling recurring invoices where you have to charge clients at certain intervals like monthly or annually.
Features
- View account statements of clients according to the invoices you have generated.
- Import CSV files and convert them into invoices.
- Integrate with payment gateways to expedite payments.
- Watch all transactions (deposits and withdrawals) at one place.
- Set up auto-reminder emails.
- It’s easy to keep track of ongoing and completed projects.
- Manage payments and notify customers and clients when they have paid.
- The pro variant lets you interlink up to 10 companies with a single login.
- Customize invoice design as per your brand needs.
- Navigation can be a little confusing in certain instances.
Personal Experience
Even as a free invoice generator, Invoice Ninja does a great job. You can tailor the invoice exactly as you want. From filling in customer details to adding items for which you are creating the invoice to even adding notes and supporting documents, everything is streamlined. To ensure that you are creating the right invoice, you can preview your invoice beforehand.
Pricing – Free trial with limited features. Pricing starts at $12/ month
5. Wave
Next on our list is Wave. It is one of the best invoicing software that caters to the needs of small businesses. It helps bookkeep your invoices by letting you add multiple items including products and services. It tracks the income that you have generated from your invoices and makes managing customer-related information a hassle-free task.
Features
- Send reminders for overdue payments.
- Create and send custom-made professional-looking invoices.
- You get notifications for invoices that are paid or overdue.
- Functionality to accept payments online.
- Generate and send invoices to your clients wherever they want.
- The ability to switch between manual and automatic billing according to need.
- It keeps customer information in one place. In a way, it functions like CRM software and you can communicate with customers in a relevant manner.
- The software is accurate when calculating taxes.
- For payments, all major cards are accepted.
- Lacks some advanced accounting features offered by competitors.
Personal Experience
Wave has a simple-looking dashboard that lets you track sales, invoices, estimates, accounting, etc in one place. What we liked is first, how it color codes invoice payment status. For instance, invoices that are “paid” are marked in green. Second, invoices instantly show up in the “Accounting” section. This way you can move ahead with things like reconciliation or analyzing accounts. Next, it lets you download invoice templates in various formats like Excel, Google Docs, PDFs, etc. In the future, for instance, you can edit your PDF invoices.
Pricing – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $16/ month
6. Invoicely
Invoicely is an online invoicing software that helps generate professional and elegant-looking invoices and estimates in your chosen language and currency. Once you have generated an invoice, you can send it to multiple contacts. This increases your chances that they will be seen and you will get paid in time.
Features
- Send payment reminders for overdue invoices automatically.
- Create estimates and when agreed upon by the client convert them to invoices.
- Generate account statements of past transactions with specific clients or vendors.
- Accept payments easily.
- Keep track of accounts payable and accounts receivable.
- Using invoice tracking every billable minute becomes easy.
- It’s easy to keep track of due and paid invoices.
- You can adjust the look of log-in screens and statements as per your business needs.
- Invoicely makes it simple to manage multiple businesses with individual team members.
- Lacks integration with some other systems.
Personal Experience
An aspect of Invoicely that we liked is how once you are done creating the invoice, you can send the invoice to multiple recipients. The same section includes fields for sending automatic payment reminders, allowing clients to make partial payments, and sending automatic receipts for payments.
Pricing – Free trial available with limited features. Pricing starts at $9.99/ month
7. Square Invoices
Square Invoices is a free invoicing software for small businesses. From one single dashboard, the software helps you track and manage your invoices. Not only invoices, it even helps manage estimates and payments. It also lets you handle all the aspects of receiving payments such as requesting, accepting, or recording payments received.
Features
- Track the status of your invoice whether paid (complete) or due (Active).
- Cross-integration with apps like QuickBooks, Freshbooks, etc.
- Share contracts, estimates, and invoices with customers in one place.
- Expedite the billing process by emailing the same invoice to multiple customers.
- Customize invoices with a custom layout and custom fields.
- At a glance, you can see a rundown of your estimates, payments, and invoices.
- Easy conversion of accepted estimates into invoices.
- Ability to get e-signatures.
- Hassle-free onboarding.
- The processing fee for online card transactions in the free version is high.
Personal Experience
An aspect of Square Invoices is that it’s not just an invoicing platform. It lets you organize your customers based on their purchasing behavior and feedback. This way you can accordingly direct your strategies. Plus, you can use your Customer Directory to promptly send payment emails (invoices)
Pricing – Free limited functionality trial. Pricing starts at $20/ month
8. Paymo
Paymo is broadly a project management tool. One of its focus areas is invoicing. It converts your timesheet data into an invoice. Later, you can review it and make adjustments manually depending on your needs. For recurring clients, you can clone an existing invoice and bill clients. Again, Paymo is one of the online invoicing software that cross-integrates with other apps.
Features
- Time tracker functionality – you can log work time manually.
- Send invoices in over 85 currencies and 15 languages.
- Track payments received, invoices issued, and overall paid/ unpaid balance.
- Functionality to offer global invoice percentage discount.
- Integrate payment gateways.
- Clients can access their invoices.
- You can keep track of how profitable a project is.
- Paymo also lets you manage team workload around projects.
- Advanced task management is not available in free plans.
Personal Experience
On a personal front, Paymo helps you manage your time around various clients and you can timely send them invoices. We were able to send invoices that can be paid via PayPal. Also, we could customize invoices on a client basis.
Pricing – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $5.9/ user/ month
9. Refrens
Refrens is one of the best online invoicing software. It offers multiple invoice templates that follow prescribed formats and standards. You can easily add custom fields, logos, attachments, and digital signatures. It even offers the capability to automate repetitive tasks such as sending payment reminders.
Features
- Once-click sharing of invoice; you can share the invoice on the client’s desired platform.
- Convert quotes to invoices with a single click.
- Generate tax-compliant invoices based on the country of the client.
- Send automated reminders for recurring payments.
- Customize the look of your invoice and make it look more professional.
- Secure cloud storage to keep financial data safe.
- Customize invoices according to your brands.
- Invoice generation may take some time.
Personal Experience
We liked how Refrens segregates the interface into three parts – first, you fill in invoice details, then, you establish bank details and last, you share the generated invoice with your clients or customers. Next, we liked how the invoice generator automatically lets you check the amount according to currencies. For instance, it will convert your currency to USD or EURO.
Pricing – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $15.61/ 3 months/ business.
10. ClearOne
Last but not least, we have ClearOne. It is one of the best free invoice generators. It caters to the needs of small and medium businesses. With it, you can create E-way bills, debit/ credit notes, proforma invoices, quotations, and much more in a matter of a few clicks. When you create invoices using ClearOne, the data is saved on cloud-based servers.
Features
- Create and share payment links via email or WhatsApp.
- Keep track of your inventory.
- ClearOne offers one one-click e-invoice.
- Track purchases and expenses at the supplier level.
- Download free invoice templates.
- Generate free invoices with a simple click.
- The software notifies you when you are low on inventory.
- Occasional crashes
Personal Experience
Pricing – Free 30-day trial period. Price on request.
Generating Invoices Couldn’t Get Easier
Now that we have enlisted some of the best invoicing software you can trust one such application with generating invoices. You can rest assured that you will receive what’s due for your goods and services on time. At the same time, you can also assure your customers that they will be charged fairly. Plus, you can automate recurring invoices and schedule reminders with the help of an invoicing tool.
Which of the above tools is your go-to companion when it comes to billing? Is there a tool that didn’t make it to the list? Do let us know in the comments section below. For more such content, keep reading Top10PCSoftware.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Which software is best for invoices?
In this blog, we have enlisted some of the best invoicing software. The software caters to the needs of all sizes of businesses regardless of how big and small they are. QuickBooks, Freshbooks, Zoho Invoice, and many others listed in this post are hailed as the best invoice software for small businesses.
Q2. Is Zoho invoice really free?
Yes, Zoho Invoice is free. However, to handle multi-currency needs you will have to sign up for Zoho Billing whose price starts at $20/ organization/ month billed annually.
Q3. How do I create an invoice for a small business for free?
An invoicing software makes it easy to generate invoices. Small businesses that are run by individuals who have to juggle multiple roles, a free invoicing generator like Invoice Ninja helps fill in customer details, the products or services offered, and other elements. Once all details are furnished, an invoice is generated. The invoices can be directly sent to clients on their desired platforms.
