A simple way to bill customers – software you can use for free!

I read this article in Business & Finance (Ireland) recently and thought, whoa, this is too good to be true! A new website called billfaster.com offers small business owners the ability to create good looking invoices for free – yes free! I had a quick look at the software, and it is free to start off with. You can, according to the website, add more features at a charge but the basic invoicing function is free. You can easily (3 clicks they claim) create and invoice and print it or email it to your customer.

To be fair, the 3 click is probably right if you have all your products and customers set-up. The invoices created are quite professional and all is in simple layman’s terms. The whole idea is wonderful for a start-up business in two ways 1) it’s free and 2) it helps you get off to a good start in terms of accounting – a point I keep on making in my books. As the system is web-based, this means your accountant can hop in every so often to see if you doing okay and also you don’t need to worry about things like computers failing or needing backups. A big drawback though is that although invoices can be done, that’s as far as it goes it seems on the free version. You cannot for example get any reports on how much each customer owes you etc.