Question
Any free/cheap alternatives to Quickbooks Online for invoicing clients?
We currently use Quickbooks Online but the options for invoice customization are limited and the interface is horrendous.
We're looking for something that can:
- link up with our banking
- accept both credit card and ACH payments (with limited fees on both)
- allow recipients to pay online
- create pretty invoices :)
Square looked great but currently does not allow payments via ACH.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
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A very basic option I often use and recommend is PayPal. It misses your last option on creating pretty invoices, but is free and easy to use, generally reasonable fees (international fees + exchange work out worse, but inside your own country they're not much if any more than standard credit card 2.9% + 30¢), and they do work with bank transfers albeit they're somewhat slower than a credit card transaction.
For a more geeky option, Stripe can send fully customizable invoices—and accept payments via a crazy wide array of services including ACH—though you'll have to make an API call to create a new invoice. With a bit of custom webhooks/code work, you could use something like Zapier to automatically make Stripe invoices if you want. More time to set up initially, but quicker over time.
For something a bit easier to use, Harvest has a free plan to send unlimited invoices that accept ACH transfers, though only with 2 active projects, so you have to be a bit hacky in how you create the invoices. Or, the best option might be Wave, a full accounting system that's free (paid for by add-on services like payroll), and it has invoicing tools that work with ACH.
That is a huge problem with accounting tools, as they're often so localized that they don't work for other countries outside their primary market.
I'm the founder of https://getapollo.io, check it out, if you like it I'll give you lifetime free access as a fellow Capiche member.
Neat! What does Apollo do differently than other invoicing apps, and what led you to build it?
We built the infrastructure from the ground up as an API first product then build the UI (Apollo) over it. This makes it perfect for automating invoicing from other systems using the API or one of our pre-made e-commerce and payment processor integrations.
Going even further, the API also allows integration into other SaaS, marketplace, and platform products to re-sell invoicing features including a fully white-labeled UI.
Apologies for the delayed response @bostjanpisler - thanks for sharing and the offer! I plan to give this a look over the weekend and will keep you posted.
Really appreciate it!
Looks interesting. I’m currently looking for a Wave alternative as I live in the EU.
I'm testing out Zoho.com - they have a very affordable package under Zoho Books, check out → https://www.zoho.com/invoice/
I'm actually testing their Zoho One package, which comes with 41 apps at one price (very very hard to resist). They've created an integrated ecosystem for SMEs, which is pretty good.
They could do with some upgrade on the UI/UX, but typically enterprise level software is known for that right!
There's a lot to test, 41 apps in total. If you're looking for a more integrated business, rather than connecting everything with Zapier, might try integrating under a single company. Might.
CRM is probably the best I've seen, highly customizable, and affordable. Zoho Desk is probably next, its a new product to compete with ZenDesk or FreshDesk.
I use Zoho Books, and find it very useful for my usecase over quickbooks.
Looking for a better way to plan remote meetings across time zones, and keep up with events. What software is doing that best today?
Wave is great, only that they don’t support customers outside of the US and Canada as of this year.