Blog Equipment – …the result of iBiz vs. Billings 3

Equipment – …the result of iBiz vs. Billings 3

Since my last post about searching for an invoicing program I’ve finally made a desicion…

It’s official, I’m now a Billings 3 man. Now you’re probably wondering how it eeked out iBiz in the competition. There are a couple things that made it the better choice:

  1. Billings 3 has the option for you to send out an estimate and based off of that you can start the job and pull from those items depending on what you and the client agree on. Up until now I’ll admit estimates were on full scalp …now, nice clean workflow.
  2. It syncs wonderfully with my Address book, simple right? Something a lot of invoicing software I tried doesn’t get right.
  3. It has an iPhone App. I spend a lot of time on set with photographers, times change, you’re asked to pay for a courier/coffee/lunch I can keep track right there on my new iPhone. Get a payment from a client while away from the computer, input it right then and there on your phone.
  4. One click invoicing, click and BAM it’s into Mail and gone.
  5. One click statements, invoice overdue? Send a quick polite remainder to the client that the amount is still outstanding.
  6. Awesome Reports, again simple thing done right.  I can see how much I’ve collected over the year, what I’ve spent on expenses. Information that can help me see where my business is going and what I need to tighten up.

All of these were enough to get me to switch over. Still a bit of a learning curve as with any new software but I think this is a change for the better. Anything else great pops up I’ll be sure to let you all know.

A screenshot of the Billings 3 website, my new invoicing software - © Kurtis Stewart 2010

With any luck this is formatted properly with a tiny excerpt at the top and a remainder of the article below, crossing my fingers that WordPress plays nice on this.

3 comments

  1. ErickP says:

    Kurtis… I just came across your review and was wondering if you are still using Billings 3? I know since your review they have now merged Billings 3 with Billings Pro and is now a monthly subscription. Would be nice to see what your thoughts are on this new change. I’ve been using Billings 3 but now wondering if I should switch to a standalone product like iBiz 4 or Fanurio. When you do the math, the subscription model makes Billings pretty pricy per year. Let me know what you think? Cheers! ~Erick

  2. kurtisstewart says:

    Hi Erick,

    I don’t like that so many software providers are switching to this subscription style service (Adobe included). This was one of the reasons I went with Billings in the first place… Since I’ve still got my stand alone license and all my workflow invested in the program I’m going to stick with it. I’ll have to check out Fanurio, I’ve also been looking at http://www.xero.com/ even though it is subscription. Hope that helps!

  3. ErickP says:

    Hey Kurtis,

    I totally agree with you. If I didn’t really take advantage of a lot of the Adobe software, I might be in the same camp in regards to the subscription model. In my case it works out just fine and I can justify it. Other services not so much. With that said, like you I’ve decided to stick with Billings Pro. The pricing isn’t horrible and so far it’s better than most of the stand-alone apps I’ve been testing out lately. Hopefully it’ll work out and my side freelance will grow to not even give it a thought. Thanks for the response, it’s great to get feedback.

    BTW, just checked out XERO and it looks pretty heavy duty and so does the monthly fee. Might have to wait to I build up more clients. 😉

    ~Erick

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