Discussion on:

Five apps to automate invoicing for small businesses

Great post Brian!
Two things though that come to mind from my research. These apps all appear to be Windows only and there are truly great "In-the-cloud" apps available:

Mac Alternatives:
1. Billings Pro from marketcircle dot com
2. Elements CRM (invoicing plus more) from ntractive dot com
3. Invoice from kedisoft dot com

On the Software as a Service side, which is how I ended up going there are many alternatives.
1. Zoho Invoice (and its big brother Zoho Books) is an extremely easy to use and full featured small business tracking app that I have used for about a year now. There are free and reasonable payment plans and Zoho continually rolls out new functionality and their support is great. From zoho dot com.
2. Kashoo is what I am in the process of switching to right now, I also had some changes in my business and Kashoo fits to a T. They also recently announced a free plan that fits many small business (and they have an iPad app). From kashoo dot com
3. Very honorable mentions also to FreshBooks, InDinero and Ronin all of which I have tried at one point or another.

Of course, your mileage may vary.
Enjoy.
Kimon
Athens, Greece

Hi Kimon,
Thanks for mentioning us. Zoho Books has definitely come a long way and we hope to continue saving time and effort for our users while accounting. With Bank Feeds on board, data entry is considerably reduced and users now automatically get bank and credit cards transactions into Zoho Books.

Again we thank you for the kind words and we would love it if you stayed back with us. Were we missing out on anything that you really wanted ?

Reshma
Zoho Invoice & Books Team

Sorry about that.

What about In-The-Cloud apps?
There are such awesome ones available
I personally use Invoice Bubble - It's simple yet effective and professional http://invoicebubble.com

I use MyIT CRM. To customize some of the features of the invoices for my business, I have to manually edit the .php, html and image files but once done, it works great. Oh! It's also free!

I have used CurdBee, an online app that interfaces with PayPal. Easily customized, options for online or PDF invoices, automatic tax calculations, etc.

I travel a ton so I need things to be cloud based. From Xero to Freshbooks to WHMCS each one has strengths and weaknesses depending on your line of business.

I started with the simple Invoice App but then later upgraded to the My Business Cloud as I did not want to be restricted with hardware, especially seeing as I run off a Mac and do not want to install Windows just to run it. But def a great product nonetheless

Sorry forgot to include the link
https://www.pastel.co.za/

Sage Billing Boss.....https://www.billingboss.com/

For Mac
Express Invoice form NCHsoftware dot com, thats another good product, i am using it in my company now, its user friendly, they also have another handy software Express accounting, you just need to install on one computer and rest computers can access it over the internet or intranet, in that way all of your data is at one place,

I'm looking for a simple cheap system that will help me produce quotations and would appreciate suggestions. My requirements:
Database shared by users in 3 different branches
Quotes only - invoicing and all other applications are handled thru other software and there is no need to retrieve a quote to create an invoice.
Item information to be held in an inventory file but no qty on hand checking is necessary
Long project names (need 50 characters if possible)
Item information has very long product descriptions (ideally held as multiple 50 character fields and printed on multiple lines) but with scope for the content to be modified during quotation entry
Only one possible unit of measure per item but quite a varied list - square metres, linear metres, box, etc.
Pricing - one price per item to be entered by the user
Customer data - basic information only (name and address, fax, email). Modifiable during quote entry.
Retrieve a previous quote and copy or modify to create a new quote
Forward for management approval
Output as print or PDF (ideally including electronic signatures)
Multi-currency (preferably within a single quote)
Optional totals at any stage of the quote to include a user-selectable range of line item entries and with scope for multiple separate totals within a single quote
Multiple terms and conditions lines (ideally selectable by item code)
Customisable print format

Thanks in advance

Nice article but...

What about importing data from an existing application? Such as the #1 accounting software tool which I would like to get away from...QB's.

Thanks.

And the one I use and love is Invoicera (http://www.invoicera.com or from the Chrome Web Store). I have it integrated with my Google Checkout/Wallet account to easily collect on invoices.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Hello Brien,
Thank you for the article. No doubt it is of a great help to all of us using invoicing and billing apps. I am familiar with Invoice Expert and Volutive, but I will surely try out other apps from your list. I also use Curd Bee because of its really impressive interface, very easy to understand...I have also found one more extensive list of billing and invoicing apps...so here is my recommendation
http://www.pdfconverter.com/resources/blog/best-free-online-billing-and-invoicing-tools

Enjoy,
Julian

Invoicing on your desktop
No monthly fees, receive all future software updates free.
Runs on, Mac, P.C. & Linux
http://bee-software.net/invoice-software/

hi,
check out the latest addition of 2013
metrobill.net - cloud invoicing, simple and elegant

thanks
tengku