Agreeing with Adrian
FreshBooks isn't, and doesn't claim to be, a bookkeeping application.
However, if their needs are very basic then it may suffice.
And if their needs go beyond just book-keeping
...then take a look at Aqilla which is more than capable of doing proper JV accounting including reporting, apportionment etc. www.aqilla.com
QuickBooks
“I note that you say you would have recommended QuickBooks Online. Given that it was only launched a couple of days ago, what is your basis for that? Have you spent some time looking at it, or is the brand name and long-established place in the market of Intuit driving your recommendation?”
I watched a webinar. It seems a good application but given I only looked at it for an hour there’s only so much I can conclude but it is certainly better than Sage’s offering which bizarrely they seemed to be trying to get as much wrong as possible.
I like FreeAgent but it is more designed for the one man band.
I don’t think you can rely on any of the cloud software that is around to stay around. I was really shocked by MS Office Accounting’s withdrawal when the product seemed pretty good.
Interesting remark
Hi Peter,
I'm drawn to your remark about not being able to rely on today's cloud solutions to stay around.
While many of the speculative offerings in the market will change or go away as the sector matures and they obtain the funding (or not) to drive their future growth, I would politely push-back on your view as applying to all cloud vendors.
Not only do the fractional economics of internet distribution provide a generally more favourable and viable landscape for even marginally successful software companies to survive and prosper, ultimately there is a difference between being a boutique software vendor that cuts its cloth accordingly, and one that has scale objectives.
With the release of two new cloud products that barely pass functional muster, both Sage and Intuit appear to have just ably demonstrated that historical scale is a compromise, not a strength, in this new market economy, and certainly no guarantee of their future success in it. And possibly, counter-intuitively as it may seem, as Microsoft also demonstrated when it pulled Office Accounting.
Unlike most cloud vendors, whether they be small startups or old guard, Xero has purposefully gone about building a product offering and a business designed for scale - we're not just taking a punt - and we've raised around £25M of investment to ensure that not only is our product performant, but our ability to scale our business for the long term is also assured.
We're tripling our revenues and have secured over 30,000 customers in four years. I'd very much like to think we'll still be here tomorrow, and the day after that.
Gary Turner,
UK Managing Director, Xero
@garyturner
Chipping in a few things
Hi Peter,
Freshbooks is actually Canadian. Like @garyturner I'm very surprised at your attitude on Cloud providers. As he says, Xero is well capitalised, Twinfield (disclosure - I'm a business partner) has been around since 5 October 2000 and is healthily profitable with a growing user base, and then plenty of the others have been around for a long time with strong growth. It's actually players like Microsoft (as you mention) or Sage that have taken products off the market. Of course there will be some consolidation over time, but that's business as usual for the software sector, but the UK cloud accounting sector gives you a lot of strong choices.
The other key factor is that, assuming you chose a provider with the right approach and contractual terms, you'll be able to get your data back and switch to another provider an order of magnitude easier than with a non cloud route, where you've already got an investment in software and infrastructure compared to stopping subscribing to one and chosing another. Switching is always hard, but a cloud approach eases the pain.
David Terrar
www.d2c.org.uk and www.twinfield.co.uk
Xero + freshbooks
Doesn't Xero integrate with freshbooks!
So perhaps your client can use the freshbooks interface for invoicing etc... And you can use xero for the bookkeeping/accounting part?
Xero & Freshbooks
You can connect them together and pump your billing numbers into Xero's accounting engine, but unless you were already totally welded to Freshbooks' invoicing, that's probably over-engineering it.
If you wanted to save some money or were starting from scratch with no software for billing or accounting then Xero's integrated billing capability is probably more than perfect.
Gary Turner
UK Managing Director, Xero
@garyturner
Not really a bookkeeping app
Hi Peter,
FreshBooks is, in their own words, "Online invoicing, time-tracking and billing software". Although it seems it can be used as a bookkeeping package, it is not really designed to be. So, if your client wants a "full" bookkeeping system, FreshBooks is probably not for them.
I note that you say you would have recommended QuickBooks Online. Given that it was only launched a couple of days ago, what is your basis for that? Have you spent some time looking at it, or is the brand name and long-established place in the market of Intuit driving your recommendation?
Products that I would consider in your place would be (in addition to QuickBooks Online):
That said, given Intuit's past history in the UK, there must be at least a little worry that they might close down QuickBooks Online here with short notice. I guess that would not go down well with your client.
Regards,
Adrian
http://www.adrianpearson.com