FreshBooks: Time Management With Invoicing and Project Management

Managing time and tracking billable hours is an important task, but the way that FreshBooks sees it there are strong relations between tracking billable hours, invoicing, and project management. That’s why FreshBooks is more than a time management tool, it’s a project management, invoicing, and time management application with enough tools to make everyone happy.

Once our sign in for FreshBooks is complete the tabs we see say it all - there are tabs for invoices, estimates, time tracking, and reports. To get an idea of how FreshBooks handles time management, let’s walk through the setup of FreshBooks.

Depending on what you want to use FreshBooks for, your first stop may be to the “Manage Tabs” link at the end of the tabs, where you can set which tabs you, your staff, and your clients can see. Next you continue to go through the setup process (linked from the “Home” tab), inputting company information, preferences (including whether clients can dispute invoices), and whether staff are able to create their own projects and timesheets. After that you go through the customization, making changes to email templates, background colors, and uploading logos. The third step, more for invoicing than time management, is for setting up payment options (11 online payment options) , import/export options, and settings for the FreshBooks API. Clients can be imported from Gmail, csv, QuickBooks, or Vcard, and exported via csv or QuickBooks. Integration with Basecamp is also under this step.

Each main tab, in this case the “Home” tab, is above several sub-tabs, where options are broken into further detail. In the case of the Home tab there are the sub-tabs: Homepage, Account Info, Refer Freshbooks (for a rate reduction), Upgrade, and Buy Stamps, which FreshBooks offers for users who want FreshBooks to send out invoices by post.

On to the next main tab, we see “Clients,” where we can add clients, adjust what clients can see (the Assign Clients tab), see our outgoing emails (Sent Emails), and adjust our preferences (Preferences). Under Preferences and the sub-tab “Time Tracking,” a box can be checked to allow team members to create and manage their own projects. The next main tab duplicates the headings and function of the Clients tab, but only for “Staff,” so users can manage what the staff sees, see notifications, and set preferences.

Now that we’ve set up the some of the information we need to proceed, let’s skip the “Invoices”, “Estimates”, and “Expenses” tabs and get into the “Time Tracking” tab to talk about FreshBook’s time management capability. The Time Tracking tab is broken down into the sub-tabs Timesheets, Projects, Tasks, Staff Timesheets, Generate Invoice, and Preferences. The Preferences are the same as we have seen under the other tabs, so let’s start with a project. Under the Projects tab we create a project, assign tasks to the project, and set the billing details (hourly so we can use the time tools). From this same screen we can create a new task and set it billable or unbillable, and set the rate. We can also create tasks under the Tasks tab, and see a list of the tasks and their rates.

Having set up a project, clients, and a task or two we can begin to use the time management capability of FreshBooks through the Timesheet tab. The first thing you see is a box in the center of the screen with a monthly calendar, week and day tabs next to it, and a large button that reads “Start/Stop Timer”. Through these we can track our time, by task and project, and no matter which view we’re looking at, we can log in our hours. With each entry we can write notes about the time we’ve input, which will be viewable in detailed reports. If the hours we logged in an hour long meeting about the project that included a call to the client, for instance, the note could change an unbillable hour to a billable one, or show a record of contact with the client.

With the Start/Stop Timer button, which is also on every page, we can open up a popup screen where we can time our billable hours and enter it onto our timesheets with the click of a button. Staff timesheets can easily be viewed on a monthly calendar under the Staff Timesheet tab, and edited through a link next to the staff person’s name. When editing a staff timesheet the interface is exactly that same as it is with our own, with a daily, weekly, and monthly view. The Generate Invoice tab lets you create an invoice with whatever items from the timesheet you approve, grouped by task or person, or broken down as line items, in any date range you set.

For users that require more oversight than calendar views, FreshBooks also offers reports, accessible through the Reports tab and links under the Staff Timesheets. There are a number of reports available in FreshBooks, depending on the need, grouped under tabs by their subject (Invoice Reports, Expense Reports, and Project Reports), or as a list of All Reports. Since we are focused on time management, the Projects Reports are where we want to go, and under that tab we can see reports of timesheets analyzed by clients, dates, tasks, staff, and hours for each project. A Timesheet Detail report also shows a detailed view of hours worked by staff with the notes they’ve included.

If FreshBooks has a weakness, it would not be capability - it handles everything from project management to invoicing to time management - but the interface could be be streamlined. Repetitive screens such as the Preferences (a sub-tab under 5 of the 8 tabs) could be graduated to be a top level tab, and a sidebar or navigation bar could make actions like adding a staff member and editing staff timesheets, or exporting timesheets (currently only exportable (csv) through the Reports tab) only one link away.

As a tool for time management, FreshBooks is capable, supporting its timesheets with support for invoicing and project management. For users looking for an all in one application, FreshBooks is an easy way to manage time, and for light users that only want a few features, the ability to hide tabs (from the Manage Tabs link) means that FreshBooks can be as simple or complex as you like. For those light users FreshBooks offers a free account that allows unlimited invoicing, 3 clients, and 1 user. Paid plans start at $14 with unbranded emails, 1 user and 25 clients. Plans extend up to 20 staff and 5000 clients. To find FreshBooks and applications like it there is the Listio search manage+timesheets.

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Tags: business, invoice, manage, organinze, productivity, projects, timesheets
Posted in: Invoicing, Project Management, Time Management | Respond
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