It’s no wonder entrepreneurship appeals to creatives. Building a business offers the chance to build something unique. It provides individuals with the opportunity to serve others and solve problems in a way others can’t. 

But there’s a duality to all things! While entrepreneurship allows for outside-the-box thinking, it also requires a systemized approach. Unfortunately, these two ways of operating aren’t always in sync. It can be all too easy to go from being creative to being scatterbrained.

However when it comes to paying yourself, your employees, and the IRS, there’s no room to be disorganized. Money is the lifeblood of your business, and those involved need to be paid promptly and correctly for their efforts.  

For these reasons, you can’t leave your collections and bookkeeping to chance. It needs to be quick and easy to manage the money going in and out of your business. Thankfully, Freshbooks accounting software provides an all-in-one solution to these problems. 

Take a look at how Freshbooks can help your business! 

Freshbooks Accounting Software At A Glance

Freshbooks focuses on streamlining the functions of invoicing and accounting for small businesses. Their desktop and mobile apps make it simple for entrepreneurs to keep going. Freshbooks accounting software has been trusted by over 30,000,000 people to help with: 

• Invoicing

• Expensing

• Accounting

• Project Management

• Business Management

Freshbooks Features

Freshbooks makes things simple, but that doesn’t mean their service lacks variety. Quite the contrary! With Freshbooks, users are given a wide range of functions to make running their creative business easier. These incredibly helpful functions include:

Invoicing

Freshbooks makes invoicing effortless and professional. As a business owner, you’ll be able to create high-end-looking invoices with ease. Invoices will clearly communicate the services your business rendered and the payments you are requesting from your clients.

Invoices are also able to be sent quickly and paid for in a variety of ways. Freshbooks will notify you if and when payments are made, and makes it easy to send out reminders to any clients who have yet to pay.

Expensing

It’s best to stay ahead of the game when it comes to taxes. Freshbooks is here to help you do so. You’ll be able to take pictures of receipts, upload them to your account, and even import expenses directly from your bank account. 

Freshbooks make it easy to store all your expenses in one place. Additionally, you’ll be able to organize your expenses by assigning them to individual clients. When tax time rolls around, it will be easy to find and itemize your deductions.  

Accounting

Freshbooks allows you to conduct your business accounting from anywhere. Whether you’re on a laptop or smartphone, you’ll be able to create and send invoices, track expenses, review payments, and monitor business performance.

Project Management

Staying on top of multiple projects yourself is tough. But when you add communication between clients, employees, and independent contractors, it can become overwhelming. With the project management feature Freshbooks offers, this can be avoided. 

This feature enables projects to be scheduled and synchronized between all associated parties. Additionally, everyone involved will be able to collaborate and upload files all in one designated place.

Business Management

Like we said before, money is the lifeblood of your business. Thankfully, Freshbooks makes it a breeze to stay healthy. With its Double-Entry Accounting tools and reports, you’ll have an easy-to-understand overview of your finances. These overviews include your business profitability, cash flow, and spending.

Additional Freshbooks Features

Time & Mileage Tracking

If you have a team working on multiple projects, you may find Freshbooks’ time tracking feature useful. That’s because there’s no hassle! Freshbooks allows workers to sign in to the app, log their time, and automatically put it into an invoice. Their time will be tracked and accounted for, without all the hassle of manual timekeeping. 

Additionally, for business conducted on the road, Freshbooks makes it easy to stay on top of tracking mileage. The Freshbooks software can automatically track, log, and keep records of all your business-related travel.

Phenomenal Customer Support

Freshbooks offers award-winning, end-to-end customer support. Their highly competent support staff consists of 100+ people spread across both North America and Europe. Presently their approval rating boasts an excellent 4.8/5.0 stars, based on 120,000+ customer reviews.

Getting Started With Freshbooks

Before getting started with Freshbooks, you’ll want to review their pricing and packages. Presently, they offer four different plans. You’ll want to take the time to review each and see which applies best to you and your business needs. Below is a breakdown of each plan:

• Lite (5 Billable Clients): The most basic option, the Lite plan is suited for those with simple business needs. Features in this package include unlimited invoicing, unlimited expense tracking, and tax tracking. If your business is small and your client base is light, this plan is likely best for you.

• Plus (50 Billable Clients): This option is suited for those with larger, growing businesses. It expands upon the Lite package’s services and includes client retainers, double-entry accounting reports, mileage tracking, receipt capturing, and CPA access. If you and your business maintain a wider portfolio of customers, the Plus plan may be better suited for your success.

• Premium (Unlimited Billable Clients): This option is geared toward even larger businesses. It expands upon the Plus package’s services and includes custom email signatures, project profitability tracking, and the ability to track bills, the payments on those bills, and simply manage vendors with accounts payable.  

• Select (Unlimited Billable Clients + Speciality Features): This option is perfect for businesses with even more complex needs. It expands upon the Premium package’s services and includes having 2 team member accounts, a dedicated account manager, and the removal of Freshbooks branding.

How Lamplight Advisors Can Help Further

At Lamplight Advisors, our mission is to help you improve your business. We fully understand the challenges of staying on top of finances while handling the complexity of employee management. 

Additionally challenging is the constant focus of delivering on your promises to the customers you serve. That’s why we offer you not just tips on the latest technology, but support and direction to get your business to the next level. 

We tailor our CFO services specifically to creative firms and the challenges they face. If you’re interested in more support in managing your accounting, cash flow, and income, Lamplight Advisors has you covered. 

To see how we may be able to assist you further in the financial operations of your creative business, click here to schedule a conversation today. We look forward to hearing from you, and we’ll talk soon!