3 Free Invoicing Web Applications
Jul 18th, 2008 | By Tom | Category: Featured Articles, Web ApplicationsI’ve been looking around at the various web applications for invoicing that are available at the moment. I must have come across at least 20 or so different ones over the last couple of days, most which require subscription fees. I did come across three that are completely free however and these are the ones that I’ll focus on here. Actually I came across a fourth which looked very good but it lacked Euro currency support and so I’ll leave it out.
www.invoicejournal.com is a hosted invoicing application which means you don’t need to download or install anything, just sign up for a free account and away you go invoicing your clients. This makes it an ideal choice for people who don’t want to get dirty installing files and setting up databases for a self hosted solution. If you consider hosting costs (free hosting isn’t really ideal for something as important as your invoices) then it’s the only option here that is 100% free.
Pros: Simple to use, good looking interface, custom invoice template support, easy paypal integration, pdf export (currently via third party website)
Cons: Doesn’t seem to be any way to backup or store your data locally, worrying if anything happens to the service.
www.bambooinvoice.org is a free open source invoicing application. With this one you’ll need to provide your own hosting and install it before you an use it. The good thing about this is you’ll have complete access to your data and can back it up easily. Because it’s open source the possibility of future growth via community contributions is good. The app is, at time of writing, pre version 1.0 so it is very unfinished although it does look promising.
Pros: Backup MySql database, xml and excel export options, pdf export
Cons: It looks young and buggy at the moment, needs more work before it’s a solid option.
www.simpleinvoices.org is another free open source invoicing solution so again you’ll need to host and install it yourself. The interface is possibly the least appealing of the others listed here although it does seem more mature and functional than it’s closest alternative Bamboo Invoice.
Pros: Export invoices as .pdf, .xls and .doc, backup database
Cons: Ugly interface with horrible slidy effect shortcut page
I’m the author of BambooInvoice. Firstly, thanks for taking the time to check it out. Anything specific about it that you found buggy? Fixing those types of things is very high on my list of priorities.
Hi Derek, one of the things I noticed when trying the BambooInvoice demo was filtering the list of invoices, the selections at the top didn’t seem to effect the invoice summary list. Not sure if it’s a bug or just unfinished.
Another thing I noticed is that when applying a payment to an invoice it gives a nice payment history but it would be even nicer to see all payments totaled up and a total for how much is still outstanding on each invoice.
I’ve only tried the demos briefly but I hope to install it and try it out in greater detail soon.
Hi tom,
nice small list you have there with a good description of each. invoice journal is good, and is nice, but when i did mess around with it, i used to get errors with it. dunno if it was just a server hiccup, but it really made me lose faith in the service as a whole, not that i had any serious intention of using it.
@ Derek, I must admit, I tried this software in it’s earlier days, and whilst i liked the concept of it, it was really young and extremely buggy. Looking at it now, everything from the interface to the features to the functionality has all improved immensely and you should be proud of it.
On the brightside, I have a client who i worked with very recently in setting up her new business, and she bought invoice software for $100 USD. http://www.office-kit.com/. bamboo and simpleinvoices would have done the same , if not better, for free.
When the times comes that I will have substantial use for such an application, I will strongly consider using BambooInvoice.
Regards,
Nev