Picked the wrong invoicing software and lost $600 this quarter

I chose FreshBooks over QuickBooks because everyone said it was simpler, but now I'm finding I can't generate proper tax reports without paying for add-ons. Has anyone else switched mid-year and regretted the extra hours of data cleanup?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_faith15d ago

$600 seems like a lot but in business accounting terms that's like one decent lunch meeting. I've seen people lose way more than that just because they forgot to set aside sales tax for a quarter. FreshBooks tax stuff is weak for sure but you can usually export everything to a CSV and hand it to a bookkeeper for like $100 to sort out. Might save you the headache of switching mid-year.

flores.mark15d ago

I mean I get where you're coming from but I really don't see it that way. $600 isn't pocket change for a lot of small business owners, especially when you're already paying for FreshBooks every month. The whole point of an accounting tool is that it handles the bookkeeping stuff so you don't have to pay someone extra on top of it. And handing over a CSV to a bookkeeper for $100 sounds cheap but around here that's more like $200 to $300 a month if you want them to actually clean things up properly. Plus you're talking about switching mid-year like it's no big deal but transferring over all your invoices and expense categories can be a nightmare and you risk messing up your tax records. Why pay for something that only does half the job when there are tools out there that handle the tax side from the start? I guess it depends on what kind of business you run though. What's your main reason for sticking with FreshBooks over something like Xero or Wave?

victorhernandez15d ago

You changed my mind actually, never looked at it that way before.