Comparison of online invoicing systems

In my first post I promised an evaluation of online invoicing systems. Well, I finally got around to it. Which is to say our current system finally got unbearable enough. Our current system is  Excel Invoice Template by office-kit.com. The price couldn't be beat; it was about $30 one-time. And it served us well for several years. The developers were responsive to e-mail support requests, and with their help I learned how to add custom address fields and modify the Excel template to our needs. However, it was just these modifications that messed us up when we upgraded from Windows XP to Vista. They just didn't work any more.

That's when I decided to look into a cloud-based system. It looks like the office-kit.com system has evolved in the meantime, but with a cloud-based system I don't have to keep checking if the software has updates. It updates automatically. And I don't need to worry about surprises and headaches when I update my operating system.

Besides we're ready to evolve ourselves to a system that is more sophisticated than an Excel add-in.

First I defined our needs and then based my evaluation on them. Your requirements will be different, so don't take my review for gospel. Also keep in mind that this is a snapshot in a quickly evolving area. By the time I publish this, I'm sure many of my assertions won't be true. However, I like to think some people can benefit from the work I put into the evaluation.

Here are our current requirements:

• Mainly an invoicing system for goods rather than services. Customer order entry, ordering from suppliers and payment reminders might be added benefits.
• Affordable price for a home-based business.
• Multiple languages. We are based in Austria and ship internationally, so we need to define the language the customer prefers.
• Multiple currencies. See multiple languages above.
• Line discounts, that is, the ability to define a discount for each line of the invoice. This is important when invoicing other companies rather than end consumers.
• Line tax rates, that is, the ability to assign a different sales tax rate to each line, article or product group. For example, books have a different tax rate than CDs in Austria.
• Output invoice in PDF format, for e-mailing and storing.
• Customer database, that is, the ability to enter customers and select them when invoicing rather than entering the entire address for each invoice.
• Product database, that is, the ability to enter products and select them when invoicing rather than entering the entire item description for each invoice.
• The ability to import customers and products from our current database.

And here are the online systems I tested or at least looked at:

Google Checkout
http://checkout.google.com
Country: us, uk
Price: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Multi-language: ?
Multi-currency: no (GBP with separate account)
Line discount: no lines
Line tax: no lines
PDF output: no
Customer database: no
Product database: no
Comments: customer must sign up for Google Checkout, no PayPal, no bank cards

PayPal
https://www.paypal.com
Country: several
Price: 1.9% to 3.4% + EUR 0.35 per transaction
Multi-language: no (except multiple accounts)
Multi-currency: yes
Line discount: no discounts
Line tax: no
PDF output: no
Customer database: no
Product database: no
Comments: Google Checkout and PayPal aren't really invoicing systems but checkout/payment systems, but I wanted to see if they would fit our needs. They don't.

OnlineOffice
http://www.winweb.com
Country: uk
Price: GBP 142.80/yr. + tax (EUR 13.80/mo.)
Multi-language: no
Multi-currency: ?
Line discount: no
Line tax: yes
PDF output: yes
Customer database: yes
Product database: yes
Comments: complex, complete business office solution

FreshBooks
http://www.freshbooks.com
Country: ca, us
Price: free to $149/mo.; $39/mo. for 500 to 2000 customers
Multi-language: no
Multi-currency: yes
Line discount: no
Line tax: yes, up to 4 tax rates
PDF output: yes
Customer database: yes
Product database: yes
Comments: invoicing, time tracking, expenses; very active on Twitter; added multi-currency since my first post

Smart Invoice
http://www.smartinvoice.com
Country: us
Price: $39/mo. for 25 to 5000 customers
Multi-language: yes, but not clear if one can invoice in different languages simultaneously
Multi-currency: yes, but price is not converted
Line discount: no
Line tax: yes
PDF output: no
Customer database: yes
Product database: no
Comments: invoicing for freelancers and small businesses; was AcuInvoice; addresses only in US format

Saasu
http://www.saasu.com
Country: au
Price: AU$25/mo. up to 2GB
Multi-language: no
Multi-currency: yes, with exchange rates
Line discount: no
Line tax: yes
PDF output: yes
Customer database: yes
Product database: yes, including inventory control
Comments: online accounting

CurdBee
http://curdbee.com
Country: lk, us
Price: $5/mo. for Pro version
Multi-language: no
Multi-currency: yes
Line discount: no
Line tax: no
PDF output: yes, in Pro version
Customer database: yes
Product database: yes
Comments: replied to my initial tweet; billing for small businesses & freelancers; they let me test the Pro version for 24 hours after asking for it

invOOice
http://www.invooice.com
Country: es
Price: $5/mo. for Pro version
Comments: replied to my initial tweet; invoicing, customer relationship management; currently in test phase, sign up to be notified when demo accounts become available

Harvest
http://www.getharvest.com
Country: us
Price: $12/mo.
Multi-language: translations, but no multiple languages
Multi-currency: yes
Line discount: no
Line tax: yes
PDF output: yes
Customer database: yes
Product database: no
Import clients/items: no
Comments: replied to my initial tweet; time tracking, time sheet and invoicing; time tracking via Twitter commands

Intervals
http://www.myintervals.com
Price: free to $175/mo.
Comments: replied to my initial tweet; emphasis on time tracking, task management and project management

Zoho Invoice
https://invoice.zoho.com
Country: us, in
Price: $15/mo. for 150 to 500 invoices/mo.
Multi-language: yes, via custom templates
Multi-currency: yes, with exchange rates
Line discount: yes
Line tax: yes
PDF output: yes
Customer database: yes
Product database: yes
Comments: replied to my initial tweet; invoicing; integrates with other Zoho modules; custom address fields is a big plus

MeinAuftrag.net
https://www.meinauftrag.net
Country: de
Price: up to 10 addresses free, up to 50 addresses EUR 4.95 + tax, up to 100 addresses EUR 9.95, over 100 addresses EUR 14.95
Multi-language: yes, via custom templates
Multi-currency: yes, with multiple currency fields in item database
Line discount: yes
Line tax: yes
PDF output: yes
Customer database: yes
Product database: yes
Import clients/items: not yet implemented but will import for you at no charge on request
Comments: user interface German; very responsive to e-mail support calls and feature requests

If your requirements are similar to ours and you understand German, you might want to try MeinAuftrag.net. If you don't understand German, then you can try Zoho Invoice.

In addition to our main requirements above, MeinAuftrag.net also lets you maintain suppliers and make orders. Future possible requirements that it doesn't have (yet) is inventory management, sales reports, and exporting data.