Bill4Time Billing and Invoicing Software Reviewed

Freelancers are always on the lookout for the best way to do their billing, and you will often see the question come up on the FreelanceSwitch forum, “What is the best billing/invoicing software?”

For this reason FreelanceSwitch sent me out to review the software Bill4Time.

Bill4Time is a web-based time billing and project management tool. According to the website it is ‘designed to handle time and expense tracking & billing, project management, document filing, and scheduling for firms who bill for their time.’ But how does it stack up to the needs of the average freelancer?

Bill4Time is fairly straight forward billing program, it allows you to enter all your clients, open new projects associated with those clients, and then track and bill all your time on those projects. The setup is easy; allowing you to set your billing rates -both standard and overtime- and it even allows you to add other users with their own billing rates in cases where you are collaborating on a project with other freelancers.

As I watched the demo I was pretty impressed with all the things Bill4Time could do ( I did notice that they changed the oddly named section ‘Matters’ to ‘Project’ in the current version – thank you! ). I was particularly impressed with the way the software integrated with your PDA. It looked slick and very accessible. My excitement however was short-lived when I started to actually use the program.

Clunky Scheduler

The scheduler left a lot to be desired. It has a typical interface that allows you to schedule meetings and reminders on certain days, and choose when you would like to be notified. This is where it starts to break down.

The scheduler uses the web to alert you via a popup window. That means that your browser is probably going to block your alerts unless you tell it to always allow popups from the Bill4Time website. Also, you will need to keep your browser window open and logged in to Bill4Time if you want to receive any alerts. And the deal breaker for me -there is no calendar sync with Outlook/Google Calendar/iCal.

Limited Invoice Personalization

Recently Bill4Time added the ability to add your logo to your invoices. It was nice touch, but still left a lot to be desired as far as the personalizing the look on your invoice goes. You cannot change the colors, layout, or even the font size. The resulting invoice comes out rather plain and generic.

Where do record payments?

It was relatively simple to make up an invoice, but what happens when I receive the payment? I searched high and low for over ten minutes looking for the way to add payments. I know there must be a way to do it since the demo showed it being done. But do you think I could find it? I gave up after 15 minutes. A user should not have to play hide and seek with your interface. A section as important as ‘Receive Payment’ should be front and center.

Conclusion

I really wanted to like Bill4Time. The demo made it look like a slick tool for the freelancer on the go, but the reality fell short. I am not really sure what Bill4Time is trying to do, it isn’t feature rich enough to replace your current accounting software, and it’s too confusing to be a simple time tracking tool. It seems to being trying to do too many things and has ending up doing them poorly. The software is in continual development so I hope they will continue work in some more improvements. Till then, I would give it a pass.

Highlights

· Web based access allows you to connect to the software from your laptop or PDA.

Lowlights

· Poor interface means you will be searching for simple things like ‘receive payment’

· Scheduler will not sync with your calendar program of choice

· Monthly fees coupled with rather steep restrictions for a basic account (a limit 20 active clients and 30 projects)

· You will still need to run accounting software, so why not just run everything from there?

Travis King is a freelance designer and burgeoning coffee snob. If you have a product or service that you would liked reviewed for FreelanceSwitch, contact Travis at travis@greenteadesign.ca.