Managing invoices with Blinksale
I like writing and consulting. A lot. But I also like getting paid for doing that. And a key part of getting paid is letting clients know how much they owe you. That’s, obviously, where invoices come in.
Over the years, my invoicing habits have changed. Back in the day, I’d send clients a PDF invoice (based on one of these templates), or one in the form of an HTML file. In case you’re wondering, I started using the latter when I wrote for the now-defunct Web Review. Kind of ironic, no?
A couple of years ago, though, I got tired of keeping track of the various invoice files. So I decided to look for a Web-based invoicing application. I looked at several — including many of the ones described in this article — and finally settled on Blinksale.
Making the choice
A lot of the invoicing tools out there do more than Blinksale. Some of them are basic accounting and expense tracking packages, too. That’s more than I need at the moment. Blinksale has the features I need and is easy to use. And it has the pricing plan that suits my budget.
Working with Blinksale
That’s pretty easy. After you log into Blinksale (you get a custom URL like https://xyzwriting.blinksale.com when you sign up), click the Invoices tab and then click the New Invoice button. From there, tell Blinksale who you want to bill. If you’ve billed clients or customers through Blinksale before, you can select one from a list. Otherwise, type the name of the client in the field that’s provided. Then, click the Create Invoice button.
The invoice form is pretty simple. You select the date of the invoice from dropdown lists, and there’s a field for an invoice ID. This is useful for keeping track of invoices, especially if you bill the same client regularly. You can also specify:
- How you are billing — by the hour or day, or for a product or service
- The quantity — number of hours or days, number of products or service
- A detailed description of the work or items
- The currency in which you’re billing
- Whether or not to charge tax and/or freight, and the tax rate and/or freight charge
- A due date for the payment, and whether or not you want to charge a late fee
From there, you can print the invoices or send them by email from within Blinksale.
Other useful features
When you log into Blinksale, the first thing you see is a dashboard. The dashboard lists all of your recent invoices — ones that are open, which you’ve received payment for, and which are past due. If you need to, you can search for invoices based on date or client.
A couple of nice touches are the reminders and thank you notes. The reminders are meant to be sent to clients who are late paying; the thank you notes … well, you get the idea. Like the invoices themselves, you can send these notes via email.
On top of that, you can customize the look of your invoices. There are several templates available, and if you know some CSS (or know someone who does) you can really make the invoices your own. On top of that, you can add a logo to your invoices.
If you use PayPal to receive payments, you can specify your PayPal email address. Client can click a link on emailed invoice and pay you that way.
A couple of drawbacks
Blinksale doesn’t keep track of invoice numbers. Say I’m billing CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet, and use the ID CGHMN-001 for my first invoice. When I next bill them, Blinksale won’t automatically assign the ID CGHMN-002 to the invoice.
While this doesn’t bother me too much, a couple of people I know who tried Blinksale were a bit disappointed that it doesn’t have a way to generate a report.
And in the future?
I’ll stick with Blinksale for the time being. I like Blinksale, and it works for me. That said, I’ve been taking a cursory look at a couple of Open Source invoicing tools: BambooInvoice and Simple Invoices. These tools, aside from being no cost, put my data back in my hands. I can install them on the same server as my Web site.
But for now, Blinksale does the job for me.
Do you use an online invoicing tool? If so, which one? Feel free to leave a comment.
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Hi,
I am Nagendra from Zoho Invoice. Your review helps me to understand more about your invoicing needs. Our invoice service is located at https://invoice.zoho.com , we would suggest you to have a look at our service and share your thoughts.
Scott: thanks for taking the time to write this awesome review of how you use Blinksale. I’m the new managing director for the service, and I’d love to hear more of your ideas about how we can evolve the service while keeping the simplicity you love. You can call me at 214.580.2001 or send a note to brian@blinksale.com. Thanks again.
@Brian Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything. But if I do, then I’ll definitely contact you.