Readers likely agree that accounting software reviews often lack meaningful analysis.
This FreshBooks Classic review aims to provide an in-depth, unbiased assessment to help you determine if it's the right solution for your business needs.
We'll evaluate its core accounting capabilities, mobile accessibility, integrations, pricing, and more - including how it compares to FreshBooks New. By the end, you'll have the insights to decide whether FreshBooks Classic is worth revisiting.
Introduction
The original FreshBooks Classic software was released over 15 years ago as one of the first cloud-based accounting platforms designed specifically for small businesses and solopreneurs. As the product that essentially launched the FreshBooks brand, it holds an important place in the history of accounting technology. With the recent release of the completely redesigned FreshBooks platform, now is an opportune time to revisit some of the features and functionality that made the original version an early market leader. Understanding strengths and limitations of past tools can provide useful perspective on how far technology has advanced.
Overview of FreshBooks Classic
FreshBooks Classic offered core accounting capabilities like invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, reporting, and more in an easy-to-use interface accessible from any web browser. Key features included:
- Intuitive dashboard providing real-time business insights
- Ability to create, customize, send, and manage invoices
- Tools for tracking billable hours across projects and clients
- Basic expense management and reporting
- Multi-user access with customizable user permissions
The platform targeted small business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and solopreneurs looking for an approachable way to manage key financial processes.
Motivation for Review
Revisiting early market leaders that have since released completely new versions can provide an interesting vantage point for comparison. Analyzing the functional gaps between FreshBooks Classic and the latest offering highlights just how far technology has advanced in a relatively short timeframe. This contrasts the basic feature set that was considered innovative over a decade ago versus modern capabilities that now enable streamlined and automated accounting processes. Reviewing the original also allows appreciation of just how much faster, more powerful, and easier to use today's leading solutions have become. While early market entrants like FreshBooks Classic laid important groundwork, reviewing progress over time is a valuable exercise for both providers and users of business technology.
Core Accounting Features
Invoicing
Vintti specializes in providing businesses with remote accounting and finance professionals from South America who are experts in tools like FreshBooks for critical functions like invoicing. Their candidates have extensive experience with FreshBooks Classic's user-friendly invoicing interface that allows creating, customizing, automating, and reporting on invoices to track revenue.
Some key benefits our professionals highlight regarding FreshBooks Classic's invoicing features include:
- Flexible invoice customization with multiple templates and easy editing tools
- Ability to set up recurring invoices to automate billing for regular services
- Simple generation of detailed reports on payments owed and received
With expertise invoicing in FreshBooks Classic, our remote staff can effectively track and collect payments owed, providing financial clarity.
Expenses & Payments
Managing expenses and vendor payments is simplified with FreshBooks Classic's dedicated tools. Our South American accounting talent leverages features like:
- Streamlined entry of business expenses for everything from supplies to contractor costs
- Easy tracking of vendor bills and payments to optimize cash flow
- Automatic sync between bank accounts and accounting system
With a clear view into money going out, our professionals help control costs and provide financial transparency.
Time Tracking
FreshBooks Classic enables our staff to seamlessly track billable time and tasks across clients and projects with:
- Ability to set hourly rates and bill by project or retainer
- Tools to manage billable hours for accurate invoicing
- Dashboard showing real-time progress on time and expenses
Leveraging these capabilities, our team can provide insights into profitability by client and service line.
With expertise across all core accounting areas, our remote staff serves as an invaluable extension of clients' teams to streamline finances. Their specialized experience with FreshBooks Classic ensures optimal use of its tools to control costs, accelerate invoicing, and gain financial clarity.
Reporting & Analysis
Reporting and analysis are critical for any accounting software. FreshBooks Classic provides a decent set of standard reports that cover the basics like profit and loss, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and sales tax. However, customization is limited compared to more advanced platforms.
Standard Reports
The standard reports in FreshBooks Classic provide a snapshot of key financial metrics, including:
- Profit and loss statement - View revenue, expenses, and profitability over time.
- Accounts receivable aging - See who owes you money and when invoices are due.
- Accounts payable aging - Track unpaid bills and when payments are due.
- Sales tax summary - Calculate sales tax owed across jurisdictions.
The reports are easy to run and filter by date range, customer, or project. But configuration options are minimal beyond the filters. There are no options to add or remove fields, change naming conventions, or reformat layouts.
Custom Reports
Building custom reports is possible but cumbersome in FreshBooks Classic. The custom report builder provides basic control over:
- Choosing data fields from a preset list
- Filtering by categories like customers or projects
- Basic calculations like sums or averages
However, it lacks more advanced logic for creating financial models or analytics. The output options are also limited to grid, bar, or pie charts. Those looking for more robust financial modeling will need to export the data to another platform.
Charts & Graphs
The charting capabilities in FreshBooks Classic visualizations are basic. The only options are bar, line and pie charts. Users can filter the date range and data sets, but have no control over stylistic elements like colors, labels, axes, etc.
The charts are meant to provide simple, top-level insights into trends and relationships. But the lack of customization reduces their usefulness for presentations or gauging performance over time. Users seeking more sophisticated data visuals will need to utilize another platform.
Overall, FreshBooks Classic covers the fundamentals for financial reporting and analysis. But the lack of customization and advanced analytics leaves room for improvement. It works well enough for basic business intelligence needs, but may not scale as companies grow to require deeper financial insights.
Mobile Accessibility
Native Mobile Apps
FreshBooks Classic offers official mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, enabling users to track their finances and run their business on the go. The apps provide a native mobile experience optimized for each platform. Key features include invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, reporting, and more. Users can securely access all of their important financial data through the mobile apps.
Features & Capabilities
The FreshBooks Classic mobile apps allow users to:
- Create, view, and send invoices
- Log expenses
- Track billable time while onsite with clients
- View insightful financial reports and graphs
- Capture receipts using the phone camera
- Record mileage for automatic expense logging
- Sync data automatically across devices
Most accounting features available on the desktop version of FreshBooks Classic are also accessible through the mobile apps. This allows users to run their entire business finances on their phone or tablet.
Ease of Use
The FreshBooks Classic mobile apps provide an intuitive user interface designed specifically for smaller screens and touch inputs. Key features are accessible from a simple menu, allowing users to quickly log an expense or create an invoice in just a few taps.
While data entry can be more difficult on a mobile device, the app streamlines this as much as possible. For example, users can log expenses using receipt scanning or automated mileage tracking instead of manual data entry.
Overall, the mobile experience makes it simple for users to monitor their financial data and make updates on-the-go. It serves as an easy-to-use companion to the desktop accounting software.
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Support & Resources
Knowledge Base & FAQs
Vintti provides an extensive knowledge base and FAQ section to help businesses quickly find answers to common questions about hiring remote accounting staff. The searchable support site covers topics like:
- Onboarding new hires
- Managing remote teams
- Payroll and payments
- Communication tools and best practices
- Compliance and data security
With clear categories and helpful diagrams, users can easily locate the most relevant articles to resolve their issues.
Onboarding & Training
Once matched with qualified candidates, Vintti provides customized onboarding and training programs to integrate new hires:
- New hire orientation introduces remote staff to company culture, tools, and key contacts.
- Technical training covers required software, systems, and protocols to maximize productivity.
- US GAAP Crash Course brings new hires up to speed on the latest accounting regulations and standards.
Optional monthly webinars and refresher courses help remote teams stay aligned as policies and priorities shift.
Customer Support
Vintti offers 24/7 email and chat support from its bilingual team. Most inquiries receive a response within 30 minutes during business hours. Common requests relate to:
- Submitting and tracking new staffing requests
- Coordinating payments and invoices
- Resolving technical issues with remote access tools
- Clarifying compliance questions
Support agents have strong expertise in international hiring regulations to promptly resolve compliance-related cases. Their deep understanding of cross-cultural management helps clients navigate challenges with remote team integration.
Third-Party Integrations
Payment Gateways
FreshBooks Classic offers integration with several popular payment gateways to securely accept client payments. This allows users to easily invoice clients and collect payments without leaving FreshBooks.
Some of the supported payment gateways include:
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PayPal - One of the most widely-used online payment processors. Integration allows sending PayPal invoices and tracking payments.
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Stripe - A popular credit card processor, providing options to accept one-time or recurring payments by card.
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Authorize.Net - Long-standing payment gateway focused on credit card processing and fraud prevention.
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Braintree - Full-service payments platform from PayPal providing credit card processing and support for popular wallets.
By integrating with these and other payment partners, FreshBooks Classic gives users flexibility in how they collect payments from customers. This saves the hassle of manually collecting and tracking payments outside the software.
CRM & Sales Tools
To streamline business operations, FreshBooks Classic can integrate with some external CRM and sales platforms. This syncs key customer data between the systems so information remains up to date across sales and accounting.
Some of the supported platforms include:
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Base CRM - Leading CRM tool for managing sales pipeline and customer data. Integration shares customer details between Base and FreshBooks.
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Batchbook - Popular CRM and contact management platform. Allows syncing of contacts, tasks, and other data with FreshBooks.
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Zoho CRM - Robust customer relationship management platform. Integration enables syncing customers, projects, and invoice data between the tools.
While capabilities are more limited than the latest FreshBooks version, these integrations allow some helpful sales and accounting syncing. This gives users basic contact management and visibility into customer details when creating invoices and tracking payments.
Other Add-Ons
Beyond core accounting features, FreshBooks Classic has an app marketplace with various third-party add-ons to extend functionality. Users can browse and install compatible apps to meet additional business needs.
Some add-ons support features like:
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Expense tracking - Apps to simplify business expense reporting and reimbursement workflows.
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Time tracking - Tools for tracking employee and contractor hours along with project management.
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eCommerce - Apps providing connectivity to popular online stores and shopping carts.
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Payroll - Partners offering integrated payroll management for FreshBooks customers.
While the app ecosystem is not as robust as the latest FreshBooks platform, it does provide some helpful extended capabilities. The available integrations allow customizing Classic to support more complex accounting or operational workflows.
Pricing & Contracts
FreshBooks Classic uses a flat-fee pricing model based on the number of active clients per month. This provides predictable accounting costs for small businesses using the software.
Pricing Model
FreshBooks Classic charges a flat monthly fee determined by the number of "active clients" - clients that have seen billable activity during the past 60 days. The tiers range from free for up to 3 active clients, $19.95 per month for up to 25 active clients, up to $39.95 per month for up to 100 active clients. There are volume discounts available for larger numbers of active clients.
This flat-fee model provides transparency and allows businesses to better forecast their accounting software costs based on the client volume they expect to have.
Plan Levels
The key capabilities unlocked at different pricing tiers in FreshBooks Classic are:
- Free plan: Core invoicing, time tracking, and reporting features for up to 3 active clients
- $19.95/month plan: Everything in the free plan for up to 25 active clients
- $39.95/month plan: Everything in the lower plans for up to 100 active clients
- Volume pricing: Discounted rates for over 100+ active clients per month
Higher tiers allow more active clients and associated invoices, projects, expenses, and other activity. But the core feature set remains the same regardless of tier.
Value for Money
For microbusinesses and solopreneurs managing fewer than 25 active clients per month, FreshBooks Classic provides an affordable and full-featured accounting solution. The free plan allows core functionality for minimal clients, while the $19.95/month plan supports larger workflow volumes.
For larger small businesses with more active clients, the pricing remains competitive compared to other solutions given the depth of capabilities FreshBooks Classic makes available. And volume discounts apply for 100+ active monthly clients.
So for the target users - small business owners and solopreneurs - the published pricing offers strong value. The software provides robust accounting tools for the expected client volumes in this market at reasonable prices.
Conclusion & Recommendation
Summary
FreshBooks Classic offers a streamlined invoicing and accounting platform for small businesses and freelancers. Key pros include:
- Simple and intuitive interface
- Robust core accounting features
- Seamless payment processing
- Competitive pricing
However, the legacy software lacks some newer innovations:
- Mobile app with limited capabilities
- Outdated user interface
- Less customization and integration options
Alternatives to Consider
Those needing advanced accounting should evaluate FreshBooks' newer software or options like:
- QuickBooks Online - More robust accounting and inventory management
- Xero - Beautiful reporting and international features
- Wave - 100% free financial software
Users wanting basic invoicing can also look at Invoice2go or InvoiceSimple.
Final Recommendation
FreshBooks Classic remains a viable pick for freelancers and very small business owners focused solely on basic accounting needs. The simplicity and fair pricing are key advantages. However, those wanting mobility, customizations, or advanced financial management tools would be better served by FreshBooks' new platform or alternatives like QuickBooks Online or Xero. Evaluate your specific needs and priorities before deciding.
