As we look at a photo business in the cloud, we realize that online services make the most sense when a couple factors are in play:
- There is a benefit to the information being available quickly from various locations/devices
- The information should be easily shared with any number of people
One area where the cloud makes sense is that of invoicing and payments. I’m using FreshBooks for invoicing and it works great.
Your FreshBooks account can be setup and personalized for your business including your name, information, and logo. When you generate an invoice, that invoice can be sent electronically (I send PDFs to my clients) or even via snail mail.
With electronic invoices you receive confirmation when a client has viewed the invoice and if you accept electronic payment, that’s all integrated with FreshBooks so you can easily track who has paid you, who hasn’t, and who might need a reminder. FreshBooks can even be configured to send “late payment” notices automatically if you wish.
With my invoicing being done electronically, it’s easy to check in on things or to update and regenerate a client invoice on the fly; I save quite a bit of time compared with my previous method of generating a PDF invoice out of QuickBooks and then manually sending it and having to manually follow up and track payments.
You can try out FreshBooks for free. If you end up becoming a paid member and sign up via my link, I get a small commission… meaning we both win.
